From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/us/complaints-abound-in-green-certification-industry.html?pagewanted=all
May 31, 2013
WASHINGTON — The legal watchdogs at the Federal Trade Commission have been trying to police the proliferating — and often false — claims in recent years that products are “green” or “environmentally friendly.”
The agency recently brought cases against Amazon.com, Macy’s and Sears, Roebuck & Company for selling clothing purportedly made of bamboo fiber that was really fashioned from rayon, a decidedly ungreen material. It cracked down on the paint manufacturers Sherwin-Williams and PPG Industries for saying that some of their products did not produce hazardous fumes. It shut down an online firm selling “tested green” certifications for products that were neither tested nor green.
“This is certainly one of our priorities,” said James A. Kohm, the associate director of the trade commission’s enforcement division. “We’ll bring a case where we need to make a point, where consumers are getting hurt the most.”
This week, two environmental groups, ForestEthics and Greenpeace, filed a complaint with the trade commission claiming that an organization that certifies paper and other forest products as “green” is a front group for the timber industry and violates the agency’s new standards for such claims. They call it a classic case of falsely claiming that a product or service is somehow more environmentally friendly or sustainable than similar products.
ForestEthics and Greenpeace charge that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or S.F.I., a group originally formed by big timber companies, defrauds the public by certifying that products carrying its label are harvested using only environmentally responsible practices. The environmental groups say that some of the companies using the S.F.I. label engage in damaging forestry methods like clear-cutting, overusing pesticides and destroying habitats or rare species.
The groups claim that the certification panel, far from being independent of the industry it supposedly oversees, as required by F.T.C. guidelines, is in fact a body created by and dominated by timber companies. S.F.I. officials deny the allegations.
Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/us/complaints-abound-in-green-certification-industry.html?pagewanted=all
