Advertising and selling guide

Environmental claims

If you wish to make environmental claims about your business or your product, they should be honest, accurate and able to be substantiated. You should clearly explain, in simple language, the significance of the benefit to the environment.

Terms such as ‘green’, ‘environmentally safe’ and ‘fully recycled’ are broad terms that may have more than one meaning. For example, the statement ‘safe for the environment’ could have many meanings depending on the audience—some may believe this means your product is biodegradable or others may infer that it contains non-toxic ingredients. If a consumer’s understanding, inferred from the terms used, conflicts with the facts then they may be misled. To avoid misleading consumers, make sure that you explicitly identify and accurately convey any ‘green’ attributes.

Related publication: Green marketing and the Australian Consumer Law

Organic claims

An organic claim is any claim that describes a product, or the ingredients used to make the product, as ‘organic’. For example, product labels or marketing materials may claim a product is ‘100% organic’, ‘made using organic ingredients’ or ‘certified organic’. The word ‘organic’ in the context of food and drink refers to agricultural products that have been farmed according to certain practices.

Consumers cannot easily verify for themselves whether a product is organic and should be able to trust that any ‘organic’ claim is accurate. While organic certification is not legally required for a product supplied in Australia to be described as organic, businesses must be able to substantiate any such claims.

There are several Australian standards that relate to organic or biodynamic claims. For example, the Australian Standard (AS) 6000–2015 Organic and biodynamic products is a voluntary standard which sets out the requirements to be met by growers and manufacturers wishing to label their products as ‘organic’ and/or ‘biodynamic’ in accordance with that standard, within Australia. As it is a voluntary standard, businesses do not necessarily have to meet the requirements of this standard in order to label and sell their products as ‘organic’ within Australia.

Businesses may also choose to become certified by an organic certification body, with certification standards based on the National Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Produce. This standard is owned by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and is mandatory for products intended for export, where Australian producers wish to label their exported products as organic or biodynamic.

If you claim that your produce is organic in line with any standard, your produce or product must meet requirements outlined in that standard or you risk making a misleading claim.

For further information, visit the Standards Australia website (www.standards.org.au) or the Department of Agriculture (www.agriculture.gov.au).

All organic claims, whether they reference a standard or not, should be able to be substantiated.