April, 13 2023, 01:44pm EDT

Climate Groups Urge FTC to Tackle Corporate Greenwashing with New Green Guides
Comments urge the FTC to tackle net-zero claims, offsets, “natural” gas, and other forms of fossil fuel and corporate greenwashing with Green Guides revisions
limate and environmental groups are urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to tackle corporate and fossil fuel greenwashing with the latest revision of the agency’s “Green Guides.”
The Green Guides provide guidance to companies on how to make environmental claims in their advertising and marketing. The last time the guides were updated was in 2012. In its announcement about the revision, the FTC specifically asked for public comments on carbon offsets, renewable energy, and climate change, amongst other issues. Comments are due April 24th and the guides are expected to be updated later this year.
Groups including Action for the Climate Emergency, Clean Creatives, ClientEarth, Earthworks, Earthrights, Food and Water Watch, Gas Leaks, Global Witness, InfluenceMap, and the Sierra Club are all in the process of submitting comments to the FTC urging new guidance to combat what the groups describe as a “tidal wave” of greenwash coming from corporations, and fossil fuel companies in particular.
The groups are specifically calling for the FTC to:
- Bring the FTC’s Green Guides into alignment with international standards addressing greenwashing, such as the EU’s recently released draft Green Claims Directive that increases disclosure requirements for environmental claims, and the UK-based ASA’s guidance restricting advertisers from promoting isolated green products without addressing the overall impact of their business.
- Recognize that the term “natural gas” is inherently misleading when used in reference to methane, since “natural” misleads consumers into thinking that methane is environmentally friendly instead of a potent greenhouse gas, and adopting stricter guidance against misleading terms such as ‘renewable natural gas.’
- Clarify how “net zero” claims need to be substantiated, especially for fossil fuel companies, many of whom advertise net zero targets without actual plans to achieve them.
- Tighten rules around the marketing of “carbon offsets” and the use of offsets to justify sustainability claims. Studies have shown that the benefits of a vast majority of offsets are greatly overstated.
- Restrict the amount fossil fuel companies can advertise their investments in clean energy to correspond with the amount of money those companies are actually investing (the vast majority of fossil fuel advertising talks about climate solutions, even though only a tiny percentage of the companies’ capital expenditures are spent on them).
- Stop companies from using vague and generic environmentally friendly terms like “clean,” “sustainable,” “natural,” or “renewable” to describe fossil fuels, such as hydrogen.
- Strengthen enforcement of the guidelines to ensure that companies are held accountable for any misleading claims.
In their comments to the FTC, the groups emphasize that strong guidelines are necessary to prevent greenwashing, ensure that consumers can make informed choices about the products they’re buying, and bring much needed transparency to issues surrounding the energy transition.
That’s especially true when it comes to fossil fuel advertising. A recent study from Brown University concluded that the five largest oil companies have spent over $3.6 billion on “reputation building” advertising over the last 30 years. As a report by ClientEarth concluded, the vast majority of that advertising “routinely misrepresented the sustainability of [fossil fuel] activities” in an effort to mislead consumers. Another study by Harvard researchers in 2022 found that 72 percent of social media posts by oil and gas companies engaged in some form of greenwashing.
The FTC is expected to issue a revised version of the Green Guides by the end of this year.
###
Quotes:
“The Green Guides are an opportunity for the FTC to address one of the greatest barriers to climate action: greenwashing and false advertising from the fossil fuel industry,” said Duncan Meisel, executive director for Fossil Free Media. “Big corporations, and fossil fuel companies in particular, have been getting away with lying to consumers about their net zero commitments, carbon offsets, and the environmental benefits of so-called ‘natural’ gas. Stricter guidance from the FTC would not only help clear the airwaves of this misinformation, but send a warning to advertising agencies that these sorts of misleading claims will be subject to greater regulatory and legal scrutiny.”
“Americans’ increasing interest in environmental issues influences their purchasing decisions, but the prevalence of greenwashing means people buy products that do not actually have the positive environmental impact they expected,” said Camille Sippel, climate attorney for ClientEarth. “Stronger and updated guidelines are an important step to ensure consumers are not misled about how they spend their money.”
“Greenwashing is as harmful as it is dangerous because it is so effective. We live in an age of misinformation; when industries advertise they are environmentally friendly, many people believe them,” said Issac Smith, Youth Advisory Board for Action for the Climate Emergency. “Greenwashing allows corporations to claim they benefit the environment while being the very same people destroying it. And it's legal! For any government to tolerate lying to the public is to put private interests above public welfare.”
“The public deserves honesty about growing levels of pollution from the ‘natural’ gas system and the significant limitations of false solutions like ‘renewable natural gas,’” said Caleb Heeringa, Campaign Director of Gas Leaks. “The gas industry’s advertising of ‘renewable natural gas’ leads the public to believe that the gas system is somehow getting cleaner and greener, which provides cover for more fracking, more pipelines and more climate disruption. It’s time for the FTC to shine some light on this misleading advertising.”
