Marketing sustainability claims: Transparency is key to mitigate risks and avoid embarrassing backlash

Michael J. McDermott

Looks at why the business case for sustainability has been widely embraced and the steps companies must take to make sure sustainability claims are widely viewed as being above-board.

Making sustainability claims has become the new normal for major brands, and it's a trend that's reaching down into smaller businesses as well. "There's no SEC mandate for it, like there is for financial disclosure, but the practice is nearly as widespread," says Joe Rizzo, director of sustainability auditing at BPA Worldwide.

As of 2018, 86 percent of the companies that make up the S&P 500 Index were publishing sustainability and/or corporate responsibility reports, according to research by the Governance & Accountability Institute (G&A). That's a dramaticincrease from the 20 percent publishing such reports just seven years earlier....

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