Environmental claims suggest that a product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment. They include claims that suggest or create the impression that a product or a service:

• has a positive environmental impact or no impact on the environment
• is less damaging to the environment than a previous version of the same good or service
• is less damaging to the environment than competing goods or services

Environmental claims may concern the impact on the environment in general, or on specific environmental aspects such as the air, water or soil.

Environmental claims can be explicit or implicit. They can appear in advertisements, marketing material, branding (including business and trading names), on packaging or in other information provided to consumers.

All aspects of an environmental claim may be relevant, such as the:

• meaning of any terms used
• qualifications and explanations of what is said
• evidence that supports those claims
• information that is not included or hidden
• colours, pictures and logos used
• overall presentation

The difference between genuine and misleading environmental claims

Environmental claims are genuine when they properly describe the impact of the product, service, process, brand or business, and do not hide or misrepresent crucial information.

Misleading environmental claims happen where a business makes claims about its products, services, processes, brands or its operations as a whole, or omits or hides information, to give the impression they are less harmful or more beneficial to the environment than they really are. 

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Consumer protect law means that your business must ensure that your environmental claims:

• are truthful and accurate
• are clear and unambiguous
• do not omit or hide important
• compare goods or services in a fair and meaningful way
• consider the full life cycle of the product or service
• are substantiated

When making, or considering making, environmental claims you need to:

• comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your business or your products and services
• read Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance and ensure that you comply with your consumer protection law obligations
• consider carefully whether you need to make changes to your practices
• make any changes necessary to comply with the law, such as:
  • stopping making false or deceptive statements
  • amending claims to ensure they are compliant
  • ensuring you have the evidence to substantiate claims
  • ensuring you give consumers the information they need to make informed choices

Find out if your business activities are likely to be covered by CMA guidance.

If in doubt about what you need to do, you should seek independent legal advice on the interpretation and application of consumer protection law. You can also speak to the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service (TSS) for advice.

What happens if you do not comply with consumer protection law?

If your business does not comply with consumer protection law, the CMA and other bodies, such as TSS, take enforcement action. The CMA can take direct action, and other bodies can bring court proceedings. A financial penalty of up to 10% of global turnover can be imposed and, in some cases, you may be required to pay redress to any consumers harmed by the breach of consumer protection law. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) could also take action against misleading advertisements that contravene the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) or Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP) Codes.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims must be truthful and accurate for consumers to make informed choices about what they buy. Your business must live up to the environmental claims you make about products, services, brands and activities.

Claims must contain correct information and must be true. They must not state or imply things that are factually incorrect or untrue. Nor should they overstate or exaggerate the sustainability or positive environmental impact of a product, service, process, brand or business.

If a claim uses terms which have specific or widely assumed meanings, the product, service, process, brand or business should justify their use. Broader, more general or absolute claims are much more likely to be inaccurate and to mislead.

Claims can also be misleading if what they say is factually correct or true, but the impression they give consumers about the environmental impact, cost or benefit of a product, service, process, brand or business is deceptive. This can be a result of the overall presentation of the claim, including the wording, logos and imagery used, as well as anything that is missed out.

The visual presentation of a claim, for example the images, logos, packaging and colours used, are an important part of the overall presentation. The same is true for the labels or certification that are often used to support environmental claims.

You should consider carefully whether the visual symbols used by your business create a misleading effect. There should be a direct and verifiable link between these symbols and the meaning consumers are likely to draw from them.

Checklist for truthful and accurate environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim true?
• Do I live up to the claims I am making?
• Is the claim only true and accurate under certain conditions or with caveats, and are these clear?
• Is what I say liable to deceive consumers, even if it is literally true or factually correct?
• Am I claiming environmental benefits that are required by law or that consumers would expect from a product or service anyway?
• Am I telling the whole story, or does the claim only relate to one part of my product or business?
• Does my claim give an overall impression that the environmental benefits are greater (or the harms more limited) than is really the case?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

The terms used in your environmental claim(s), and the meaning they convey to consumers, should be clear. The meaning consumers are likely to take from your claim and the environmental credentials and impacts of the product, service, process, brand or business should match.

Vague and/or general statements of environmental benefit are more likely to be misleading. At best, they can have a number of meanings that can confuse consumers and make it difficult for them to make informed decisions. At worst, they can give the impression your product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment than is really the case. They can also be difficult to substantiate.

Businesses are increasingly seeing the importance of improving the environmental effects of their products, services and practices. However, claims about future goals should only be used for marketing purposes if your business has a clear and verifiable strategy to deliver them. Wider environmental goals of your business should also be clearly distinguished from product-specific claims.

Claims about your environmental ambitions must also be in proportion to your actual efforts. They are less likely to be misleading when they are based on specific, shorter term and measurable commitments your business is actively working towards. Where any benefits or impact would accrue over a longer period, that would need to be made clear, as there is more risk of consumers being misled if that benefit or impact is not immediate.

Checklist for clear and unambiguous environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the meaning of the terms used clear to consumers?
• If vague or general terms have been used, have these been explained?
• Does the claim relate to the whole product, or part of it?
• Is the information you are providing to consumers useful or confusing?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

What environmental claims don’t say can also influence the decisions consumers make. Claims made by your business must not omit or hide information that consumers need to make informed choices.

These sorts of omissions can occur where claims focus on saying one thing but not another, or where they say nothing at all. It is vital that your business pays close attention to the information on environmental impacts that consumers need to make decisions and reflect that in the claims you make.

Consumers can be misled where claims do not say anything about environmental impacts. This can also happen where claims focus on just one aspect of a product, service, brand or business. They can be misleading because of what they do not include or what they hide.

Your claims should not just focus on the positive environmental aspects of a product, service, process, brand or business, where other aspects have a negative impact and consumers could be misled. This is especially so if the benefits claimed only relate to a relatively minor aspect of a product or service or part of your brand’s or a business’s products and activities. Cherry-picking information like this is likely to make consumers think your product, service, process, brand or business as a whole is greener than it really is.

Checklist to not omit or hide important information on environmental claims

Before making claims, you should ask yourself:

• What environmental impacts does my product, service, process, brand, or business have (positive and negative, taking account of its whole life cycle)?
• What do consumers need to know about environmental impacts to make informed choices about my product, service, brand or business?
• Should I include information about the durability or disposability of a product in any environmental claim?
• Do I need to caveat any claims that I am making, or explain them in more detail?
• Where I do not plan to include information in a claim, why not?
• Is there anything I need to tell consumers so they can make informed choices, but that I genuinely cannot fit into my claim?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Comparisons should enable consumers to make informed choices about competing products and businesses, or between different versions of the same product. They should not say or imply, through the use of language or imagery, that one product (or one version of a product) is, for example, ‘greener’ or ‘environmentally friendlier’ or ‘more energy efficient’ than another, if it is not.

Your business may make claims comparing your products with identifiable competitors’, or make comparisons between aspects of your own products (like old and new versions). Either way, the same considerations apply.

Comparative environmental claims should compare like with like. That means:

• Any products compared should meet the same needs or be intended for the same purpose, with a sufficient degree of interchangeability.
• The comparison should be between important, verifiable and representative features or aspects of the relevant products.
• The basis of the comparison, and the way it is presented, should allow consumers to make an informed decision about the relevant merits of one product over another.

For example, a claim which compares two similar products’ recyclable content, greenhouse gas emissions or organic composition, should calculate these measurements in the same way for each product. The values used to measure these comparisons, and the way they are presented, should be clear enough for consumers to understand.

In addition, the comparative claim should indicate how the information that forms the basis of the comparison can be accessed in order for the comparison to be verified for accuracy.

It is also important to ensure that a comparative claim is up to date and relevant. For example, where your claim compares a new product against an existing or previous one, you should carefully consider the appropriate period of time for which the claim can be made. A claim relating to a product’s ‘new and improved’ environmental credentials will have a limited shelf-life.

There are also similar rules applicable to comparative advertising made from business-to-business. Such advertising must only compare goods or services meeting the same needs or intended for the same purposes.

