Via Instapundit, a New York Time has an article about the difficulties Home Dept has had in verifying that products that claim to be green friendly are in fact good for the environment. It’s hard not to think the underlying theme is that state regulation needs to be implemented to insure the veracity of company claims that their products are eco-friendly.

Of interest to me is this passage:

Home Depot is working with Scientific Certification Systems, a private company based in Emeryville, Calif., that audits and certifies company claims, to develop new broad-based standards. They will grade a product based on its environmental record over its entire life cycle — including the sustainability of its production process, its efficiency and longevity and how it can be recycled when it is no longer useful.

Unsurprising, the markets have already responded to the preponderance of dubious claims companies are making about the eco-friendly quality of their products. Also unsurprising will be the increasing political pressure to have the state regulate companies making eco-friendly claims. What will be surprising to supporters of this policy will be retailers getting behind this policy. By using government to force companies to back up their claims of eco-friendliness they no longer need to pay private companies to perform the verification.

Why pay for something when you can get the government to force someone else to pay for, all the while looking like a responsible corporate citizen for supporting policy that ‘protects’ the environment.

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