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US green claims run on guidance from 2012

The Federal Trade Commission’s rules for environmental marketing claims are the Green Guides at 16 CFR Part 260, last issued on 11 October 2012, which the Commission describes as guidance on how consumers interpret particular claims, how marketers can substantiate them and how they can be qualified to avoid deceiving consumers.

A brand writing one set of sustainability copy for both sides of the Atlantic is writing against a fourteen-year-old interpretive document in one market and a list of named, always-unfair phrases in the other, and only one of those tells you the answer before you publish.

85

85 of a possible 97Tier A, primary document or measured outcome. Nothing at this tier is allowed past 97, however good it looks.

Verified August 5, 2026Rechecked every 180 days, next by February 1, 2027.

Constraint

Held since October 11, 2012A rule, law or policy that limits what you may do or say. The earliest date we are willing to say this held. It may well have been true before that; we do not backdate a record past the evidence we have read. Supported, version 1.

This entry is wrong if

The FTC issues revised Green Guides, or moves environmental marketing claims from Part 260 guidance into a trade regulation rule, or withdraws Part 260.

Written before the record was published, not after. If you can show this, send it to hello@tryorbt.com and the correction goes on the record with the entry.

Evidence

  1. Tier Aregulation

    U.S. Federal Trade Commission: Green Guides (Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, 16 CFR Part 260)

    The Green Guides were issued to help marketers ensure that the claims they are making are true and substantiated. The guidance they provide includes: general principles that apply to all environmental marketing claims; how consumers are likely to interpret particular claims and how marketers can substantiate these claims; and how marketers can qualify their claims to avoid deceiving consumers.

    Read 2026-08-05 · Public domain · page hash e5c2bb19e106

  2. Tier Aregulation

    U.S. Federal Trade Commission: Green Guides (Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, 16 CFR Part 260)

    Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (“Green Guides”) ( October 11, 2012 )

    The date is taken from the FTC’s own list of the rule’s texts. It is the most recent entry there, which is what supports the claim that the guides have not been reissued since.

    Read 2026-08-05 · Public domain · page hash e5c2bb19e106

History

  1. v1created

    Initial entry from primary regulator text, read 2026-08-05. The EU text comes from the Publications Office Cellar service under content negotiation, since EUR-Lex is behind a bot challenge we do not work around.

Append-only. Nothing in this list is edited or removed once written, including the entries that record our own mistakes. Every change to every record is on the corrections page, and the same log is in entries.json under revisions.

  • us
  • ftc
  • greenwashing
  • claims
  • sustainability
  • advertising
  • compliance

Cite this entry

“US green claims run on guidance from 2012”, The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0, entry omr:us:environmental-claims-are-governed-by-guidance, retrieved September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--environmental-claims-are-governed-by-guidance. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22679129

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Free to quote, cite and act on. Not to resell or redistribute — the sources ask that of us, and each one’s terms are named. Machine-readable: entries.json carries this record under the id omr:us:environmental-claims-are-governed-by-guidance, with the same evidence and falsifier.

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