Earth Island Institute v. Coca-Cola Co.

The D.C. Superior Court dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Coca-Cola Company’s statements about its sustainability initiatives on various platforms such as its website and Twitter constituted false and deceptive marketing in violation of the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA). The court first found that the plaintiff failed to state a claim because Coca-Cola’s statements were “aspirational in nature” and therefore not in violation of the CPPA. In addition, the court found that statements regarding “corporate ethos, hopes, and philosophies” in corporate communications could not be considered “part of the product itself” and therefore could not serve as the basis for claims under CPPA provisions that require deception involving a specific “goods or services.” With respect to the CPPA provisions not tied to specific “goods and services,” the court found that a claim could not be made “on the basis of a ‘general impression’ or a ‘mosaic of representations’” but instead that misrepresentations had to be tied to a material fact. The court further found that, “[e]ven taken together,” Coca-Cola’s statements were “aspirational, limited, and vague such that, as a matter of law, such statements cannot be misleading.”

Earth Island Institute—a “public-interest organization” whose mission includes “educating consumers … and engaging in advocacy related to environmental and human health issues”—brought a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against The Coca-Cola Company alleging that Coca-Cola engaged in false and deceptive marketing by representing itself as a “sustainable and environmentally friendly company, despite being one of the largest contributors to plastic pollution in the world.” The complaint asserted violations of D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act. Among the harmful impacts of plastic pollution alleged by the plaintiff were plastics’ “incredibly carbon-intensive life cycles.”