Leading anti-greenwash voice joins Big Room’s Dot Eco bid

TerraChoice, North America’s leading environmental marketing company, and a leading voice against greenwashing, will join the global team supporting Big Room’s application to create a new .eco (Dot Eco) Internet extension.

“Big Room’s Dot Eco is about trust and transparency – two critical components of enabling green markets,” said Scott McDougall, President and CEO of TerraChoice. “Dot Eco will be a useful tool in the fight against greenwash by helping to disclose details about a company’s environmental performance and impact. We’re pleased to lend our support.”

In 2009, TerraChoice Environmental Marketing released its Seven Sins of Greenwashing report on environmental claims in consumer markets, revealing that 98 per cent of products surveyed were found to be greenwashing.

The Big Room Inc. application for the Dot Eco extension has been developed along with an international team of advisors and investors with deep roots in sustainability, environmental, and business communities.

TerraChoice will join other leading organizations including WWF International, Green Cross International, David Suzuki Foundation, Verité, and ISEAL Alliance on the Dot Eco Stakeholder Council. The Stakeholder Council is a key body guiding Big Room’s global policy development process for how Dot Eco should work.

“We’re excited that Terrachoice has lined up behind our vision for Dot Eco – we both understand that Dot Eco must be credible and trustworthy – part of the solution to greenwashing,” said Anastasia O’Rourke, Big Room co-founder. “Terrachoice’s extensive experience with the EcoLogo environmental certification program, and its ‘Sins of Greenwashing’ series will be invaluable as Big Room continues to build its application for Dot Eco.”

Big Room’s ‘.eco system’ will place key environmental and sustainability information along side the technical information collected and stored when a web address is registered. The .eco system will display current, detailed eco-information to anyone with a browser, anytime they need it, anywhere on the planet.

Big Room will submit its application for Dot Eco when the application round for new gTLDs overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers opens in the first quarter of 2010.

For more information on Big Room’s application for Dot Eco, visit http://doteco.info, or follow us at http://www.twitter.com/doteco

About Terrachoice Environmental Marketing

As a global environmental marketing firm, TerraChoice Environmental Marketing helps grow the world’s most sustainable companies. TerraChoice’s consulting practice converts knowledge of environmental science, markets, and marketing into winning, client-centered solutions to help sustainability leaders deliver results. For more information, visit http://www.terrachoice.com.

About Big Room

Big Room Inc. is a Canadian company based in Vancouver, British Columbia with an office in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 2007 with the goal of empowering the global community to make informed environmental and sustainability choices. Big Room’s three co-founders are committed environmentalists with a long history of working with organisations, governments and companies to bring about positive environmental and social change. For more information, visit http://www.bigroom.ca.

TerraChoice media contact:

Kate Rusnak (Ottawa)
krusnak {at} terrachoice(.)com
(office) +1 613 247 1900 ext. 250

Big Room media contact:

Tom Jennings (London)
tom.jennings {at} edelman(.)com
(mobile) +44 774 003 8925
(office) +44 203 047 2308