Checklist for fair and meaningful environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim comparing like with like?
• Is the like for like comparison a fair and representative one?
• Is the basis of the comparison fair and clear?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When your business is considering making environmental claims, you should always consider the effect of the total life cycle of a product or service, or of your overall activities, on the accuracy of your claims.

All aspects of your product’s or service’s environmental impact over its life cycle, including its supply chain, could be important, including:

• its component parts
• how and where it is manufactured, produced or carried out
• how it is transported from its place of manufacture or origin
• its use or performance
• the disposal of a product, and any waste or by-products
• the consequences of any environmental benefit claimed and the period in which it would be realised
• whether the product or service has an overall adverse impact

This does not mean that information about the full life cycle of your product or service must be included in every claim. You should consider what elements of the life cycle of a
product or service are most likely to be of interest to consumers when making an environmental claim and how they affect the accuracy of that claim.

Environmental claims may be based on a specific part of an advertised product's life cycle, or part of a business’s activities. It should be clear which aspect they refer to. They should not mislead consumers about the total environmental impact. A claim could itself be true, but misleading, if it suggests your product is greener than it is by ignoring some other aspect of its life cycle.

Claims should also make clear the limits of any life cycle assessment which your business has done. Where you have only been able to carry out a limited assessment, it may be possible to make specific claims based on that assessment, but that should be clearly explained. They must not mislead consumers. Any life cycle analysis used to back up a claim should be up to date.

Checklist for considering the full life cycle in environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Does the claim reflect the whole product life cycle?
• By making a claim about one element of the product’s life cycle, does the claim mislead the consumer about other aspects?
• Do I have to disclose the full life cycle of a product in order for the claim to be understood by consumers?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Most environmental claims are likely to be objective or factual claims that can be tested against scientific or other evidence. Given the requirement that claims must be truthful and accurate, your business should have evidence to support them.

Some advertising claims can be purely subjective or hyperbole. In those cases, consumers may recognise them as such or treat them as advertising ‘puff’ that they do not take literally. Consumers are unlikely to expect those claims to be based on particular evidence.

Claims which businesses commonly make about environmental impacts are likely to be different. They are likely to relate to matters that can be assessed against the scientific or other evidence.

You should therefore hold robust, credible, relevant and up-to-date evidence that supports your environmental claims. Where you compare your products or activities to one or more competitor’s, that evidence should cover all of them.

When investigating potentially misleading claims, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) or other enforcers can seek evidence from your business to support your claim(s). If enforcement action ends up before the courts, the courts can require your business to provide evidence of the accuracy of claims. If your business does not provide it, or it is inadequate, the court may consider the claim inaccurate.

Environmental claims which are made with no regard to whether your business actually knows there is evidence to support them are also likely to be problematic, even if they turn out to be true. The nature of most environmental claims means consumers are likely to expect them to be based on supporting evidence. Where they are not, you are likely to have fallen below the standards of diligence and care consumers are entitled to expect of them.

Checklist for substantiating your environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim you are making subjective or objective?
• Do you have appropriate evidence to support your claim?
• Is the evidence based on accepted science or understanding or is it contested or unproven?
• Has the evidence been subject to independent scrutiny?
• Is the evidence up to date?
• Does the evidence reflect ‘real world’ conditions?
• Is evidence available to or from others in your supply chain?
• Is the evidence publicly available and can consumers verify the claims?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When making green claims, your business must comply with consumer protection law and understand supply chain responsibilities.

It is also essential to comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your product or service. Before making a green claim, you should understand how your product, brand or business has an impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment for its whole life cycle.

Green claims checklist

When making a green claim, your business should be able to answer ‘yes’ or agree to each of the following statements:

1. The claim is accurate and clear for all to understand.
2. There’s up-to-date, credible evidence to show that the green claim is true.
3. The claim clearly tells the whole story of a product or service; or relates to one part of the product or service without misleading people about the other parts or the overall impact on the environment.
4. The claim doesn’t contain partially correct or incorrect aspects or conditions that apply.
5. Where general claims - for example “eco-friendly”, “green” or “sustainable” are being made, the claim reflects the whole life cycle of the brand, product, business or service and is justified by the evidence.
6. If conditions or caveats apply to the claim, they’re clearly set out and can be understood by all.
7. The claim won’t mislead customers or other suppliers.
8. The claim doesn’t exaggerate its positive environmental impact, or contain anything untrue – whether clearly stated or implied.
9. Durability or disposability information is clearly explained and labelled.
10. The claim doesn’t miss out or hide information about the environmental impact that people need to make informed choices.
11. Information that really can’t fit into the claim can be easily accessed by customers in another way, for example a QR code, website etc.
12. Features or benefits that are necessary standard features or legal requirements of that product or service type, aren’t claimed as environmental benefits.
13. If a comparison is being used, the basis of it is fair and accurate, and is clear for all to understand.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims suggest that a product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment. They include claims that suggest or create the impression that a product or a service:

• has a positive environmental impact or no impact on the environment
• is less damaging to the environment than a previous version of the same good or service
• is less damaging to the environment than competing goods or services

Environmental claims may concern the impact on the environment in general, or on specific environmental aspects such as the air, water or soil.

Environmental claims can be explicit or implicit. They can appear in advertisements, marketing material, branding (including business and trading names), on packaging or in other information provided to consumers.

All aspects of an environmental claim may be relevant, such as the:

• meaning of any terms used
• qualifications and explanations of what is said
• evidence that supports those claims
• information that is not included or hidden
• colours, pictures and logos used
• overall presentation

The difference between genuine and misleading environmental claims

Environmental claims are genuine when they properly describe the impact of the product, service, process, brand or business, and do not hide or misrepresent crucial information.

Misleading environmental claims happen where a business makes claims about its products, services, processes, brands or its operations as a whole, or omits or hides information, to give the impression they are less harmful or more beneficial to the environment than they really are. 

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Consumer protect law means that your business must ensure that your environmental claims:

• are truthful and accurate
• are clear and unambiguous
• do not omit or hide important
• compare goods or services in a fair and meaningful way
• consider the full life cycle of the product or service
• are substantiated

When making, or considering making, environmental claims you need to:

• comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your business or your products and services
• read Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance and ensure that you comply with your consumer protection law obligations
• consider carefully whether you need to make changes to your practices
• make any changes necessary to comply with the law, such as:
  • stopping making false or deceptive statements
  • amending claims to ensure they are compliant
  • ensuring you have the evidence to substantiate claims
  • ensuring you give consumers the information they need to make informed choices

Find out if your business activities are likely to be covered by CMA guidance.

If in doubt about what you need to do, you should seek independent legal advice on the interpretation and application of consumer protection law. You can also speak to the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service (TSS) for advice.

What happens if you do not comply with consumer protection law?

If your business does not comply with consumer protection law, the CMA and other bodies, such as TSS, take enforcement action. The CMA can take direct action, and other bodies can bring court proceedings. A financial penalty of up to 10% of global turnover can be imposed and, in some cases, you may be required to pay redress to any consumers harmed by the breach of consumer protection law. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) could also take action against misleading advertisements that contravene the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) or Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP) Codes.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims must be truthful and accurate for consumers to make informed choices about what they buy. Your business must live up to the environmental claims you make about products, services, brands and activities.

Claims must contain correct information and must be true. They must not state or imply things that are factually incorrect or untrue. Nor should they overstate or exaggerate the sustainability or positive environmental impact of a product, service, process, brand or business.

If a claim uses terms which have specific or widely assumed meanings, the product, service, process, brand or business should justify their use. Broader, more general or absolute claims are much more likely to be inaccurate and to mislead.

Claims can also be misleading if what they say is factually correct or true, but the impression they give consumers about the environmental impact, cost or benefit of a product, service, process, brand or business is deceptive. This can be a result of the overall presentation of the claim, including the wording, logos and imagery used, as well as anything that is missed out.

The visual presentation of a claim, for example the images, logos, packaging and colours used, are an important part of the overall presentation. The same is true for the labels or certification that are often used to support environmental claims.

