Quilted Northern Ultra Soft & Strong Bathroom Tissue (USA, Product packaging & Online)

Quilted Northern’s website details how it plants trees to make up for those used to make bathroom tissue. It tracks the number of trees consumed throughout its manufacturing process and documentation as to trees regrown for each tree used and its plan (and implementation) to plant a set number of trees by 2021.

NAD determined that Quilted Northern needed to clearly disclose that the 30% savings claim it makes is limited to a portion of the manufacturing process. Other claims around water and energy savings gave consumers an accurate sense of the scale of savings but NAD recommended that Quilted Northern avoid conveying the unsupported message that it can accomplish all the savings in aggregate.

In short, its “sustainability” claims should be limited to specific environmental benefits.

Complaint upheld.

Read the full ruling here.

The Global Guidance on Evironmental Claims offers marketers a selection of case studies that ilustrate the contents of the guidance with real life examples. See full list here.