Greenwashing – finally a legal precedent
By: Sumaiya Hossain and Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group
This April, the ACCC finally landed a decent blow against Greenwashing in Australia.
For years our industries (packaging, recycling, circular economy and waste management) have been calling for stronger regulation to deter companies (and spivs) from egregious spin when it comes to the environmental benefits of their products and services.
“False and misleading conduct” is a crime under Australian Competition and Consumer law. And so it should be.
It misleads buyers into making incorrect assumptions and inferences about the quality (or lack of it) of particular products or services.
The packaging industry is full of it. For example, how many times have you heard outrageous claims about “recyclability” of products when you know full well there is no practical way to recycle it. (More on that later).
So, in the interest of truth, we should clap our hands to the ACCC. They have had a win in the Federal Court. Finally. Here are the basics:
- If someone said “ocean plastic” to you, you would conjure up images of plastic bags killing turtles and sea birds or of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a huge swirling mass of millions of tonnes of plastic and microplastic).
- So, it follows that if someone said to you they were cleaning it up, recycling it and reusing it in the productive economy, you would be pretty supportive of that effort. You might even preference their product if you had the choice in the shopping aisle.
- Even better if they created a circular economy by turning that turtle/seabird exterminating plastic into a plastic garbage bag to safely transport your household waste to safe landfill disposal. Sound good?
But what if it was false, misleading or deceptive?
What if it was just good old marketing spin? Would you know if it was?
Unlikely.
The regulator in this space is the ACCC. Finally, they have taken one case to court and won.
Clorox Australia, the makers of GLAD garbage and kitchen bags, has been ordered to pay $8.25 million in penalties after the Federal Court found their environmental claims were deceptive.
GLAD’s “To be GREEN” product line carried the claim that the bags were “50% Ocean Plastic Recycled”, promising that they contained a minimum of 50% plastic waste that was collected from the ocean or sea.
Sounds great, eh?
In fact, the GLAD kitchen tidy and garbage bags were made from 50% recycled plastic waste that was collected from communities with no formal waste management system up to 50 kilometres from a shoreline, and not from plastic waste that was collected from the ocean or sea.
So misleading.
Over two million units sold to unsuspecting shoppers from 2021-23 who thought they were supporting sea birds and turtles. Two million!
The use of terms like “ocean plastic” and related visuals, was found to be misleading, and therefore a breach of Australian Consumer Law.
Clorox, at least acknowledged the statements were “bollocks” (my term not the court’s!) and cooperated with the ACCC.
ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said that misleading information in this space undermines consumer confidence and responsible business conduct.
You think?
Hopefully an $8m fine and Court costs will make a few marketing consultants sit up and take notice. For once.
Those of you who are fast at maths might have noticed that the fine is only $4 per packet of “50% Ocean Plastic Recycled” GLAD Bags and therefore still a pretty light touch when it comes to a fine. (They retailed from around $5-20 depending on the size of the pack).
And the postscript:
- There have been no other equivalent prosecutions by the ACCC since.
- Clorox have changed the words on the pack to now say “50% ‘ocean bound’* recycled plastic”. “*Ocean bound plastic is collected from communities with no formal waste management system within 50km of the shore line.”
Sumaiya Hossain is Executive Liaison and a Community Engagement consultant at MRA Consulting Group.
Mike Ritchie is the Managing Director at MRA Consulting Group.
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