“Membership, I have an old member at the front desk who needs assistance.” I cringed.

I had let my membership to the health club expire last year and now I was back to re-up. Technically, the woman at the front desk was correct when she referred to me as an old member, but I would have much preferred the descriptor “previous.” That would have eliminated the ambiguity and my fear that someone would arrive to greet me with a wheelchair.

While this is a shallow example of why qualifiers are important, it does illustrate how word choice, even when technically correct, can be misleading. That’s what’s at the heart of the recently proposed revisions to the Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides.

Green is the new old. It has been deemed a relative term as have “degradable, compostable, safe, friendly, recyclable and non-toxic.” All of these claims are clarified in the FTC’s proposal which is designed to help consumers make more educated purchase decisions. Most of the guidance is related to minimum qualifications for making a claim. For example, degradable, means complete decomposition occurs no more than one year after customer disposal. Gone is the subjective “within a reasonably short period of time.”

There’s no doubt clarification is needed. If “eco-friendly and non-toxic” become as subjective as the ubiquitous “new and improved” then the benefits of green technology and sustainable approaches are trivialized. Innovation would be, at best, incremental.

There’s also no doubt many communicators will find these new guidelines constraining. After all, we strive to be concise in our communications. However, the best marketers have always been those who roll up their sleeves, talk with product developers and understand the supply chain. Understanding the substance behind a product claim has always been a best practice for success. It’s no different with products that have an environmental benefit.

I fear some communicators will make one of two mistakes in response to these new guidelines:

• Shy away from promoting legitimate environmental benefits for fear of running afoul of the FTC guidelines. This would deprive consumers of valuable information and devalue the importance of improving the environmental footprint of products.
• Search for the one perfect descriptor word the FTC hasn’t addressed. This is an approach with a short shelf-life and little value unless it’s backed up with the proper qualifiers. There’s no substitute for understanding the full context of how the products you promote are made, used and disposed of.

What the FTC guidance boils down to is a greater need for context. After my experience at the health club, I’m a big proponent of context, AND I’m thankful the receptionist didn’t refer to me as expired.

(Guest contributor Ron Loch is a senior vice president at Gibbs & Soell Public Relations. He leads the firm’s Greentech & Sustainability Practice, collaborating with G&S colleagues specializing in advanced manufacturing and energy, agribusiness and food, consumer lifestyle and building solutions, professional services, and technology and general science.)