Truth-in-advertising rules for environmental claims can help build trust

Collecting data is hard. Analyzing and gaining valid and relevant insights is even harder. The science of data is imperfect and always evolving, and the data itself often changes each time it is collected. 

But sharing good data – current and verified data – is one of the key ways organizations across any sector can build trust. We need the facts (or at least, what we know to be true at any one moment in time) to help us explain the world, impacts, consequences and benefits.

It’s been a few weeks and there is still a national dialogue about the federal government’s Bill C-59, which makes key amendments to the Competition Act.

It has been, in effect, a dust-up about data.

This legislation, which received royal assent on June 20, would require companies and organizations to back up claims of environmental outcomes—either expected or achieved—with data and facts. Think of this as truth-in-advertising but applied beyond consumer goods to environmental and climate disclosure, including in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

The environmental advocacy community pushed for more data to compel the fossil fuel sector to prove its assertions around greenhouse gas reductions. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and Pathways Alliance, which represents the oil sands industry, has expressed a deep discomfort about the legislation. They added bold disclaimers on their websites and social platforms to indicate that they may not have all the data to back up the assertions they make, or, in the case of Pathways Alliance, dramatically pulled their online presence completely.

Although they may be hard to implement, the amendments could bring long-term benefits, especially to the oil and gas sector and others where there is divisiveness or lack of public trust and support.

Why? In short, because data can help build trust.

We have rarely lived in more polarizing times. Extreme points of view as well as social media that only serves us ideas that we agree with means it’s harder and harder to have meaningful discussions about big issues such as climate action, what and where key infrastructure should be built and how to generate energy. It’s getting harder to have healthy dialogue, consult meaningfully and receive constructive feedback because we don’t have a shared understanding of the impacts or benefits. We just don’t have enough trusted data.

The legislation is not perfect. It came without the prior consultation that would have been helpful to improve it and gain buy-in and understanding. The penalties seem overly high—up to three per cent of worldwide revenues if allegations are proven—and the ability for anyone to make a complaint that triggers some form of investigation may invite nuisance complaints. We don’t want to weaponize the new law and its goal of getting good data. This might require a…