You should consider carefully whether the visual symbols used by your business create a misleading effect. There should be a direct and verifiable link between these symbols and the meaning consumers are likely to draw from them.

Checklist for truthful and accurate environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim true?
• Do I live up to the claims I am making?
• Is the claim only true and accurate under certain conditions or with caveats, and are these clear?
• Is what I say liable to deceive consumers, even if it is literally true or factually correct?
• Am I claiming environmental benefits that are required by law or that consumers would expect from a product or service anyway?
• Am I telling the whole story, or does the claim only relate to one part of my product or business?
• Does my claim give an overall impression that the environmental benefits are greater (or the harms more limited) than is really the case?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

The terms used in your environmental claim(s), and the meaning they convey to consumers, should be clear. The meaning consumers are likely to take from your claim and the environmental credentials and impacts of the product, service, process, brand or business should match.

Vague and/or general statements of environmental benefit are more likely to be misleading. At best, they can have a number of meanings that can confuse consumers and make it difficult for them to make informed decisions. At worst, they can give the impression your product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment than is really the case. They can also be difficult to substantiate.

Businesses are increasingly seeing the importance of improving the environmental effects of their products, services and practices. However, claims about future goals should only be used for marketing purposes if your business has a clear and verifiable strategy to deliver them. Wider environmental goals of your business should also be clearly distinguished from product-specific claims.

Claims about your environmental ambitions must also be in proportion to your actual efforts. They are less likely to be misleading when they are based on specific, shorter term and measurable commitments your business is actively working towards. Where any benefits or impact would accrue over a longer period, that would need to be made clear, as there is more risk of consumers being misled if that benefit or impact is not immediate.

Checklist for clear and unambiguous environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the meaning of the terms used clear to consumers?
• If vague or general terms have been used, have these been explained?
• Does the claim relate to the whole product, or part of it?
• Is the information you are providing to consumers useful or confusing?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

What environmental claims don’t say can also influence the decisions consumers make. Claims made by your business must not omit or hide information that consumers need to make informed choices.

These sorts of omissions can occur where claims focus on saying one thing but not another, or where they say nothing at all. It is vital that your business pays close attention to the information on environmental impacts that consumers need to make decisions and reflect that in the claims you make.

Consumers can be misled where claims do not say anything about environmental impacts. This can also happen where claims focus on just one aspect of a product, service, brand or business. They can be misleading because of what they do not include or what they hide.

Your claims should not just focus on the positive environmental aspects of a product, service, process, brand or business, where other aspects have a negative impact and consumers could be misled. This is especially so if the benefits claimed only relate to a relatively minor aspect of a product or service or part of your brand’s or a business’s products and activities. Cherry-picking information like this is likely to make consumers think your product, service, process, brand or business as a whole is greener than it really is.

Checklist to not omit or hide important information on environmental claims

Before making claims, you should ask yourself:

• What environmental impacts does my product, service, process, brand, or business have (positive and negative, taking account of its whole life cycle)?
• What do consumers need to know about environmental impacts to make informed choices about my product, service, brand or business?
• Should I include information about the durability or disposability of a product in any environmental claim?
• Do I need to caveat any claims that I am making, or explain them in more detail?
• Where I do not plan to include information in a claim, why not?
• Is there anything I need to tell consumers so they can make informed choices, but that I genuinely cannot fit into my claim?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Comparisons should enable consumers to make informed choices about competing products and businesses, or between different versions of the same product. They should not say or imply, through the use of language or imagery, that one product (or one version of a product) is, for example, ‘greener’ or ‘environmentally friendlier’ or ‘more energy efficient’ than another, if it is not.

Your business may make claims comparing your products with identifiable competitors’, or make comparisons between aspects of your own products (like old and new versions). Either way, the same considerations apply.

Comparative environmental claims should compare like with like. That means:

• Any products compared should meet the same needs or be intended for the same purpose, with a sufficient degree of interchangeability.
• The comparison should be between important, verifiable and representative features or aspects of the relevant products.
• The basis of the comparison, and the way it is presented, should allow consumers to make an informed decision about the relevant merits of one product over another.

For example, a claim which compares two similar products’ recyclable content, greenhouse gas emissions or organic composition, should calculate these measurements in the same way for each product. The values used to measure these comparisons, and the way they are presented, should be clear enough for consumers to understand.

In addition, the comparative claim should indicate how the information that forms the basis of the comparison can be accessed in order for the comparison to be verified for accuracy.

It is also important to ensure that a comparative claim is up to date and relevant. For example, where your claim compares a new product against an existing or previous one, you should carefully consider the appropriate period of time for which the claim can be made. A claim relating to a product’s ‘new and improved’ environmental credentials will have a limited shelf-life.

There are also similar rules applicable to comparative advertising made from business-to-business. Such advertising must only compare goods or services meeting the same needs or intended for the same purposes.

Checklist for fair and meaningful environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim comparing like with like?
• Is the like for like comparison a fair and representative one?
• Is the basis of the comparison fair and clear?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When your business is considering making environmental claims, you should always consider the effect of the total life cycle of a product or service, or of your overall activities, on the accuracy of your claims.

All aspects of your product’s or service’s environmental impact over its life cycle, including its supply chain, could be important, including:

• its component parts
• how and where it is manufactured, produced or carried out
• how it is transported from its place of manufacture or origin
• its use or performance
• the disposal of a product, and any waste or by-products
• the consequences of any environmental benefit claimed and the period in which it would be realised
• whether the product or service has an overall adverse impact

This does not mean that information about the full life cycle of your product or service must be included in every claim. You should consider what elements of the life cycle of a
product or service are most likely to be of interest to consumers when making an environmental claim and how they affect the accuracy of that claim.

Environmental claims may be based on a specific part of an advertised product's life cycle, or part of a business’s activities. It should be clear which aspect they refer to. They should not mislead consumers about the total environmental impact. A claim could itself be true, but misleading, if it suggests your product is greener than it is by ignoring some other aspect of its life cycle.

Claims should also make clear the limits of any life cycle assessment which your business has done. Where you have only been able to carry out a limited assessment, it may be possible to make specific claims based on that assessment, but that should be clearly explained. They must not mislead consumers. Any life cycle analysis used to back up a claim should be up to date.

Checklist for considering the full life cycle in environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Does the claim reflect the whole product life cycle?
• By making a claim about one element of the product’s life cycle, does the claim mislead the consumer about other aspects?
• Do I have to disclose the full life cycle of a product in order for the claim to be understood by consumers?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Most environmental claims are likely to be objective or factual claims that can be tested against scientific or other evidence. Given the requirement that claims must be truthful and accurate, your business should have evidence to support them.

Some advertising claims can be purely subjective or hyperbole. In those cases, consumers may recognise them as such or treat them as advertising ‘puff’ that they do not take literally. Consumers are unlikely to expect those claims to be based on particular evidence.

Claims which businesses commonly make about environmental impacts are likely to be different. They are likely to relate to matters that can be assessed against the scientific or other evidence.

You should therefore hold robust, credible, relevant and up-to-date evidence that supports your environmental claims. Where you compare your products or activities to one or more competitor’s, that evidence should cover all of them.

When investigating potentially misleading claims, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) or other enforcers can seek evidence from your business to support your claim(s). If enforcement action ends up before the courts, the courts can require your business to provide evidence of the accuracy of claims. If your business does not provide it, or it is inadequate, the court may consider the claim inaccurate.

Environmental claims which are made with no regard to whether your business actually knows there is evidence to support them are also likely to be problematic, even if they turn out to be true. The nature of most environmental claims means consumers are likely to expect them to be based on supporting evidence. Where they are not, you are likely to have fallen below the standards of diligence and care consumers are entitled to expect of them.

Checklist for substantiating your environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim you are making subjective or objective?
• Do you have appropriate evidence to support your claim?
• Is the evidence based on accepted science or understanding or is it contested or unproven?
• Has the evidence been subject to independent scrutiny?
• Is the evidence up to date?
• Does the evidence reflect ‘real world’ conditions?
• Is evidence available to or from others in your supply chain?
• Is the evidence publicly available and can consumers verify the claims?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When making green claims, your business must comply with consumer protection law and understand supply chain responsibilities.

