THE industry body for advertisers has warned the industry it faces a consumer backlash against green products if it continues to embellish their environmental credentials in marketing and packaging.
The warning, from the Australian Association of National Advertisers, follows reports in The Age this week about an alarming increase in complaints about misleading green-product advertising to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
About 500 complaints have been lodged with the ACCC, up from a negligible number two years ago. ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel has said the increase is ''more than a moderate problem''.
The AANA's voluntary environmental claims code came into effect on January 1 after a three-month "test phase" and chief executive Scott McClellan said the industry-funded advertising complaints body, the Advertising Standards Board, would respond quickly and aggressively to consumer complaints.
''We know if consumers lose faith in the claims manufacturers and retailers make about their products then any hope we have of leveraging interest in environmentally sustainable and beneficial products will be lost,'' he said. ''People will simply switch off and no longer believe what they are hearing.
''We need the ASB to crack down in cases where people are making claims they cannot back up.''
The AANA also knows that if the industry is not seen to be dealing with the issues, tougher government regulation looms.
The ASB is the advertising and marketing self-regulatory body that enforces codes developed by the AANA, and in the past has been criticised for acting too slowly and going soft on advertisers. But Mr McClellan said the ASB's turnaround time for complaints is now two to four weeks. It upheld more than 80 complaints last year.
The AANA this week released its "practice note", expanding in detail on how the Environmental Claims in Advertising and Marketing Code should be interpreted. The ASB has also enlisted the support of media companies to promote the consumer complaints role of the ASB.
The ACCC has already taken action over claims made by Woolworths, Saab and Origin Energy.
Mr McClellan said there was a role for the ACCC and the AANA and ASB in regulating green-product marketing.
"Clearly there's a role for the regulator where it identifies breaches of the Trade Practices Act on false and misleading claims, but equally there is a role for us to educate and provide consumers with a free and speedy response if they have doubts about these sorts of claims," he said.
"It's very much in industry's interest to get behind this code and operate within the standards to ensure consumer confidence."
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