“Americans who care about the health of our planet and communities try to do their best as consumers to reward environmentally responsible business practices. But when companies make deceptive marketing claims about ‘carbon neutrality’ and other alleged climate benefits of their products, it frustrates consumers, who have to sift through the greenwashing,” said Ben Cushing, Campaign Director of Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance Campaign. “We need the Federal Trade Commission to protect consumers from this climate deception — including requiring companies to explain their reliance on dubious carbon offsets when making claims about reduced emissions.”
Fossil Free Media is a nonprofit media lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels and address the climate emergency.
LATEST NEWS
US Lawyers Coalition Says Elite Firms Have Only One Choice: Capitulate to Trump—Or Fight Back
"These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession," says an open letter from legal groups.
Apr 23, 2025
In an open letter published Wednesday, amid the Trump administration's unprecedented scrutiny on Big Law, multiple legal groups are calling on elite American law firms to convene and coordinate a unified response to U.S. President Donald Trump's "unconstitutional actions" and "threats to the rule of law and system of justice."
The legal groups include the coalition Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), the coalition Lawyers Allied Under Rule of Law, and the Steady State—which, according to the executive director of LDAD, "formed in the first Trump term as a loose association that maintained a low internet profile because many members were in government," but has "become much more organized and active" in response to the president's Department of Government Efficiency.
The groups drew a distinction between the several elite law firms who in recent weeks have negotiated deals with the Trump administration either in response to punishments imposed via executive order or to avoid the prospect of an executive order, and law firms who have resisted the Trump administration's pressure.
The law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey have all filed suits challenging Trump's executive orders targeting them. All four have won initial relief in court.
According to the letter, more than 800 other firms, including 17 firms on the Am Law 200—a ranking of top law firms based on gross revenue—have joined amicus briefs in defense of the firms that have sued.
"Lawyers Defending American Democracy calls on the 170 undeclared Am Law 200 firms to avoid the path of those now notorious nine," the letter states.
"If you are one of these firms, you understand that the threatened executive edicts are not legal or enforceable. Rather, they are a tactic designed to enlist you in undermining the rule of law. Any concession by your prestigious firms only helps the administration intimidate the legal profession from challenging its actions," according to the legal groups.
The letter states that negotiating with the administration is futile in part because "there exists no reasonable terms for resolving this dispute."
The letter also points to the fact that all four courts that have heard the cases from firms challenging Trump "have held that the likelihood of these law firms succeeding on the merits is so great that they have taken the extraordinary step of issuing temporary restraining orders against the government’s enforcement." This is evidence, according to the letter, that negotiation is unnecessary.
"If you band together and agree to support one another, the White House strategy will collapse," the letter states. "These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession."
"We must fight because if lawyers don't stand up for the rule of law, who will? If we don't fight for the principles that we have devoted our professional lives to—and that make us a free society—those principles will be forever compromised," the letter concludes.
According to a statement from LDAD, the legal groups behind the letter collectively represent over 1,000 lawyers who who have worked as senior partners, judges, state attorneys general, senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, as general counsel for major companies, and state bar presidents.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Lawyers for Jailed Palestine Defender Mohsen Mahdawi Demand His Release
One attorney said that the former Columbia University organizer "sits in a jail cell because of his lawful speech," while another reminded supporters that Mahdawi "has not been charged with any crime."
Apr 23, 2025
Attorneys for Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student organizer at Columbia University and permanent U.S. resident caught up in the Trump administration's crusade against Palestine defenders, argued in federal court Wednesday that their client was illegally arrested and detained for his constitutionally protected speech and should be immediately freed.
In what Mahdawi's legal team hailed as a "victory," U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford extended a temporary restraining order issued last week by Judge William Sessions III to prevent federal officials from transferring Mahdawi from Vermont, where he is being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. Crawford also scheduled a new hearing for Mahdawi on April 30.
Addressing the nearly 100 letters submitted in support of Mahdawi, Crawford said that "no one has ever provided anything like that before," adding, "These were quite striking in geographic and philosophical breadth, including many members of the Jewish community."
Mahdawi, who is 34 years old and has been a green-card holder for a decade, was arrested on April 14 by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during an appointment for his citizenship test in Colchester, Vermont. He was steps away from naturalization; instead, federal agents attempted to force Mahdawi onto a plane bound for Louisiana, where other Palestine defenders are being held pending deportation proceedings.
Mahdawi's lawyers are seeking his immediate release.
"We ask this court to suspend this unlawful retaliation and slow the grave threat to free speech posed by his continued detainment by releasing Mr. Mahdawi on bail," his legal team said in a filing.
Luna Droubi, an attorney on the team, said after the hearing that "Mohsen Mahdawi sits in a jail cell because of his lawful speech."
