There is a definite benefit to making sure that you communicate your Green Credentials correctly and in the first instance it is imperative that your marketing or branding is not breaking the Green Claims Code and infringing on the CMA (Competition and Marketing Authority). More consumers are interested in trying to purchase Green or a product that has met some official standard of code, in good practice of production, manufacturing or sourcing. One example in the building supply industry is the FSC or PEFC (Forest Stewardship Council and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (TTF, 2023)). There is also trade bodies like the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) who are leading the way in this sector to make product sourcing more sustainable and championing companies and industries that look to lead the market to achieve a more sustainable supply of materials.
Understanding your green claims
Translating these Green Credentials or Green Claims are difficult as all companies still have huge leaps to make in order to reduce their impact on the environment. Businesses by their nature of the operation have an impact through, emissions in vehicles, heat and light and also within the supply chain. The Scope 1 and 2 impacts of a firm are challenging enough but Scope 3 for a building supplies firm that might have 10,000 suppliers of products is an immense challenge. Understanding Green Claims is really important to not only reduce liability, but translate a more impactful message. These claims can appear in a range of methods such as : statements, symbols, emblems, logic, graphics, colours and product brand names (Greenclaims, 2023). These claims are also called environmental or Eco-friendly and the product or brand should have less impact on the environment. Unfortunately there are mistakes and misleading messages and in a recent international survey of websites found that over 40% of green claims made online where misleading. This could be in the form of using a logo that translates a message as less harmful to the environment but is not any better than a similar product or uses a fossil fuel as its main source of power, if we take an industry example.
The Green claims challenge
The building supply industry at present is not being held account by its customers in the one off supply side, but in the specification and contract market the pressure is increasing. This one off market driven by the Repair and maintenance market worth, £27 billion (Travis Perkins, 2023) and is supplied by thousands of businesses (6222 in the hardware and home improvement sector according to Lang, 2022). The CMA introduce six key points allowing sellers to identify whether their claims are correct and these are self-policing actions on truth, clarity, transparency, fair and meaningful comparisons, substantiated claims and have companies considered the full lifecycle of the product. If these key points are unpacked then it is extremely difficult for a company within the building supply industry to make claims without meeting these criteria.
TTF (2023) Timber Trade Federation. Available at https://ttf.co.uk/ [Accessed online February 2023]
Greenclaims (2023) HM Government Green Claims Code https://greenclaims.campaign.gov.uk/ [Accessed online February 2023]
Travis Perkins (2023) RMI Index. Available at https://www.travisperkinsplc.co.uk/news-and-media/rmi-index/ [Accesed online February 2023]
Lang,J. (2022) IBISWorld : Hardware, Plumbing & Heating Equipment Wholesaling in the UK.