It is also essential to comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your product or service. Before making a green claim, you should understand how your product, brand or business has an impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment for its whole life cycle.

Green claims checklist

When making a green claim, your business should be able to answer ‘yes’ or agree to each of the following statements:

1. The claim is accurate and clear for all to understand.
2. There’s up-to-date, credible evidence to show that the green claim is true.
3. The claim clearly tells the whole story of a product or service; or relates to one part of the product or service without misleading people about the other parts or the overall impact on the environment.
4. The claim doesn’t contain partially correct or incorrect aspects or conditions that apply.
5. Where general claims - for example “eco-friendly”, “green” or “sustainable” are being made, the claim reflects the whole life cycle of the brand, product, business or service and is justified by the evidence.
6. If conditions or caveats apply to the claim, they’re clearly set out and can be understood by all.
7. The claim won’t mislead customers or other suppliers.
8. The claim doesn’t exaggerate its positive environmental impact, or contain anything untrue – whether clearly stated or implied.
9. Durability or disposability information is clearly explained and labelled.
10. The claim doesn’t miss out or hide information about the environmental impact that people need to make informed choices.
11. Information that really can’t fit into the claim can be easily accessed by customers in another way, for example a QR code, website etc.
12. Features or benefits that are necessary standard features or legal requirements of that product or service type, aren’t claimed as environmental benefits.
13. If a comparison is being used, the basis of it is fair and accurate, and is clear for all to understand.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims suggest that a product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment. They include claims that suggest or create the impression that a product or a service:

• has a positive environmental impact or no impact on the environment
• is less damaging to the environment than a previous version of the same good or service
• is less damaging to the environment than competing goods or services

Environmental claims may concern the impact on the environment in general, or on specific environmental aspects such as the air, water or soil.

Environmental claims can be explicit or implicit. They can appear in advertisements, marketing material, branding (including business and trading names), on packaging or in other information provided to consumers.

All aspects of an environmental claim may be relevant, such as the:

• meaning of any terms used
• qualifications and explanations of what is said
• evidence that supports those claims
• information that is not included or hidden
• colours, pictures and logos used
• overall presentation

The difference between genuine and misleading environmental claims

Environmental claims are genuine when they properly describe the impact of the product, service, process, brand or business, and do not hide or misrepresent crucial information.

Misleading environmental claims happen where a business makes claims about its products, services, processes, brands or its operations as a whole, or omits or hides information, to give the impression they are less harmful or more beneficial to the environment than they really are. 

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Consumer protect law means that your business must ensure that your environmental claims:

• are truthful and accurate
• are clear and unambiguous
• do not omit or hide important
• compare goods or services in a fair and meaningful way
• consider the full life cycle of the product or service
• are substantiated

When making, or considering making, environmental claims you need to:

• comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your business or your products and services
• read Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance and ensure that you comply with your consumer protection law obligations
• consider carefully whether you need to make changes to your practices
• make any changes necessary to comply with the law, such as:
  • stopping making false or deceptive statements
  • amending claims to ensure they are compliant
  • ensuring you have the evidence to substantiate claims
  • ensuring you give consumers the information they need to make informed choices

Find out if your business activities are likely to be covered by CMA guidance.

If in doubt about what you need to do, you should seek independent legal advice on the interpretation and application of consumer protection law. You can also speak to the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service (TSS) for advice.

What happens if you do not comply with consumer protection law?

If your business does not comply with consumer protection law, the CMA and other bodies, such as TSS, take enforcement action. The CMA can take direct action, and other bodies can bring court proceedings. A financial penalty of up to 10% of global turnover can be imposed and, in some cases, you may be required to pay redress to any consumers harmed by the breach of consumer protection law. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) could also take action against misleading advertisements that contravene the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) or Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP) Codes.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims must be truthful and accurate for consumers to make informed choices about what they buy. Your business must live up to the environmental claims you make about products, services, brands and activities.

Claims must contain correct information and must be true. They must not state or imply things that are factually incorrect or untrue. Nor should they overstate or exaggerate the sustainability or positive environmental impact of a product, service, process, brand or business.

If a claim uses terms which have specific or widely assumed meanings, the product, service, process, brand or business should justify their use. Broader, more general or absolute claims are much more likely to be inaccurate and to mislead.

Claims can also be misleading if what they say is factually correct or true, but the impression they give consumers about the environmental impact, cost or benefit of a product, service, process, brand or business is deceptive. This can be a result of the overall presentation of the claim, including the wording, logos and imagery used, as well as anything that is missed out.

The visual presentation of a claim, for example the images, logos, packaging and colours used, are an important part of the overall presentation. The same is true for the labels or certification that are often used to support environmental claims.

You should consider carefully whether the visual symbols used by your business create a misleading effect. There should be a direct and verifiable link between these symbols and the meaning consumers are likely to draw from them.

Checklist for truthful and accurate environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim true?
• Do I live up to the claims I am making?
• Is the claim only true and accurate under certain conditions or with caveats, and are these clear?
• Is what I say liable to deceive consumers, even if it is literally true or factually correct?
• Am I claiming environmental benefits that are required by law or that consumers would expect from a product or service anyway?
• Am I telling the whole story, or does the claim only relate to one part of my product or business?
• Does my claim give an overall impression that the environmental benefits are greater (or the harms more limited) than is really the case?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

The terms used in your environmental claim(s), and the meaning they convey to consumers, should be clear. The meaning consumers are likely to take from your claim and the environmental credentials and impacts of the product, service, process, brand or business should match.

Vague and/or general statements of environmental benefit are more likely to be misleading. At best, they can have a number of meanings that can confuse consumers and make it difficult for them to make informed decisions. At worst, they can give the impression your product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment than is really the case. They can also be difficult to substantiate.

Businesses are increasingly seeing the importance of improving the environmental effects of their products, services and practices. However, claims about future goals should only be used for marketing purposes if your business has a clear and verifiable strategy to deliver them. Wider environmental goals of your business should also be clearly distinguished from product-specific claims.

Claims about your environmental ambitions must also be in proportion to your actual efforts. They are less likely to be misleading when they are based on specific, shorter term and measurable commitments your business is actively working towards. Where any benefits or impact would accrue over a longer period, that would need to be made clear, as there is more risk of consumers being misled if that benefit or impact is not immediate.

Checklist for clear and unambiguous environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the meaning of the terms used clear to consumers?
• If vague or general terms have been used, have these been explained?
• Does the claim relate to the whole product, or part of it?
• Is the information you are providing to consumers useful or confusing?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

What environmental claims don’t say can also influence the decisions consumers make. Claims made by your business must not omit or hide information that consumers need to make informed choices.

These sorts of omissions can occur where claims focus on saying one thing but not another, or where they say nothing at all. It is vital that your business pays close attention to the information on environmental impacts that consumers need to make decisions and reflect that in the claims you make.

Consumers can be misled where claims do not say anything about environmental impacts. This can also happen where claims focus on just one aspect of a product, service, brand or business. They can be misleading because of what they do not include or what they hide.

Your claims should not just focus on the positive environmental aspects of a product, service, process, brand or business, where other aspects have a negative impact and consumers could be misled. This is especially so if the benefits claimed only relate to a relatively minor aspect of a product or service or part of your brand’s or a business’s products and activities. Cherry-picking information like this is likely to make consumers think your product, service, process, brand or business as a whole is greener than it really is.

Checklist to not omit or hide important information on environmental claims

Before making claims, you should ask yourself:

• What environmental impacts does my product, service, process, brand, or business have (positive and negative, taking account of its whole life cycle)?
• What do consumers need to know about environmental impacts to make informed choices about my product, service, brand or business?
• Should I include information about the durability or disposability of a product in any environmental claim?
• Do I need to caveat any claims that I am making, or explain them in more detail?
• Where I do not plan to include information in a claim, why not?
• Is there anything I need to tell consumers so they can make informed choices, but that I genuinely cannot fit into my claim?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Comparisons should enable consumers to make informed choices about competing products and businesses, or between different versions of the same product. They should not say or imply, through the use of language or imagery, that one product (or one version of a product) is, for example, ‘greener’ or ‘environmentally friendlier’ or ‘more energy efficient’ than another, if it is not.

