Two Sides Combating Environmental Marketing Misinformation
Two Sides, a non-profit industry advocate, has launched a nationwide initiative to assist major U.S. companies in developing and implementing best practices related to environmental marketing claims for print and paper. According to the organization’s research on 94 leading companies, 50 percent of them are using unsubstantiated environmental claims to encourage consumers to switch to lower-cost electronic billing and services.
“The objective of our new program is to offer our expertise at no cost to U.S. corporations that currently make environmental claims about print and paper relative to online billing and communication,” says Two Sides President and COO Phil Riebel. “Our research has shown that many companies are using negative claims that are not verifiable or factual related to the environmental impacts of print and paper, and as a result do not meet best practice guidelines for environmental marketing.”
Two Sides, which represents companies across the graphic communications supply chain, will assist companies to develop and follow best practices for environmental marketing, including the use of science-based and verifiable information. The non-profit conducted a similar campaign in the United Kingdom with great success. More than 80 percent of the U.K. companies approached—including well-known names like British Telecom, Barclaycard, Vodafone and EON Energy—agreed to change their messaging to eliminate misleading or factually incorrect environmental claims about the use of print and paper.
“Many major U.S. companies have implemented credible sustainability initiatives that focus on true performance measurement and factual environmental claims” Riebel continues. “However, in some cases marketing seems to take the upper hand on science. Two Sides is committed to help change this, and our experience to date shows that we’ve been successful in finding mutually acceptable solutions.”