Woolworths Limited has undertaken a number of steps to resolve Australian Competition and Consumer Commission concerns about labelling of Woolworths Select tissue products.
"A number of concerns have been raised publicly over the past few months regarding premium environmental claims made on packaging of Woolworths Select tissue products," ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today. "In particular, the representations related to the sustainability of fibre used in the products and the environmental management record of the producers.
"The ACCC discussed these concerns with Woolworths and sought information about the claims. Woolworths has cooperated by providing the information on which it relied in making the representations.
"The matters were complex, involving numerous international certification issues and overseas practices. To enable a thorough investigation of the claims the ACCC sought expert assistance from Australian Government and international non-government organisations to ensure an accurate understanding of all the issues.
"Despite extensive inquiries to date, the ACCC has not been able to form a concluded view with respect to the accuracy of all of the representations.
"To resolve the issue, Woolworths has proposed placing stickers over the representations as a transitional measure before rolling out new packaging without the representations. In the circumstances, the ACCC considers that this approach is appropriate and it does not propose to continue its investigations at this time.
"Consistent with its message in its recently released publication Green Marketing and the Trade Practices Act, the ACCC considers businesses should be very cautious in making green claims which may be ambiguous or controversial, particularly in circumstances where consumers are increasingly placing weight on environmental representations. Businesses must be 100 per cent sure of their ability to back their claims."
The ACCC has requested and Woolworths has agreed to review its trade practices law compliance program to ensure it adequately deals with these issues in the future. Woolworths has agreed also to keep the ACCC updated as to any issues arising from the transition to new packaging.