"What the government provided thus far only establishes that the only basis they have to currently detaining him in the manner they did is his lawful speech," Droubi added. "We intend on being back in one week's time to free Mohsen."
"What the government provided thus far only establishes that the only basis they have to currently detaining him in the manner they did is his lawful speech."
Like the numerous other pro-Palestine activists arrested—critics say kidnapped—and detained by the Trump administration, the government concedes that Mahdawi committed no crime. However, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the secretary of state can expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to foreign policy interests.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that Mahdawi should be deported because letting him remain in the country "would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest."
Trump administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio have cited President Donald Trump's executive order ostensibly aimed at combating antisemitism and his edict authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza as justification for Mahdawi's arrest and detention.
However, Mahdawi has repeatedly condemned anti-Jewish hatred, including during a 2023 interview on CBS News' "60 Minutes" in which he asserted that "the fight for freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
VTDiggerreported that hundreds of people gathered outside the Burlington, Vermont courthouse Wednesday to show support for Mahdawi and demand his release. Nora Rubinstein of Middletown Springs, Vermont said she was rallying in defense of "democracy and freedom" and to help the U.S. "return to the democratic principles this country was founded on."
"It's time to end the shredding of our democracy, the shredding of our Constitution," Rubinstein added.
On Monday, Mahdawi told U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who visited him behind bars, that "I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles of this country."
"The most important rights [are in] the Bill of Rights, which includes free speech on the top of these rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of having religion or not having religion at all," he added.
As Welch visited Mahdawi, Columbia University students, faculty, and alumni once again chained themselves to a fence to protest his detention and demand the release of not only Mahdawi but also of fellow Columbia activists and permanent U.S. residents Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung, as well as other student Palestine defenders including Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, and others.
On Tuesday, a delegation of Massachusetts Democrats—U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley—visited Khalil and Öztürk at the Louisiana ICE detention facility where they are being held. Markey accused the Trump administration of jailing the activists in Louisiana in a bid to have "the single most conservative circuit court of appeals in the United States of America" hear the case.
Mahdawi's lawyers said they believe their client will soon be free.
"We are very hopeful that he will be released," attorney Cyrus Mehta told supporters and media gathered outside the Burlington courthouse on Wednesday. "The judge wants to move quickly, and he realizes that this is a case of great importance for this country."
"What we're seeing here is unprecedented where they are so hell-bent on detaining students," Mehta added. "These are not hardened criminals. These are people who have not been charged with any crime, they have also not been charged under any of the other deportation provisions of the immigration act."
One of the attorneys read the crowd a statement from Mahdawi in which he said that "this hearing is part of the system of democracy" that "prevents a tyrant from having unchecked power."
"I am in prison," he added, "but I am not imprisoned."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Amnesty to Kristi Noem: 'Stop Revoking Visas of Foreign Students'
"These repressive tactics and the summary revocation of people's immigration status," said Amnesty, "demonstrate an utter lack of respect for their human rights."
Apr 23, 2025
The global human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday called on supporters of the United States' core constitutional rights to write to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that the Trump administration stop its campaign to strip foreign students of their right to be in the country for exercising their First Amendment freedoms.
As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accosted former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil, forced him into an unmarked vehicle, and took him to a detention center in Louisiana thousands of miles from his pregnant wife in March, the administration's attacks on international students have only intensified.
Seven identified students have had their visas revoked, while the administration is pushing to revoke the residency status of at least two students who protested the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza.
The White House is using a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to claim that certain students including Khalil pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy and should be deported.
"At least 1,300 additional students are known to have had their visas revoked," reads a letter template provided to supporters by Amnesty. "However, many of these students never received notice of the revocation, nor did they participate in any protest or expressive activity on campus. Some students may have been targeted due to having committed minor crimes such as traffic violations. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of students, many were targeted because of their country of origin, particularly those from African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian backgrounds."
Supporters who send the letter can urge Noem to "restore the visas and immigration status of these students and visitors, release all students from immigration detention, refrain from deporting any of them, and end the targeting of students based on their immigration statuses and for exercising their human rights."
"According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of students, many were targeted because of their country of origin, particularly those from African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian backgrounds."
As Common Dreams reported, President Donald Trump's attacks on foreign students' First Amendment rights and his threats to universities' funding if they don't comply with his policies aimed at rooting out criticism of U.S. policy in Israel and Palestine, which both Republican and Democratic politicians have claimed is synonymous with antisemitism, have pushed schools to notify hundreds of students that their visas were revoked.
Trump's attacks on international students have shocked several federal judges, and one judge in Georgia on Friday ordered ICE to restore the legal status of students whose visas were revoked due to DHS' termination of their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS).
DHS admitted in a court filing last week that it does not have the authority to change students' visa status via SEVIS.
"These repressive tactics and the summary revocation of people's immigration status," said Amnesty, "whether due to their speech and protest activities or their country of origin, demonstrate an utter lack of respect for their human rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, due process, and to be free from discrimination."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular