Last month, the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe sued Seattle City Light, which calls itself the “nation’s greenest utility,” claiming that the public electric utility’s environmental claims were untruthful. Despite generating 80 percent of its electricity is from hydropower — which produces no direct greenhouse gas emissions — the utility’s hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River are harming fish populations, according to the lawsuit.

“They are greenwashing, and they’re deceiving the public,” said Nino Maltos, chair of the Sauk-Suiattle tribe. “Their dams are killing off the fish that we rely on.”

The tribe’s lawsuit follows a slew of other legal actions from consumers, advocacy groups, and states over alleged greenwashing — “a tidal wave” of cases, according to Zorka Milin, senior legal counsel for the international nonprofit Global Witness. Such cases tend to invoke a combination of state-level tort and consumer protection laws, which together can link deceptive advertising to financial, physical, or emotional harm. While the jury is still out on how successful these lawsuits can be, legal experts are hopeful that they can play a role in holding corporations accountable for discrepancies between their advertising and their business models.

Other greenwashing-related consumer protection lawsuits have been filed in states including Vermont, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Delaware, and cities and counties including Marin County, California; Baltimore, Maryland; King County, Washington; and Washington, D.C.

It’s still too early to know whether the majority of these cases will see victory, but it’s clear that their targets are willing to go to great lengths to delay them. According to Karen Sokol, an associate professor at the Loyola University College of Law, defendants often appeal their cases to a federal court, claiming that the state claims are “federal claims in disguise.”

Read the full article about legal action against greenwashing by Joseph Winters at Grist.