A climate of change: environmentally friendly advertising claims on the rise
Introduction
Climate change. Whether or not the bleak environmental future predicted for our planet as a result of climate change actually comes to bear, there is no denying that a media storm has already been whipped up around this topic. The stark warnings from scientists, Government and environmental groups about the impact of climate change have seen it rapidly become headline news. However, it’s not just the climate that is hotting up, so is the race to be seen as the greenest.
A growing trend over recent years has seen more and more businesses beginning to tout their eco-friendly credentials. Being green is one thing but being seen to be green is fast becoming a key commercial battle ground as companies vie for the custom of environmentally conscious consumers.
But in the gold rush to be green companies can sometimes be guilty of blowing hot air. When making claims in their advertisements about the environmental friendliness of their company, product or service some advertisers have fallen foul of the advertising codes. Advertising ‘green’ claims may be on the increase but the Advertising Standards Authority is here to ensure that consumers can be confident that advertisers operate in a climate of truth.
A waste of energy?
There are a lot of ‘buzz’ phrases surrounding the preventative measures being taken to tackle climate change. Many people will have heard terms such as ‘carbon offsetting’, ‘carbon footprint’ or ‘carbon neutral’. But if reducing carbon is what it’s all about, what kind of claims can advertisers make when championing their efforts to be greener?
Scottish & Southern Energy Group (SSE) recently distributed a leaflet that encouraged consumers to join their ‘power2’ scheme as a means of cutting CO2 emissions. It claimed that their scheme was “A GOOD USE OF YOUR ENERGY … we supply cleaner hydro-electricity to the National Grid … we plant trees to balance out the CO2 that your gas heating and household waste produces.” The ASA received a complaint that the claim about planting trees to offset the CO2 emissions was misleading and could not be substantiated.
In its defence SSE stated that for every consumer who signed up to the advertised scheme they would plant sufficient trees to absorb the amount of CO2 produced by the household waste production and gas consumption of an average UK household. Furthermore they said they had entered into a three year agreement with the World Land Trust (WLT) to ensure 150,000 growing trees per annum were planted in the UK or worldwide. SSE provided a breakdown of the average annual gas consumption and the domestic waste produced per household in the UK and how much CO2 that produced.
Whilst the ASA acknowledged that SSE could provide evidence of large scale tree planting and how much CO2 the average UK household produced, it had not provided evidence to show the amount of CO2 that would be absorbed by the trees that were planted. Because it was not possible to determine whether the trees planted would balance out the CO2 produced by UK households the ASA concluded that SSE could not substantiate their claim. SSE were told not to use the ad in its current form again.
Misleading by emissions?
One product that finds itself on the receiving end of a lot of criticism for increasing carbon emissions is the car. For many people their car is indispensable despite the environmental cost, but for the increasingly vociferous green lobby groups cars are viewed as a major part of the problem.
So it is perhaps no surprise that car manufacturers have been quick to reassure consumers that they are doing all they can to make their vehicles as environmentally friendly as possible. With cleaner fuels, hybrid-cars and more efficient engines on the market competition to promote them as green has inevitably led to some problematic advertisements.
When Volkswagen launched a national press ad for its Golf GT TSI and stated that despite its “High performance” it produced “Low emissions” before emphasising the message again with the text “More power, less pollution. Better to drive. Better for the planet” the environmental claims were clear for all to see. Text at the bottom of the ad stated “CO2 emissions for the Golf GT TSI are lower than other engines with similar outputs”.
It wasn’t long before members of the public contacted the ASA to object that the claim “Low emissions” was misleading. The complainants objected because in a total emissions comparison, the Golf TSI was in the fifth most polluting band out of seven.
Volkswagen argued that the ad communicated that the Golf TSI had low emissions for a car of its performance level and that it emitted significantly less CO2 than a competitor’s car. They believed the footnote of the ad made clear that the emissions for the car were lower than other engines with similar power outputs.
The ASA upheld the complaints. Although the ASA acknowledged that the TSI had lower carbon dioxide emissions than other cars with a similar performance it believed that consumers would interpret the claim “low emissions” to mean the car had low emissions when compared to all cars. Because this was not the case and because the comparison with vehicles delivering similar performance was not prominent or linked to the headline claim the ASA considered that it was misleading and the ad had to be withdrawn.
