The first highlight of the day was the presentation about Green marketing claims. In a more environmentally progressive place like Oregon, many consumers are hyper-conscience about the source of green whether it’s in their vegetables, paper bags or energy. Claims such as “natural,” “green,” and “eco-friendly” need to be backed by real, hard evidence. Since environmental marketing is so new it’s taking regulators a while to keep up with the demand for and attraction to greener products. The newest official green guides put out by the Federal Trade Commission are expected for early 2011. In line with earlier version of the guide, the marketing compliance officer from Green-e Energy stressed the singular importance of specificity and avoiding all “sweeping claims” when it comes to advertising renewable energy.

Susan Herbert, an expert in the field of environmental standards development, devoted much of her presentation to the concept of “green-washing.” Her organization helps protect consumers against bogus or vague green claims by actually digging into the sources behind them. Her advice for marketers included relying on third party certification for your claims (Green-e for example) and keeping the big picture and social complexities in mind: for example driving a car is always bad for the environment, but a car with better gas mileage is less bad.

Other highlights today included Al Forte, the Global Environment Director for ABinBev (aka Anheiser Busch). He echoed much of Sierra Nevada’s sentiment from Day 2 that companies stand to benefit beyond just a “warm and fuzzy” feeling from using better energy sources. The company has come up with innovative ways to use energy output for energy input in other processes, ultimately cutting costs.