Your business may make claims comparing your products with identifiable competitors’, or make comparisons between aspects of your own products (like old and new versions). Either way, the same considerations apply.

Comparative environmental claims should compare like with like. That means:

• Any products compared should meet the same needs or be intended for the same purpose, with a sufficient degree of interchangeability.
• The comparison should be between important, verifiable and representative features or aspects of the relevant products.
• The basis of the comparison, and the way it is presented, should allow consumers to make an informed decision about the relevant merits of one product over another.

For example, a claim which compares two similar products’ recyclable content, greenhouse gas emissions or organic composition, should calculate these measurements in the same way for each product. The values used to measure these comparisons, and the way they are presented, should be clear enough for consumers to understand.

In addition, the comparative claim should indicate how the information that forms the basis of the comparison can be accessed in order for the comparison to be verified for accuracy.

It is also important to ensure that a comparative claim is up to date and relevant. For example, where your claim compares a new product against an existing or previous one, you should carefully consider the appropriate period of time for which the claim can be made. A claim relating to a product’s ‘new and improved’ environmental credentials will have a limited shelf-life.

There are also similar rules applicable to comparative advertising made from business-to-business. Such advertising must only compare goods or services meeting the same needs or intended for the same purposes.

Checklist for fair and meaningful environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim comparing like with like?
• Is the like for like comparison a fair and representative one?
• Is the basis of the comparison fair and clear?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When your business is considering making environmental claims, you should always consider the effect of the total life cycle of a product or service, or of your overall activities, on the accuracy of your claims.

All aspects of your product’s or service’s environmental impact over its life cycle, including its supply chain, could be important, including:

• its component parts
• how and where it is manufactured, produced or carried out
• how it is transported from its place of manufacture or origin
• its use or performance
• the disposal of a product, and any waste or by-products
• the consequences of any environmental benefit claimed and the period in which it would be realised
• whether the product or service has an overall adverse impact

This does not mean that information about the full life cycle of your product or service must be included in every claim. You should consider what elements of the life cycle of a
product or service are most likely to be of interest to consumers when making an environmental claim and how they affect the accuracy of that claim.

Environmental claims may be based on a specific part of an advertised product's life cycle, or part of a business’s activities. It should be clear which aspect they refer to. They should not mislead consumers about the total environmental impact. A claim could itself be true, but misleading, if it suggests your product is greener than it is by ignoring some other aspect of its life cycle.

Claims should also make clear the limits of any life cycle assessment which your business has done. Where you have only been able to carry out a limited assessment, it may be possible to make specific claims based on that assessment, but that should be clearly explained. They must not mislead consumers. Any life cycle analysis used to back up a claim should be up to date.

Checklist for considering the full life cycle in environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Does the claim reflect the whole product life cycle?
• By making a claim about one element of the product’s life cycle, does the claim mislead the consumer about other aspects?
• Do I have to disclose the full life cycle of a product in order for the claim to be understood by consumers?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Most environmental claims are likely to be objective or factual claims that can be tested against scientific or other evidence. Given the requirement that claims must be truthful and accurate, your business should have evidence to support them.

Some advertising claims can be purely subjective or hyperbole. In those cases, consumers may recognise them as such or treat them as advertising ‘puff’ that they do not take literally. Consumers are unlikely to expect those claims to be based on particular evidence.

Claims which businesses commonly make about environmental impacts are likely to be different. They are likely to relate to matters that can be assessed against the scientific or other evidence.

You should therefore hold robust, credible, relevant and up-to-date evidence that supports your environmental claims. Where you compare your products or activities to one or more competitor’s, that evidence should cover all of them.

When investigating potentially misleading claims, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) or other enforcers can seek evidence from your business to support your claim(s). If enforcement action ends up before the courts, the courts can require your business to provide evidence of the accuracy of claims. If your business does not provide it, or it is inadequate, the court may consider the claim inaccurate.

Environmental claims which are made with no regard to whether your business actually knows there is evidence to support them are also likely to be problematic, even if they turn out to be true. The nature of most environmental claims means consumers are likely to expect them to be based on supporting evidence. Where they are not, you are likely to have fallen below the standards of diligence and care consumers are entitled to expect of them.

Checklist for substantiating your environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim you are making subjective or objective?
• Do you have appropriate evidence to support your claim?
• Is the evidence based on accepted science or understanding or is it contested or unproven?
• Has the evidence been subject to independent scrutiny?
• Is the evidence up to date?
• Does the evidence reflect ‘real world’ conditions?
• Is evidence available to or from others in your supply chain?
• Is the evidence publicly available and can consumers verify the claims?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When making green claims, your business must comply with consumer protection law and understand supply chain responsibilities.

It is also essential to comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your product or service. Before making a green claim, you should understand how your product, brand or business has an impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment for its whole life cycle.

Green claims checklist

When making a green claim, your business should be able to answer ‘yes’ or agree to each of the following statements:

1. The claim is accurate and clear for all to understand.
2. There’s up-to-date, credible evidence to show that the green claim is true.
3. The claim clearly tells the whole story of a product or service; or relates to one part of the product or service without misleading people about the other parts or the overall impact on the environment.
4. The claim doesn’t contain partially correct or incorrect aspects or conditions that apply.
5. Where general claims - for example “eco-friendly”, “green” or “sustainable” are being made, the claim reflects the whole life cycle of the brand, product, business or service and is justified by the evidence.
6. If conditions or caveats apply to the claim, they’re clearly set out and can be understood by all.
7. The claim won’t mislead customers or other suppliers.
8. The claim doesn’t exaggerate its positive environmental impact, or contain anything untrue – whether clearly stated or implied.
9. Durability or disposability information is clearly explained and labelled.
10. The claim doesn’t miss out or hide information about the environmental impact that people need to make informed choices.
11. Information that really can’t fit into the claim can be easily accessed by customers in another way, for example a QR code, website etc.
12. Features or benefits that are necessary standard features or legal requirements of that product or service type, aren’t claimed as environmental benefits.
13. If a comparison is being used, the basis of it is fair and accurate, and is clear for all to understand.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims suggest that a product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment. They include claims that suggest or create the impression that a product or a service:

• has a positive environmental impact or no impact on the environment
• is less damaging to the environment than a previous version of the same good or service
• is less damaging to the environment than competing goods or services

Environmental claims may concern the impact on the environment in general, or on specific environmental aspects such as the air, water or soil.

Environmental claims can be explicit or implicit. They can appear in advertisements, marketing material, branding (including business and trading names), on packaging or in other information provided to consumers.

All aspects of an environmental claim may be relevant, such as the:

• meaning of any terms used
• qualifications and explanations of what is said
• evidence that supports those claims
• information that is not included or hidden
• colours, pictures and logos used
• overall presentation

The difference between genuine and misleading environmental claims

Environmental claims are genuine when they properly describe the impact of the product, service, process, brand or business, and do not hide or misrepresent crucial information.

Misleading environmental claims happen where a business makes claims about its products, services, processes, brands or its operations as a whole, or omits or hides information, to give the impression they are less harmful or more beneficial to the environment than they really are. 

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Consumer protect law means that your business must ensure that your environmental claims:

• are truthful and accurate
• are clear and unambiguous
• do not omit or hide important
• compare goods or services in a fair and meaningful way
• consider the full life cycle of the product or service
• are substantiated

When making, or considering making, environmental claims you need to:

• comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your business or your products and services
• read Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance and ensure that you comply with your consumer protection law obligations
• consider carefully whether you need to make changes to your practices
• make any changes necessary to comply with the law, such as:
  • stopping making false or deceptive statements
  • amending claims to ensure they are compliant
  • ensuring you have the evidence to substantiate claims
  • ensuring you give consumers the information they need to make informed choices

Find out if your business activities are likely to be covered by CMA guidance.

