Green claims review for customer-facing marketing

This service is useful for businesses that market products, services, venues, or programs using terms such as sustainable, recyclable, compostable, carbon neutral, low waste, ethical, or environmentally friendly. It can be relevant whether the claims appear on packaging, websites, menus, paid ads, social media, or promotional campaigns. It is especially helpful if your business is launching a new sustainability campaign, expanding into new channels, or relying on supplier information that has not yet been legally reviewed from a customer-facing claims perspective.

The main issues are usually overstatement, lack of evidence, unclear qualifications, and broad claims that mean different things to different customers. For example, a claim may sound absolute even though it only applies to one part of the product lifecycle, one ingredient, or one delivery option. Comparisons with competitors can also create risk if the basis is not clear. We review how the claim is expressed, what support appears to sit behind it, and whether disclaimers or qualifications are doing enough work in context.

The service includes a legal review of your environmental and sustainability claims, advice on relevant New Zealand consumer law issues, a written report with suggested improvements, and a follow-up call to discuss the findings. It is broader than a quick consult because it looks at the claims across the materials you provide and how they are presented to customers. It does not include permit applications, marketing strategy advice, or ongoing representation if a complaint, regulator issue, or dispute later develops beyond the review stage.

Yes, where the promotion includes green or sustainability claims, we can review the customer-facing wording and flag legal issues in how those claims are presented. It is worth noting that permit requirements can vary depending on where and how the promotion runs, and promotion rules may depend on the mechanics and location of the competition. The terms also need to reflect the actual promotion mechanics and prize structure. If your campaign includes a competition element, let us know so we can identify whether further terms or separate advice may be needed.

Not always. Supplier material, labels, and certification logos can be helpful, but they do not automatically make your customer-facing claim safe to use in every context. Risk can arise if your marketing goes further than the underlying evidence, uses broader language than the certification supports, or leaves out important qualifications. We can review how those supporting materials connect to the claims you want to publish and flag where the wording may need to be narrowed, explained, or better substantiated before use.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Green Claims Review service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.