Firms have continued to submit deceptive greenwashing adverts after being censured by the Advertising Requirements Authority (ASA), in line with an investigation.
Greenpeace UK’s investigative journalism unit, Unearthed, studies that Virgin Atlantic, Renault and Aqua Pura are amongst firms that continued to publish unfounded claims concerning the environmental credentials of their merchandise after being informed to take away such adverts by the promoting watchdog.
In 2021, the ASA introduced a greenwashing crackdown, censuring firms for making claims with out proof. It mentioned 44 corporations had made deceptive commercials. As lately as final week, at the least 5 of those corporations have been nonetheless posting claims they’d been censured for making, in line with Unearthed.
ASA guidelines imply advertisers must be clear concerning the proof behind any environmental claims, and a excessive burden of proof is required for any absolute claims, corresponding to {that a} product is “sustainable” or “eco-friendly”. The watchdog has few powers to make sure firms adjust to their rulings; it says if corporations are seen to be ignoring the foundations it could possibly “considerably injury their status”. Nonetheless, it doesn’t have the facility to subject fines to advertisers.
Sanctions accessible embody naming the corporate on the ASA web site, asking search engines like google and yahoo to take away paid search adverts that comprise the declare, asking social media firms to take away “non-compliant content material”, and taking out its personal paid search adverts naming the corporate.
Virgin Atlantic has stored posts “pinned” to the highest of its Instagram, TikTok and X accounts, claiming it accomplished the primary transatlantic flight utilizing “100% sustainable aviation gas”, in line with Unearthed. That is regardless of the ASA making a ruling towards the airline 9 months in the past for this wording in an advert, as a result of it was more likely to lead customers to overestimate the carbon financial savings of utilizing the gas – it thought customers would interpret “100% sustainable aviation gas” to imply the gas was fully sustainable with no destructive environmental affect.
Renault repeatedly printed movies on Fb and YouTube final yr claiming its hybrid vehicles provided “as much as 80% electrical driving within the metropolis”, regardless of a 2023 ASA ruling discovering this wording to be deceptive.
Different automotive producers have continued to make inexperienced claims about their automobiles after being censured by the ASA. MG final yr promoted its hybrid vehicles as “zero emissions”, however the ASA dominated the declare deceptive, as hybrid automobiles should not zero emissions when being powered by petrol or diesel. Electrical automobiles are zero emissions solely when driving if the electrical energy that charged them is 100% renewable. An August 2024 brochure for an electrical car promoted in an unique advert banned by the ASA repeatedly used the time period “zero emissions” with out clarification. In the meantime, an advert for a used MG4 on the corporate’s web site means that drivers can “embrace zero emissions” with out clarification.
The entrance web page of bottled water model Aqua Pura’s web site as lately as final week boasted about its “NEW Environmentally Pleasant Caps”, three years after the ASA informed the corporate to cease claiming that plastic bottle lids have been “eco-friendly”. Easigrass, which makes plastic lawns, was informed by the ASA greater than a yr in the past to cease calling its artificial grass merchandise “eco-friendly”. Nonetheless, it has continued to assert on its web site that one in every of its plastic grass merchandise is “eco-friendly and 100% recyclable”. On the time, the watchdog mentioned that there was no proof that plastic grass was “eco pleasant” and just one facility within the UK can recycle plastic grass.
An ASA spokesperson mentioned: “Our world-leading work on local weather change and the setting continues to be a precedence space and we proceed to proactively monitor inexperienced claims utilizing our AI-based Lively Advert Monitoring system, discovering adverts that doubtlessly break our guidelines and getting people who do shortly amended or eliminated.
“We’re seeing companies adapting and evolving to make higher evidenced, extra exact inexperienced claims. For instance, following our airline rulings on ‘sustainable’ and ‘eco-friendly’ claims, of the circa 140,000 adverts monitored, 5 have been discovered to be non-compliant. However the place we discover points, we act; as evidenced by our collection of high-profile rulings towards a variety of companies together with a number of the largest firms on the planet.”
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson mentioned: “We’re dedicated to reaching internet zero by 2050 and key to this will likely be utilizing sustainable aviation gas (SAF), which is without doubt one of the most speedy levers to decarbonising lengthy haul aviation. Flight100 was a milestone for trade globally because it proved that SAF is a protected, 100% drop-in substitute for fossil gas and demonstrated the unconventional collaboration required to drive elevated manufacturing, provide and uptake.
“Social posts have been shared to mark the achievement, exhibit the breadth of the challenge and the challenges that stay for the trade to attain internet zero.”
after publication promotion
A Renault spokesperson mentioned: “Renault UK takes its tasks severely and can examine the problems raised.”
An Aqua Pura spokesperson mentioned its promoting staff had lately undergone a restructuring, which means it was tough to implement all of the suggestions, including: “We are going to confirm the present and future utility of all suggestions referring to environmental claims, notably on our web site.”
MG Motor UK mentioned: “MG Motor UK absolutely accepted after which instantly responded to the ASA on the time, this associated to a hybrid car additionally being featured alongside an EV mannequin and this was a degree of clarification from the ASA which we accepted. We are going to all the time absolutely and actively cooperate with the ASA relating to any pointers and all our inventive groups are actively briefed to take action.”
An Easigrass spokesperson mentioned: “We acknowledge the ASA’s ruling issued in March 2024 and may affirm that the advertising language referenced in your message was scheduled for elimination following that call. Whereas our intention was to make sure all related content material was up to date accordingly, it seems a small variety of archived references have been inadvertently missed by our web site staff.”
