What a green-claims pre-check cannot see

A green-claims checker is at its most useful when it is honest about its own limits. The FTC Green Guides (16 CFR Part 260) regulate claims whose truth lives almost entirely outside the wording — in lab reports, facility data, supply-chain records and certification files. A tool that only reads your sentence can flag risk patterns in that sentence; it cannot confirm the claim. Confusing those two is how teams end up with a false sense of safety, and for a brand the cost of that false safety is measured in relabel runs and paused campaigns after the claim has already shipped. So the boundary is not a disclaimer bolted onto the end — it is the thing that makes the check worth trusting for what it actually does.

It cannot see whether your numbers are real

The whole point of most green claims is a substantiated number or condition, and every one of them lives off the page. "50% recycled content" under § 260.13 — a checker can confirm the wording includes a fraction and a pre- or post-consumer basis, but it cannot see your bills of materials, or whether 50% is true, or whether it applies to the product or only the packaging. "Recyclable" under § 260.12 — a checker can note that you did or did not add a facility-access qualifier; whether facilities actually exist and accept the item in your market is external data it never touches. "Compostable" or "biodegradable" under § 260.7 and § 260.8 — a checker can flag a missing home-versus-industrial qualifier or timeframe; whether the material decomposes as claimed, in the environment it will really be discarded in, is a lab question. "Carbon neutral" under § 260.5 — a checker can flag wording that implies zero emissions when it rests on offsets; the offset registry, the methodology, and whether the reduction is additional are outside the text.

It cannot check a certification

§ 260.6 governs seals and third-party marks. A checker can tell you that a "certified" or an eco-logo appears unqualified — with no named certifier or scope — which is itself a risk. It cannot verify that a certification exists, is current, covers the product line you put it on, or does not imply a government endorsement it is not. A "certified compostable" phrase with a logo you cannot substantiate is more dangerous than no logo at all, and only you can check that it is real.

It cannot render the shelf or the phone screen

Placement matters for green claims the same way it does for any package message. A qualifier printed in two-point type under a large "100% recyclable" may not be "clear and conspicuous" under § 260.3 even though the words are technically present. A text checker reads the copy you paste; it does not see the font size, the layout, the seal on the front panel versus the disclaimer on the back. If your qualifier exists but is visually buried, the checker's wording-level pass is wrong about the real thing a shopper sees. Treat "the words are there" as necessary, not sufficient.

It cannot predict enforcement, and it is not a legal opinion

The Green Guides are guidance, and the FTC's position has evolved — the 2022–2024 review touched carbon offsets, "recyclable," and several other recurring phrases. Whether any specific claim draws a warning letter, a retailer rejection, or an action depends on facts and discretion a checker does not model. Nothing here reproduces a regulator's internal scoring, and a clean report is not an approval. Conversely, a flagged claim is not an accusation — it is a prompt to look closer at wording the guides already warn about. For an actual determination on a product and a market, you need the underlying substantiation and, where it counts, a lawyer.

It cannot read your whole life cycle

A green claim implicitly compares a product against something across its life cycle — extraction, manufacture, use, disposal. § 260.2 asks that qualified claims be substantiated and that you not trade one environmental harm for another while advertising a benefit. A checker sees one sentence. It has no life-cycle assessment, so it can flag "an absolute that implies no trade-offs," but it cannot tell you whether "better for the environment overall" is true — which is exactly the claim an umbrella term makes.

So what is the point?

The point is a fast, consistent, published-guides-shaped second pair of eyes on the wording, at the moment the wording is written — before print, when a fix is one sentence, instead of after a complaint, when it is a recall and a relabel. Flag the unqualified umbrella term, the specific claim missing its qualifier, the absolute, the unnamed certification. That is a real, deterministic service, repeatable every run against the same public sections. It is just not verification, not a compliance verdict, and not legal advice. The honest sentence "this checker reads your claim; it cannot prove it" is the most useful thing a green-claims tool can say — and the boundary it describes is exactly where you, holding the lab report and the certificate and the market data, do the actual substantiating.

Heuristic pre-check only — not a green-claims certification or legal advice. No life-cycle, lab, facility-access, certification or offset-registry verification, and no enforcement prediction is performed. For binding guidance, consult the FTC Green Guides (16 CFR Part 260) and a qualified professional.