New FTC Green Guidelines for Marketers

In October 2012 the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) updated its Green Guides for marketers. The original draft of the updated guidelines were released in 2010. The changes that should be noted pertains to the FTC's interpretation of general environmental benefits, more specifically claims that a product is “eco friendly” or “green,”

There are at least two salient points to be made here. The first is that the FTC now requires proof of any stated environmental benefit and the second is what it calls “environmental tradeoffs.” The replacement employed in the greener offering must indeed be green. The net effect is that companies will have to work harder to prove the claims they make. The FTC also has new powers to act against those who contravene these guidelines.

Fossil Fuels and Staying Within the 2 Degree Limit

The UK−based Carbon Tracker Initiative estimates that oil, coal and gas companies have five times as much carbon in their reserves as is safe to burn. If burned, our planet would heat up at by at least 5 to 6 degrees Celsius, well beyond the 2 degrees Celsius limit agreed to by the international community in 2009. As Bill McKibben explained, we can only burn 565 gigatons more carbon before going over the UN-sanctioned 2 degree upper limit for warming. The 2 degree concept was central to the "IPCC Second Assessment: Climate Change 1995" published by the International Panel on Climate Change. In 2002, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), incorporated the concept as the focus of its formal Framework Convention policy: