What is Greenwashing?

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About Greenwashing

What is it? It is the process of conveying a false impression or misleading information about how a company’s products are environmentally sound.
Greenwashing involves making an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company’s products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they actually do.
In addition, greenwashing may occur when a company attempts to emphasize sustainable aspects of a product to overshadow its involvement in environmentally damaging practices.
Companies can also greenwash initiatives with vague claims that don’t provide real data or scientific validation for the claims.
For example, a car vendor claims that a vehicle is eco-friendly because it is more fuel-efficient, while failing to mention or consider the larger industrial impact of vehicle manufacturing on the environment.

Key Facts about Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

It is a voluntary self-regulatory organization of the advertising industry in India.
Established in 1985, ASCI is registered as a non-profit company under Section 25 of the Company Act.
It comprises of members from marketing, creative, media, and allied companies in India.
It is committed to the cause of self-regulation in advertising, ensuring the protection of the interests of consumers.
ASCI seeks to ensure that advertisements conform to its Code for Self-Regulation, which requires advertisements to be legal, decent, honest, and truthful, and not hazardous or harmful while observing fairness in competition.
It looks into complaints across all media, such as Print, TV, Radio, hoardings, SMS, Emailers, Internet/web-site, product packaging, brochures, promotional material, and point-of-sale material, etc.
It is a part of the Executive Committee of the International Council on Ad Self-Regulation (ICAS).

Q1) What is the International Council on Ad Self-Regulation (ICAS)?

ICAS is a global platform which promotes effective advertising self-regulation. ICAS members include self-regulatory organizations (SROs) as well as regional and international organizations working to promote adverts which are legal, decent, honest and truthful.

Source: ASCI proposes guidelines to check greenwashing in ads