If in doubt about what you need to do, you should seek independent legal advice on the interpretation and application of consumer protection law. You can also speak to the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service (TSS) for advice.

What happens if you do not comply with consumer protection law?

If your business does not comply with consumer protection law, the CMA and other bodies, such as TSS, take enforcement action. The CMA can take direct action, and other bodies can bring court proceedings. A financial penalty of up to 10% of global turnover can be imposed and, in some cases, you may be required to pay redress to any consumers harmed by the breach of consumer protection law. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) could also take action against misleading advertisements that contravene the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) or Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP) Codes.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims must be truthful and accurate for consumers to make informed choices about what they buy. Your business must live up to the environmental claims you make about products, services, brands and activities.

Claims must contain correct information and must be true. They must not state or imply things that are factually incorrect or untrue. Nor should they overstate or exaggerate the sustainability or positive environmental impact of a product, service, process, brand or business.

If a claim uses terms which have specific or widely assumed meanings, the product, service, process, brand or business should justify their use. Broader, more general or absolute claims are much more likely to be inaccurate and to mislead.

Claims can also be misleading if what they say is factually correct or true, but the impression they give consumers about the environmental impact, cost or benefit of a product, service, process, brand or business is deceptive. This can be a result of the overall presentation of the claim, including the wording, logos and imagery used, as well as anything that is missed out.

The visual presentation of a claim, for example the images, logos, packaging and colours used, are an important part of the overall presentation. The same is true for the labels or certification that are often used to support environmental claims.

You should consider carefully whether the visual symbols used by your business create a misleading effect. There should be a direct and verifiable link between these symbols and the meaning consumers are likely to draw from them.

Checklist for truthful and accurate environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim true?
• Do I live up to the claims I am making?
• Is the claim only true and accurate under certain conditions or with caveats, and are these clear?
• Is what I say liable to deceive consumers, even if it is literally true or factually correct?
• Am I claiming environmental benefits that are required by law or that consumers would expect from a product or service anyway?
• Am I telling the whole story, or does the claim only relate to one part of my product or business?
• Does my claim give an overall impression that the environmental benefits are greater (or the harms more limited) than is really the case?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

The terms used in your environmental claim(s), and the meaning they convey to consumers, should be clear. The meaning consumers are likely to take from your claim and the environmental credentials and impacts of the product, service, process, brand or business should match.

Vague and/or general statements of environmental benefit are more likely to be misleading. At best, they can have a number of meanings that can confuse consumers and make it difficult for them to make informed decisions. At worst, they can give the impression your product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment than is really the case. They can also be difficult to substantiate.

Businesses are increasingly seeing the importance of improving the environmental effects of their products, services and practices. However, claims about future goals should only be used for marketing purposes if your business has a clear and verifiable strategy to deliver them. Wider environmental goals of your business should also be clearly distinguished from product-specific claims.

Claims about your environmental ambitions must also be in proportion to your actual efforts. They are less likely to be misleading when they are based on specific, shorter term and measurable commitments your business is actively working towards. Where any benefits or impact would accrue over a longer period, that would need to be made clear, as there is more risk of consumers being misled if that benefit or impact is not immediate.

Checklist for clear and unambiguous environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the meaning of the terms used clear to consumers?
• If vague or general terms have been used, have these been explained?
• Does the claim relate to the whole product, or part of it?
• Is the information you are providing to consumers useful or confusing?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

What environmental claims don’t say can also influence the decisions consumers make. Claims made by your business must not omit or hide information that consumers need to make informed choices.

These sorts of omissions can occur where claims focus on saying one thing but not another, or where they say nothing at all. It is vital that your business pays close attention to the information on environmental impacts that consumers need to make decisions and reflect that in the claims you make.

Consumers can be misled where claims do not say anything about environmental impacts. This can also happen where claims focus on just one aspect of a product, service, brand or business. They can be misleading because of what they do not include or what they hide.

Your claims should not just focus on the positive environmental aspects of a product, service, process, brand or business, where other aspects have a negative impact and consumers could be misled. This is especially so if the benefits claimed only relate to a relatively minor aspect of a product or service or part of your brand’s or a business’s products and activities. Cherry-picking information like this is likely to make consumers think your product, service, process, brand or business as a whole is greener than it really is.

Checklist to not omit or hide important information on environmental claims

Before making claims, you should ask yourself:

• What environmental impacts does my product, service, process, brand, or business have (positive and negative, taking account of its whole life cycle)?
• What do consumers need to know about environmental impacts to make informed choices about my product, service, brand or business?
• Should I include information about the durability or disposability of a product in any environmental claim?
• Do I need to caveat any claims that I am making, or explain them in more detail?
• Where I do not plan to include information in a claim, why not?
• Is there anything I need to tell consumers so they can make informed choices, but that I genuinely cannot fit into my claim?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Comparisons should enable consumers to make informed choices about competing products and businesses, or between different versions of the same product. They should not say or imply, through the use of language or imagery, that one product (or one version of a product) is, for example, ‘greener’ or ‘environmentally friendlier’ or ‘more energy efficient’ than another, if it is not.

Your business may make claims comparing your products with identifiable competitors’, or make comparisons between aspects of your own products (like old and new versions). Either way, the same considerations apply.

Comparative environmental claims should compare like with like. That means:

• Any products compared should meet the same needs or be intended for the same purpose, with a sufficient degree of interchangeability.
• The comparison should be between important, verifiable and representative features or aspects of the relevant products.
• The basis of the comparison, and the way it is presented, should allow consumers to make an informed decision about the relevant merits of one product over another.

For example, a claim which compares two similar products’ recyclable content, greenhouse gas emissions or organic composition, should calculate these measurements in the same way for each product. The values used to measure these comparisons, and the way they are presented, should be clear enough for consumers to understand.

In addition, the comparative claim should indicate how the information that forms the basis of the comparison can be accessed in order for the comparison to be verified for accuracy.

It is also important to ensure that a comparative claim is up to date and relevant. For example, where your claim compares a new product against an existing or previous one, you should carefully consider the appropriate period of time for which the claim can be made. A claim relating to a product’s ‘new and improved’ environmental credentials will have a limited shelf-life.

There are also similar rules applicable to comparative advertising made from business-to-business. Such advertising must only compare goods or services meeting the same needs or intended for the same purposes.

Checklist for fair and meaningful environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim comparing like with like?
• Is the like for like comparison a fair and representative one?
• Is the basis of the comparison fair and clear?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When your business is considering making environmental claims, you should always consider the effect of the total life cycle of a product or service, or of your overall activities, on the accuracy of your claims.

All aspects of your product’s or service’s environmental impact over its life cycle, including its supply chain, could be important, including:

• its component parts
• how and where it is manufactured, produced or carried out
• how it is transported from its place of manufacture or origin
• its use or performance
• the disposal of a product, and any waste or by-products
• the consequences of any environmental benefit claimed and the period in which it would be realised
• whether the product or service has an overall adverse impact

This does not mean that information about the full life cycle of your product or service must be included in every claim. You should consider what elements of the life cycle of a
product or service are most likely to be of interest to consumers when making an environmental claim and how they affect the accuracy of that claim.

Environmental claims may be based on a specific part of an advertised product's life cycle, or part of a business’s activities. It should be clear which aspect they refer to. They should not mislead consumers about the total environmental impact. A claim could itself be true, but misleading, if it suggests your product is greener than it is by ignoring some other aspect of its life cycle.

Claims should also make clear the limits of any life cycle assessment which your business has done. Where you have only been able to carry out a limited assessment, it may be possible to make specific claims based on that assessment, but that should be clearly explained. They must not mislead consumers. Any life cycle analysis used to back up a claim should be up to date.

Checklist for considering the full life cycle in environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Does the claim reflect the whole product life cycle?
• By making a claim about one element of the product’s life cycle, does the claim mislead the consumer about other aspects?
• Do I have to disclose the full life cycle of a product in order for the claim to be understood by consumers?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Most environmental claims are likely to be objective or factual claims that can be tested against scientific or other evidence. Given the requirement that claims must be truthful and accurate, your business should have evidence to support them.

