Wallet Mouth

Legal newspaper's message to business: Don't greenwash

It's nice to come across references to ethical-consumer savvy in unexpected places.

Someone recently gave me a story from the San Francisco Daily Journal, a legal newspaper, warning California companies that if they portray their products as eco-friendly or not harmful to the earth, they must be prepared to verify those claims, on demand, to any member of the public who asks. Although the relevant statute has so far not been interpreted by the courts, "[t]his may change, as a rising tide of consumer disgust with 'greenwashing' ... makes lawsuits for unfair competition or false advertising increasingly likely," writes litigator Robert S. Hule.

Yes, California has an environmental marketing statute. It's part of the state's law on false advertising (California Business & Professions Code Section 17580), and it both prohibits deceptive claims and requires record-keeping and disclosure measures for companies that make environmental claims.

What's a deceptive claim? Ah, just refer (as the law does) to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's "Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims," a.k.a. the Green Guides, which spell out numerous types of chicanery and provide lots of helpful examples. Like this one, on the need to distinguish between product and packaging:

A box of aluminum foil is labeled with the claim "recyclable," without further elaboration. Unless the type of product, surrounding language, or other context of the phrase establishes whether the claim refers to the foil or the box, the claim is deceptive if any part of either the box or the foil, other than minor, incidental components, cannot be recycled.

Or this one, which illustrates overstatement of environmental benefit:

A package of paper coffee filters is labeled "These filters were made with a chlorine-free bleaching process." The filters are bleached with a process that releases into the environment a reduced, but still significant, amount of the same harmful byproducts associated with chlorine bleaching. The claim is likely to overstate the product's benefits because it is likely to be interpreted by consumers to mean that the product's manufacture does not cause any of the environmental risks posed by chlorine bleaching.

Now, is it just me, or do you also feel like you encounter such deceptive claims all the time?

But I digress... The point is, it's heartening to see the legal community telling the business community to be truthful, or else face the wrath of enlightened consumers.

Broad claims are the most vulnerable to lawsuits, the article states. In general, companies would be wise to avoid using far-reaching phrases like "environmentally friendly" and instead to "state in the advertisement or on the label exactly what environmental benefit the product has." Oh, and be prepared to substantiate any claims with reliable documentation when asked.

That's an approach I can get behind.

Still alive, just parenting

Now that Mini Mouth has surpassed the five-month mark and is ever more interested in the world around her (sigh, gone are the days of one-handed net surfing while the cute one slumbers in my lap), I'm finding it much harder to keep up with Wallet Mouth (not to mention other things, like email, my copyediting work, and, ahem, personal hygiene). Please accept my apologies for the lag. I shall persevere, however slowly.

This will be a short post. It's mainly just to say that yes, I'm still here; I'm just not e-here. It's also to barf out a few random bits, such as... I bought a new yoga mat after seeing two or three different stories within the same week talking about the fact that most yoga mats are phthalate-y (for more on phthalates, you can read my post on the sadly-now-defunct Alonovo Review here). I opted for Jade Yoga's "travel" mat, which is the same thickness as my previous, PVC mat and suits me just fine. I picked Jade's because (a) conveniently, I could buy it in person at my yoga studio, which is a member of the Green Yoga Association, and (b) Jade has partnered with Trees for the Future, which plants a tree for each mat sold. The natural rubber is a bit smelly, but it's not a horrible smell, and it should dissipate over time.

Uh-oh, Mini Mouth awakes. I guess that'll just be one random bit for this post, then.

Until next time...

Eating really locally

We've all heard why it's good to eat locally: doing so lets us pump money back into the local economy, combat global warming, and get in touch with the seasons, all at the same time. One way to eat locally is to take advantage of farmers' markets. There's also community-supported agriculture (CSA), in which you can "subscribe" to a farm and have a box of food delivered to your home every week.

Recently an interesting twist on the CSA model has emerged in which the "farm" is actually a network of backyards in your city. The first company I'm aware of to do this is two-year-old Your Backyard Farmer, in Portland, Oregon. To sign up, clients need a plot of land that gets at least six hours of sunlight a day. After an initial consultation, a team of two farmers sets up the garden, planting a range of vegetables based on the client's preferences, and handles all the maintenance, including composting, via weekly visits. The client gets a basket of freshly harvested veggies from his or her garden every week.

In San Francisco, a new venture called MyFarm operates on the same principle, but with an added benefit: It will be open to people without green space, who will be able to subscribe to MyFarm as they would to any other CSA farm. The vegetables sold to the yardless will come from the gardens of participants who have space to grow more food than they can eat (and who, in return, receive a discount on their weekly fee).

Speaking of fees, there is a hefty setup cost—between $600 and $1,000 for MyFarm—but the weekly fee is comparable to what you'd pay for an organic produce box, between $20 and $35 a week, for food grown in your own yard. And it's even possible to earn money from one's mini-farm by selling the produce using a system like SPIN Farming.

Such services are a boon to people who would like to grow their own food but don't have the time or gardening knowledge to do it. Another advantage to this model, emphasized by both Your Backyard Farmer and MyFarm, is self-sufficiency: decentralized urban farms decrease dependence on larger food systems and enhance food security.

It will be interesting to see how widely the concept spreads. Our Backyard Farmer is sold out through 2008, so indications are good that this is an idea whose time has come.