Kelley Drye’s Advertising Law Practice Group specializes in advising clients on how to communicate the environmental and health benefits of their products while complying with applicable laws governing such “green” marketing claims. We work closely and cooperatively with your marketing and business development professionals to develop business strategies for green marketing campaigns that are designed to achieve your marketing objectives while remaining within the existing and evolving regulatory framework.

Our advertising law attorneys regularly work with business-to-business and business-to-consumer entities that are engaged in green advertising and marketing practices, including trade associations, national advertisers, direct marketers, consumer product retailers, distributors, and manufacturers with interests in legal issues and trends in environmental marketing. Our team assists clients in developing and reviewing scientific substantiation for advertising claims and helps businesses in conducting a comprehensive review of advertising guidelines, promotional materials, and marketing campaigns to ensure that environmental claims are not deceptive or misleading to consumers.

Together with the firm’s Environmental Law practice and Government Relations practice, we monitor regulatory developments relating to climate change issues at the local, state, federal, and international levels. We combine our Environmental practice’s capabilities with the Government Relations’ legislative insights and our advertising expertise to provide clients with the required perspective to effectively implement environmental marketing strategies.

Members of our team review green marketing campaigns to ensure compliance with the “Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims” (the “Green Guides”) and existing laws and policies established by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and self-regulatory bodies. As the FTC considers revisions to its environmental marketing policies set forth in its “Green Guides,” we have helped our clients interpret these requirements and to assess and modify existing programs accordingly.

Our expertise includes:

• Advising clients on making truthful and non-misleading claims relating to
• Green seals and logos;
• Recyclable and recycled products;
• Sustainability initiatives;
• Organic textiles and food products;
• Natural products;
• Carbon neutral products;
• Renewable products;
• Chemical free products;
• Third-party certification;
• Green buildings and building products;
• Green packaging products; and
• Other environmental attributes.
• Developing practical strategies to help companies “go green”;
• Interpreting existing environmental marketing guidelines and policies and anticipating future regulatory changes;
• Counseling on regulatory compliance with the FTC and related federal and state government agencies, self-regulatory bodies including the National Advertising Division (NAD) and Environmental Remediation Sciences Program (ERSP), and industry guidelines;
• Helping clients develop reliable substantiation to support product and advertising claims to avoid risk of enforcement action;
• Preparing and filing comments on proposed rulemakings with the FTC;
• Reviewing carbon offset programs;
• Advising clients on the appropriate use of SPI Resin Identification Codes; and
• Counseling clients on Proposition 65 warning label requirements.

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