ASA Adjudication on Eurostar Group Ltd

Ad

An e-mail and a national press ad for Eurostar services from St Pancras.

a. The e-mail stated "113 sunrises before a dawn like no other. Book now for the new era of travel. 14.11.07. This significant day in Eurostar's history marks the arrival of high speed rail to the heart of London ... Our first carbon neutral journeys ... Less than 4 months to go ... until carbon neutral journeys ... Our first train out of St Pancras International on 14 November - then every subsequent Eurostar service - will be carbon neutral ... ".

b. The national press ad showed an aerial view of St Pancras International station. The text stated "3 months to go ... until carbon neutral journeys arrive ... ".

Issue

Four complainants, one of whom represented the Commuter Action Group (CAG), challenged the claim that the service would be "carbon neutral".  CAG complained in particular that the claim was misleading because Eurostar trains had to pass through the Channel Tunnel, which produced emissions as a result of its internal refrigeration system. Other complainants were concerned that the energy used in constructing the trains, the track, stations and the tunnels had not been taken into account when offsetting the journeys.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Eurostar said it was committed to reducing its environmental impact and explained that two years of due diligence had been undertaken to allow them to implement an environmental strategy across the whole business.  They explained that they had a long term strategy to reduce CO2 emissions per passenger journey and that, where that was not possible, they would invest in a range of schemes in order to offset the remaining emissions.  They explained that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not have a definition of "carbon neutral" and, because of that, they had undertaken a lot of research to ensure that they complied with the highest possible standard of best practice available in the field.  They said they had worked with independent third parties such as Environmental Resource Management Ltd (ERM) and Friends of the Earth.  They supplied a copy of a report comparing CO2 emissions from high speed rail and short-haul air travel they had commissioned from an international consultant on energy use and the environment.  They explained that the "journey" was the aspect of their customers trip that Eurostar had control over, on a point to point basis, and included: energy use by the train for traction: auxiliary energy used to power lights and heating; and global warming potential of on board refrigerants.  

They pointed out that Eurotunnel was a completely separate legal entity and that they were one of the users of the Channel Tunnel only.  They explained that it was a common misconception that they were the same company as Eurotunnel.  They explained that the use of the tunnel was integral to their business, but they were unable to comment on the energy use of the actual tunnel, including its refrigeration units.  They reiterated that they were offsetting those carbon emissions over which they had control but that would not include auxiliary services provided by Eurotunnel.  They explained that they would purchase credits up front, both voluntary emissions reductions (VER) and certified emissions reductions (CER), and that those credits were from offset providers that guaranteed emissions reductions that were quantifiable and third party audited.  They believed in that way they could guarantee their customers that their passenger journeys would be neutral from 14 November 2007.  They said their own calculations and processes used to offset carbon emissions would be independently audited by ERM on an ongoing basis to ensure they complied with their aim of reducing CO2 emissions overall and offering carbon neutral journeys.  

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA understood that Defra had no accepted definition for "carbon neutral" and what it should account for, for example, whether it should include an organisation's energy use to build its premises or for its workers to get to and from work.  We noted the claim in both ads stated "journeys" and considered that readers would be likely to understand that to mean London St Pancras to the corresponding station in France or Belgium.  We acknowledged that Eurostar did not control the energy usage of the Channel Tunnel and considered that most people would expect a claim of "carbon neutral journeys" to refer to those aspects of the journey for which Eurostar was responsible.  We noted Eurostar planned to offset the traction energy used by a train, the auxiliary energy used to power lights and heating and the global warming potential of the chemicals that leaked from the on-board refrigerants and air conditioning units, but not the energy used in the manufacture of the rolling stock or the track, stations and tunnels.  We undertood from expert advice that it was generally accepted that transport-related carbon neutrality involved energy consumption or fuel burn of the vehicle in question, with external emissions associated with infrastructure lying outside of the scope.

We took expert advice in relation to the calculation methodologies and data assurance stragegies used by Eurostar.  We understood that they were sound and used by reputable experts in the field. Our expert advised that Eurostar had demonstrated that they had followed the broadly accepted best practice methodology for carbon neutrality for their train journeys. We understood that Eurostar had purchased the requisite number of CERs to substantiate the offsetting claim at the time the ad appeared and that they planned to purchase both CERs and VERs to offset their energy usage in future.

We noted CERs were certified and regulated within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme or the Kyoto Protocol and so were verifiable. We sought expert advice in relation to the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) and Voluntary Gold Standard (GS VER) offsets that Eurostar intended to purchase from the voluntary market.

Our expert advised that a number of key factors needed to be taken into account when considering whether an offset was robust.  He explained that factors such as additionality, validation, verification, project type, timing of credits, leakage and double counting should be considered.  He advised that the GS VER was comparable in quality to the Kyoto compliant CER, although coming from the voluntary market; he advised that the VCS was broadly comparable in quality, although there was further work to do in one or two areas.

We considered that consumers would be likely to expect companies wishing to claim carbon neutrality by offsetting their carbon emissions to do so in a robust and verifiable manner. We acknowledged that Eurostar had followed best practice methodology for carbon neutrality and that credits were to be either certified (CERs), or from projects that complied with one of the Standards within the voluntary market that were evaluated and validated to a sufficiently high level.  Because Eurostar had demonstrated that the claim "carbon neutral journeys" was based on a robust and verifiable offsetting system, we concluded that they had justified the claim.   

We investigated the ads under CAP Code clauses 3.1 and 3.2(Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 49.1 (Environmental claims) but did not find them in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)