Continuing with my first pass through all the reports for my sustainability reading project for the quarter…
I have about five weeks to go, and wandered off for a while to do some other stuff, so I’m hoping to spend this week on a sprint through all the big dense materials. Kind of like I did at the end of last quarter, but a month early, because – adulting.
This document was a fairly easy read.
To go through my usual questions:
- What is the document, in simple terms?
- It is a guide from the Federal Trade Commission on how to follow the rules about avoiding deceptive claims in advertising, with regard to environmental claims.
- When is it from?
- It was last updated in 2012.
- What type of language does it use – legalese, engineering-speak, or layman-friendly?
- Mostly layman-friendly, with a few legal terms.
- What am I looking for in this document?
- I’m looking for a clear distinction between greenwashing and reasonable environmental claims.
- Most environmental claims we see feel like they don’t go far enough, since if they were, climate change would be solved already. But I doubt they’re bad enough to be considered deceptive by the FTC.
- So I’m trying to find ways to describe that distinction.
- How many (readable) pages is it, excluding appendices and references? And what cited resources do I want to add to my TBR (‘to be read’)?
- It’s 36 pages, and ends so abruptly that I had to double check that it had downloaded correctly.
- It has no conclusion or reference section, so no TBR-fodder from this one.
* * *
Phew. It feels good to be moving again with this project.