Some advertising claims can be purely subjective or hyperbole. In those cases, consumers may recognise them as such or treat them as advertising ‘puff’ that they do not take literally. Consumers are unlikely to expect those claims to be based on particular evidence.

Claims which businesses commonly make about environmental impacts are likely to be different. They are likely to relate to matters that can be assessed against the scientific or other evidence.

You should therefore hold robust, credible, relevant and up-to-date evidence that supports your environmental claims. Where you compare your products or activities to one or more competitor’s, that evidence should cover all of them.

When investigating potentially misleading claims, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) or other enforcers can seek evidence from your business to support your claim(s). If enforcement action ends up before the courts, the courts can require your business to provide evidence of the accuracy of claims. If your business does not provide it, or it is inadequate, the court may consider the claim inaccurate.

Environmental claims which are made with no regard to whether your business actually knows there is evidence to support them are also likely to be problematic, even if they turn out to be true. The nature of most environmental claims means consumers are likely to expect them to be based on supporting evidence. Where they are not, you are likely to have fallen below the standards of diligence and care consumers are entitled to expect of them.

Checklist for substantiating your environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim you are making subjective or objective?
• Do you have appropriate evidence to support your claim?
• Is the evidence based on accepted science or understanding or is it contested or unproven?
• Has the evidence been subject to independent scrutiny?
• Is the evidence up to date?
• Does the evidence reflect ‘real world’ conditions?
• Is evidence available to or from others in your supply chain?
• Is the evidence publicly available and can consumers verify the claims?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When making green claims, your business must comply with consumer protection law and understand supply chain responsibilities.

It is also essential to comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your product or service. Before making a green claim, you should understand how your product, brand or business has an impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment for its whole life cycle.

Green claims checklist

When making a green claim, your business should be able to answer ‘yes’ or agree to each of the following statements:

1. The claim is accurate and clear for all to understand.
2. There’s up-to-date, credible evidence to show that the green claim is true.
3. The claim clearly tells the whole story of a product or service; or relates to one part of the product or service without misleading people about the other parts or the overall impact on the environment.
4. The claim doesn’t contain partially correct or incorrect aspects or conditions that apply.
5. Where general claims - for example “eco-friendly”, “green” or “sustainable” are being made, the claim reflects the whole life cycle of the brand, product, business or service and is justified by the evidence.
6. If conditions or caveats apply to the claim, they’re clearly set out and can be understood by all.
7. The claim won’t mislead customers or other suppliers.
8. The claim doesn’t exaggerate its positive environmental impact, or contain anything untrue – whether clearly stated or implied.
9. Durability or disposability information is clearly explained and labelled.
10. The claim doesn’t miss out or hide information about the environmental impact that people need to make informed choices.
11. Information that really can’t fit into the claim can be easily accessed by customers in another way, for example a QR code, website etc.
12. Features or benefits that are necessary standard features or legal requirements of that product or service type, aren’t claimed as environmental benefits.
13. If a comparison is being used, the basis of it is fair and accurate, and is clear for all to understand.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims suggest that a product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment. They include claims that suggest or create the impression that a product or a service:

• has a positive environmental impact or no impact on the environment
• is less damaging to the environment than a previous version of the same good or service
• is less damaging to the environment than competing goods or services

Environmental claims may concern the impact on the environment in general, or on specific environmental aspects such as the air, water or soil.

Environmental claims can be explicit or implicit. They can appear in advertisements, marketing material, branding (including business and trading names), on packaging or in other information provided to consumers.

All aspects of an environmental claim may be relevant, such as the:

• meaning of any terms used
• qualifications and explanations of what is said
• evidence that supports those claims
• information that is not included or hidden
• colours, pictures and logos used
• overall presentation

The difference between genuine and misleading environmental claims

Environmental claims are genuine when they properly describe the impact of the product, service, process, brand or business, and do not hide or misrepresent crucial information.

Misleading environmental claims happen where a business makes claims about its products, services, processes, brands or its operations as a whole, or omits or hides information, to give the impression they are less harmful or more beneficial to the environment than they really are. 

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Consumer protect law means that your business must ensure that your environmental claims:

• are truthful and accurate
• are clear and unambiguous
• do not omit or hide important
• compare goods or services in a fair and meaningful way
• consider the full life cycle of the product or service
• are substantiated

When making, or considering making, environmental claims you need to:

• comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your business or your products and services
• read Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance and ensure that you comply with your consumer protection law obligations
• consider carefully whether you need to make changes to your practices
• make any changes necessary to comply with the law, such as:
  • stopping making false or deceptive statements
  • amending claims to ensure they are compliant
  • ensuring you have the evidence to substantiate claims
  • ensuring you give consumers the information they need to make informed choices

Find out if your business activities are likely to be covered by CMA guidance.

If in doubt about what you need to do, you should seek independent legal advice on the interpretation and application of consumer protection law. You can also speak to the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service (TSS) for advice.

What happens if you do not comply with consumer protection law?

If your business does not comply with consumer protection law, the CMA and other bodies, such as TSS, take enforcement action. The CMA can take direct action, and other bodies can bring court proceedings. A financial penalty of up to 10% of global turnover can be imposed and, in some cases, you may be required to pay redress to any consumers harmed by the breach of consumer protection law. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) could also take action against misleading advertisements that contravene the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) or Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP) Codes.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Environmental claims must be truthful and accurate for consumers to make informed choices about what they buy. Your business must live up to the environmental claims you make about products, services, brands and activities.

Claims must contain correct information and must be true. They must not state or imply things that are factually incorrect or untrue. Nor should they overstate or exaggerate the sustainability or positive environmental impact of a product, service, process, brand or business.

If a claim uses terms which have specific or widely assumed meanings, the product, service, process, brand or business should justify their use. Broader, more general or absolute claims are much more likely to be inaccurate and to mislead.

Claims can also be misleading if what they say is factually correct or true, but the impression they give consumers about the environmental impact, cost or benefit of a product, service, process, brand or business is deceptive. This can be a result of the overall presentation of the claim, including the wording, logos and imagery used, as well as anything that is missed out.

The visual presentation of a claim, for example the images, logos, packaging and colours used, are an important part of the overall presentation. The same is true for the labels or certification that are often used to support environmental claims.

You should consider carefully whether the visual symbols used by your business create a misleading effect. There should be a direct and verifiable link between these symbols and the meaning consumers are likely to draw from them.

Checklist for truthful and accurate environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim true?
• Do I live up to the claims I am making?
• Is the claim only true and accurate under certain conditions or with caveats, and are these clear?
• Is what I say liable to deceive consumers, even if it is literally true or factually correct?
• Am I claiming environmental benefits that are required by law or that consumers would expect from a product or service anyway?
• Am I telling the whole story, or does the claim only relate to one part of my product or business?
• Does my claim give an overall impression that the environmental benefits are greater (or the harms more limited) than is really the case?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

The terms used in your environmental claim(s), and the meaning they convey to consumers, should be clear. The meaning consumers are likely to take from your claim and the environmental credentials and impacts of the product, service, process, brand or business should match.

Vague and/or general statements of environmental benefit are more likely to be misleading. At best, they can have a number of meanings that can confuse consumers and make it difficult for them to make informed decisions. At worst, they can give the impression your product, service, process, brand or business is better for the environment than is really the case. They can also be difficult to substantiate.

Businesses are increasingly seeing the importance of improving the environmental effects of their products, services and practices. However, claims about future goals should only be used for marketing purposes if your business has a clear and verifiable strategy to deliver them. Wider environmental goals of your business should also be clearly distinguished from product-specific claims.

Claims about your environmental ambitions must also be in proportion to your actual efforts. They are less likely to be misleading when they are based on specific, shorter term and measurable commitments your business is actively working towards. Where any benefits or impact would accrue over a longer period, that would need to be made clear, as there is more risk of consumers being misled if that benefit or impact is not immediate.

