COMMUNICATING ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION - ARE MARKETING CLAIMS ON PACKAGING MISLEADING

The increased usage of questionable environmental marketing claims has become an issue of concern for academics, policy makers and consumers . Much of the research to date, has focused on the accuracy of environ mental claims in advertisements, with the information on product packa ging being largely ignored. This study uses a content analysis to exam ine the environmental information on packaging. More specifically it e xamines the packaging of the population of dishwashing liquid bottles available in grocery stores in a large city in Australia. Evaluation c riteria are developed to classify the various types of information and the degree to which the information is ''misleading''. Seven differen t informational categories and four accuracy categories are developed. These criteria are developed based on the existing environmental adve rtising literature and environmental marketing regulations in the U.S. and Australia. It was found that a majority of the packaging informat ion can be classified as being not accurate.