I heard a true story the other day of a leading company in renewable energy which was banned from saying in its marketing literature that its biomass products used ‘sustainably sourced’ wood.  The edict came from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), backed up by Defra. 

The offence? Using the S word.

Yes, warn your marketing agencies and copywriters right now. Any attempt to sell stuff using the S word is, well, unsustainable.

For 10 years Defra’s Green Claims Code has set out best practice on the content of environmental claims including accuracy, truthfulness, relevance, use of unambiguous terminology, presentation of claims and comparative claims.

As a proposed revision to the Code now explains:

“The concepts involved in sustainability are highly complex.  At this time there are no definite methods for measuring full sustainability or confirming its accomplishment (whether environmental, social and/or economic). Therefore claims about a product or service being ’sustainable’ or ‘environmentally sustainable’ should not be made.”

Don’t get them wrong. The Government wants to see more and better environmental claims.  It acknowledges that marketing has a huge role to play in promoting more sustainable lifestyle choices and that business must be a positive catalyst for change.

But given the changes to the ASA’s rules since September this year and from everything I continue to hear on this issue, massive proof is going to be needed to justify green claims in the future. 

No one has ever yet managed to persuade the ASA that they, or their product or service, are “sustainable”, “green” or “environmentally friendly”. And woe betides anyone who tries to use any absolute claim of “zero carbon” in their marketing. (Hmm, I can’t wait to see what will happen when a ‘definition’ of zero carbon is made by CLG, but Defra bans its use…)

If you want to know what you can say and what you can’t, updated guidance on Defra’s Green Claims Code is supposed to be coming out this month. 

But in the meantime it all seems to boil down to what is easily understood by the man on the street (specialist or well-informed audiences don’t count). If he understands ‘sustainable’ to mean one thing, and his mate thinks it’s another, then we have Ambiguity. And this does not sit comfortably with the ASA or the Government. 

Environmental claims are often complicated or very technical. But the underlying principles are the same for all, says the ASA Council – they look at everything from a consumer’s point of view.

In its defence, the ASA says its has seen a big rise in public scepticism about carbon and climate change claims since ‘Climategate’, the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit about 12 months ago. But it seems to me the most common cause for an ASA investigation and potential corporate reprimand is still a complaint from a competitor. 

Interestingly, having studied past ASA adjudications on this topic, there seem to be a few alternative ways in which environmental credentials can be promoted with a bit more legal leeway:

• Sponsorships can help to make you look greener by association (but needless to say no one is fooled by any cynical attempt to greenwash a baddie brand this way)
• PR and media information is not covered by ASA rules (but we have our own professional guidelines from bodies like the CIPR, and I see no reason why PR people should not apply the same rigour to environmental claims)
• Comparative claims can work (but only if there is a clear improvement over a previous product or a competitor and the comparison is very clear. In this context, any ‘independent’ research that backs up your claim must be entirely independent – you can’t have paid for it)
• And it looks like trade associations can have much more freedom in the claims they might make on their industries’ behalf, as they are not selling direct to the customer (but again, this is a complex area and best practice should still be observed).

I’m no lawyer, and I’ve witnessed some pretty perverse decisions on what can and cannot be said about environmental sustainability in the building industry.  I will be watching with interest what gets published by Defra shortly, including its latest research on consumers’ understanding of green terms.  For now, the best advice I can offer is to play it safe.  Put more time into becoming a greener business than you spend on saying it. 

You can also find further advice on my ‘10 top tips to avoid greenwash’ here.

A recent phone call to my office prompted me to do some digging for Footings.

The style of the call might be familiar to you if you work for a trade association or membership organisation of any sort, and particularly if you're part of the construction industry. We get these calls about once a month:

"Hi, how are you?! [Gushing enthusiasm from stranger on phone].

"I've been talking to your colleague Jim and he really wanted me to give you a call. We publish a very high quality journal that goes to all the key decision makers in the construction industry and my editor really wants to run a big feature on your Association. What issues are of most concern to you at the moment? Zero carbon agenda? Building Regulations? Health and safety must be a big one.... [Blah, blah]

"Well, we can offer you a full page/two pages/six pages of free editorial.... No cost to your Association, but great coverage in a glossy quarterly that's read by 40,000 senior decision makers - all the top specifiers, housebuilders, RSLs, housing associations, local authorities, major contractors, special sub-contractors, architects, QSs, surveyors, structural, mechanical and civil engineers, government agencies, public utilities, materials manufacturers...." [Blah, blah]

If you're anything like me, major alarm bells are ringing by now.

• I've never heard of this publication before (it has one of those generic titles like UK Construction World, Building National, Property Now etc).
• I've never heard of the publisher either.
• It's claiming a circulation well in excess of what we'd expect, covering pretty much the WHOLE industry and all its diverse disciplines.
• It's not got an ABC certificate of course.
• Oh, and guess what, they want to promote the fact that you're "collaborating" with them on this "exciting feature" to all the Association's members in order to invite them to advertise. They may even want a list of your members in exchange for this "great opportunity".

Welcome to the trade mag version of vanity publishing, and its close cousin 'support advertising' features.

Fed up with these calls and curious about what was going on with this particular rogue publication (which has recently changed its title again), last week I had a really helpful chat with a bone fide publisher who knew the set-up. He explained that these tactics tend to cluster around three types of features:

1. Project features about a particular building project, where the developer writes some blurb about the project and all the companies, contractors and suppliers involved on the project are invited to place advertising saying how pleased they are to be associated with Building X and its developer.
2. Event features about a major exhibition like Interbuild, Ecobuild or a conference, where the event organiser writes the blurb and all the exhibitors are approached to advertise in support.
3. Trade association/membership organisation features, where the Association writes some blurb and all the members are encouraged to advertise in support.

You get the picture.

As a publishing model, it can occasionally work well for all parties, he told me. Sometimes.

BUT there are major dangers:

• If the sales team can't sell enough advertising around the feature, it won't get published at all, so you've wasted your time.
• There is usually very little information about who receives these publications, and readership numbers are not the same as actual copies distributed (assume a standard multiplier of x 4).
• The quality of the content can be shockingly bad.
• The ad sales techniques can get very pushy, which is also bad news if the Association then receives complaints from its members. They may feel obligated or bullied into advertising in a magazine where they would or should not spend their money.
• And there are (allegedly) cases where a publisher has simply taken the advertising revenue, published enough copies of the magazine to give one to each of the advertisers, and pocketed the rest of the cash. Illegal, immoral and pretty much invisible fraud.

I'm afraid our sector has its fair share of these sorts of publishers. If you call me, I'll give you the names of our prime suspects.

So here's the bottom line: No up-to-date ABC certificate, no editorial and certainly no list of our clients' members. Sorry.