Checklist for clear and unambiguous environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the meaning of the terms used clear to consumers?
• If vague or general terms have been used, have these been explained?
• Does the claim relate to the whole product, or part of it?
• Is the information you are providing to consumers useful or confusing?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

What environmental claims don’t say can also influence the decisions consumers make. Claims made by your business must not omit or hide information that consumers need to make informed choices.

These sorts of omissions can occur where claims focus on saying one thing but not another, or where they say nothing at all. It is vital that your business pays close attention to the information on environmental impacts that consumers need to make decisions and reflect that in the claims you make.

Consumers can be misled where claims do not say anything about environmental impacts. This can also happen where claims focus on just one aspect of a product, service, brand or business. They can be misleading because of what they do not include or what they hide.

Your claims should not just focus on the positive environmental aspects of a product, service, process, brand or business, where other aspects have a negative impact and consumers could be misled. This is especially so if the benefits claimed only relate to a relatively minor aspect of a product or service or part of your brand’s or a business’s products and activities. Cherry-picking information like this is likely to make consumers think your product, service, process, brand or business as a whole is greener than it really is.

Checklist to not omit or hide important information on environmental claims

Before making claims, you should ask yourself:

• What environmental impacts does my product, service, process, brand, or business have (positive and negative, taking account of its whole life cycle)?
• What do consumers need to know about environmental impacts to make informed choices about my product, service, brand or business?
• Should I include information about the durability or disposability of a product in any environmental claim?
• Do I need to caveat any claims that I am making, or explain them in more detail?
• Where I do not plan to include information in a claim, why not?
• Is there anything I need to tell consumers so they can make informed choices, but that I genuinely cannot fit into my claim?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Comparisons should enable consumers to make informed choices about competing products and businesses, or between different versions of the same product. They should not say or imply, through the use of language or imagery, that one product (or one version of a product) is, for example, ‘greener’ or ‘environmentally friendlier’ or ‘more energy efficient’ than another, if it is not.

Your business may make claims comparing your products with identifiable competitors’, or make comparisons between aspects of your own products (like old and new versions). Either way, the same considerations apply.

Comparative environmental claims should compare like with like. That means:

• Any products compared should meet the same needs or be intended for the same purpose, with a sufficient degree of interchangeability.
• The comparison should be between important, verifiable and representative features or aspects of the relevant products.
• The basis of the comparison, and the way it is presented, should allow consumers to make an informed decision about the relevant merits of one product over another.

For example, a claim which compares two similar products’ recyclable content, greenhouse gas emissions or organic composition, should calculate these measurements in the same way for each product. The values used to measure these comparisons, and the way they are presented, should be clear enough for consumers to understand.

In addition, the comparative claim should indicate how the information that forms the basis of the comparison can be accessed in order for the comparison to be verified for accuracy.

It is also important to ensure that a comparative claim is up to date and relevant. For example, where your claim compares a new product against an existing or previous one, you should carefully consider the appropriate period of time for which the claim can be made. A claim relating to a product’s ‘new and improved’ environmental credentials will have a limited shelf-life.

There are also similar rules applicable to comparative advertising made from business-to-business. Such advertising must only compare goods or services meeting the same needs or intended for the same purposes.

Checklist for fair and meaningful environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim comparing like with like?
• Is the like for like comparison a fair and representative one?
• Is the basis of the comparison fair and clear?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When your business is considering making environmental claims, you should always consider the effect of the total life cycle of a product or service, or of your overall activities, on the accuracy of your claims.

All aspects of your product’s or service’s environmental impact over its life cycle, including its supply chain, could be important, including:

• its component parts
• how and where it is manufactured, produced or carried out
• how it is transported from its place of manufacture or origin
• its use or performance
• the disposal of a product, and any waste or by-products
• the consequences of any environmental benefit claimed and the period in which it would be realised
• whether the product or service has an overall adverse impact

This does not mean that information about the full life cycle of your product or service must be included in every claim. You should consider what elements of the life cycle of a
product or service are most likely to be of interest to consumers when making an environmental claim and how they affect the accuracy of that claim.

Environmental claims may be based on a specific part of an advertised product's life cycle, or part of a business’s activities. It should be clear which aspect they refer to. They should not mislead consumers about the total environmental impact. A claim could itself be true, but misleading, if it suggests your product is greener than it is by ignoring some other aspect of its life cycle.

Claims should also make clear the limits of any life cycle assessment which your business has done. Where you have only been able to carry out a limited assessment, it may be possible to make specific claims based on that assessment, but that should be clearly explained. They must not mislead consumers. Any life cycle analysis used to back up a claim should be up to date.

Checklist for considering the full life cycle in environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Does the claim reflect the whole product life cycle?
• By making a claim about one element of the product’s life cycle, does the claim mislead the consumer about other aspects?
• Do I have to disclose the full life cycle of a product in order for the claim to be understood by consumers?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

Most environmental claims are likely to be objective or factual claims that can be tested against scientific or other evidence. Given the requirement that claims must be truthful and accurate, your business should have evidence to support them.

Some advertising claims can be purely subjective or hyperbole. In those cases, consumers may recognise them as such or treat them as advertising ‘puff’ that they do not take literally. Consumers are unlikely to expect those claims to be based on particular evidence.

Claims which businesses commonly make about environmental impacts are likely to be different. They are likely to relate to matters that can be assessed against the scientific or other evidence.

You should therefore hold robust, credible, relevant and up-to-date evidence that supports your environmental claims. Where you compare your products or activities to one or more competitor’s, that evidence should cover all of them.

When investigating potentially misleading claims, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) or other enforcers can seek evidence from your business to support your claim(s). If enforcement action ends up before the courts, the courts can require your business to provide evidence of the accuracy of claims. If your business does not provide it, or it is inadequate, the court may consider the claim inaccurate.

Environmental claims which are made with no regard to whether your business actually knows there is evidence to support them are also likely to be problematic, even if they turn out to be true. The nature of most environmental claims means consumers are likely to expect them to be based on supporting evidence. Where they are not, you are likely to have fallen below the standards of diligence and care consumers are entitled to expect of them.

Checklist for substantiating your environmental claims

Before making a claim, you should ask yourself:

• Is the claim you are making subjective or objective?
• Do you have appropriate evidence to support your claim?
• Is the evidence based on accepted science or understanding or is it contested or unproven?
• Has the evidence been subject to independent scrutiny?
• Is the evidence up to date?
• Does the evidence reflect ‘real world’ conditions?
• Is evidence available to or from others in your supply chain?
• Is the evidence publicly available and can consumers verify the claims?

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.

When making green claims, your business must comply with consumer protection law and understand supply chain responsibilities.

It is also essential to comply with any sector or product specific laws that apply to your product or service. Before making a green claim, you should understand how your product, brand or business has an impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment for its whole life cycle.

Green claims checklist

When making a green claim, your business should be able to answer ‘yes’ or agree to each of the following statements:

1. The claim is accurate and clear for all to understand.
2. There’s up-to-date, credible evidence to show that the green claim is true.
3. The claim clearly tells the whole story of a product or service; or relates to one part of the product or service without misleading people about the other parts or the overall impact on the environment.
4. The claim doesn’t contain partially correct or incorrect aspects or conditions that apply.
5. Where general claims - for example “eco-friendly”, “green” or “sustainable” are being made, the claim reflects the whole life cycle of the brand, product, business or service and is justified by the evidence.
6. If conditions or caveats apply to the claim, they’re clearly set out and can be understood by all.
7. The claim won’t mislead customers or other suppliers.
8. The claim doesn’t exaggerate its positive environmental impact, or contain anything untrue – whether clearly stated or implied.
9. Durability or disposability information is clearly explained and labelled.
10. The claim doesn’t miss out or hide information about the environmental impact that people need to make informed choices.
11. Information that really can’t fit into the claim can be easily accessed by customers in another way, for example a QR code, website etc.
12. Features or benefits that are necessary standard features or legal requirements of that product or service type, aren’t claimed as environmental benefits.
13. If a comparison is being used, the basis of it is fair and accurate, and is clear for all to understand.

The Green Claims Code helps businesses meet consumer protection laws when making environmental claims.