Similarly another major car manufacturer, Lexus were subject to a formal investigation by the ASA when they ran a magazine ad for the Lexus RX 400h car that was headlined “HIGH PERFORMANCE. LOW EMISSIONS. ZERO GUILT. … The world’s first high performance hybrid SUV … category-leading low CO2 emissions.”
Ten members of the public complained that the claims “LOW EMISSIONS” and “ZERO GUILT” gave a misleading impression of the car’s CO2 emissions in comparison with other vehicles and that the ad implied the car didn’t cause much harm to the environment. Lexus defended their ad and argued that the ad clarified the type of car the headline claims referred to and believed readers would understand the claims were made in relation to SUV’s only.
Although the ASA acknowledged in its ruling that the CO2 emissions rate for the Lexus were low compared to other cars in its class, it considered the headline claims gave the misleading impression that the car caused little or no harm to the environment. Also, the ad did not make it sufficiently clear that the low emissions claim was made in the context of the car’s category only. The ad was therefore found in breach of the advertising code and Lexus were informed not to imply in future that a car caused little or no harm to the environment or that the low CO2 emissions comparison was with all cars when this was not the case.
Brave new world
Industry, keen to show that it is working hard to be part of the solution as opposed to the problem are investing money in a whole host of environmentally friendly initiatives. Corporate social responsibility is a major facet of modern big business and promoting ‘green’ credentials can also be a useful exercise in gaining some positive PR.
This is perhaps best exemplified by the “We’re in this Together” scheme as reported in Marketing Week (26/04/07). “The three-year campaign aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25 million tonnes by 2010. Eight of the UK’s leading brands, including Tesco, Marks & Spencer and BSkyB, are among those to have signed up… the eight companies unveiled a series of products and initiatives to encourage consumers to cut their carbon footprints…”
The ad industry is acutely aware that if they do not advertise responsibly and mislead consumers then there is a very real threat of restrictive legislation being introduced. The Financial Times reported on a recent speech to the industry by Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, in which he said advertisers had to agree standards when providing information consumers needed to play their role in curbing climate change if they were not to face damaging intervention by politicians.
It is clear from this that climate change is already having an effect on the business world. Furthermore, a whole new industry has come into existence on the back of this issue. Carbon offsetting has become big business and there are now even companies who offer advice to other companies on how to reduce their carbon footprints or even offset their carbon dioxide emissions.
Whilst any attempt to reduce carbon emissions is commendable consumers should be mindful of exactly what an environmental claim really means. As the publication Ethical Consumer May/June 07 highlighted: “offsets are generally marketed as if the emissions of a given activity, such as flying, are neutralised instantaneously.” When in actual fact offsetting, for instance planting trees to counter the CO2 emissions of a plane journey, can actually take the entire life span of those trees to take the amount of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that was originally produced.
Green intentions
The mass of symbols, logos and claims such as ‘recyclable’, ‘locally sourced’, ‘natural’, ‘biodegradable’ that appear on everyday packaging and products can leave consumers with the impression that they are purchasing goods that have been given an environmental clean bill of health. But what do these terms mean? Is there any specific standard that has to be met or are marketers sometimes guilty of appealing to consumer’s green ideals without actually qualifying how their product is environmentally friendly?
Official looking logos or pseudo-scientific sounding claims are not enough. For example, the ASA has dealt with complaints about an ad for roof and cladding material that claimed: “All materials used are totally recyclable for zero environmental legacy” and a direct mail for an energy company that stated it was produced with paper that was “100% environmentally friendly”. In both instances the ads were found in breach of the code because they implied that the products would cause absolutely no environmental damage throughout their life-cycles. There was no proof that this was the case.
Although the problems at the heart of another recent ASA upheld adjudication involving Tesco did not involve environmental claims, the adjudication nevertheless brought a wider debate about eco-friendliness to the fore. Intending its ad to coincide with a Bangor store promotion “Enjoy the Taste of Wales”, Tesco placed a regional press ad that stated “Water from your local springs. Wine from your local vineyards. And vegetables from your local farms. Now all available from your local Tesco.” It turned out, however, that people from Bangor and the surrounding area did not share Tesco’s definition of what constitutes “local”. A member of the public objected that the produce shown in the ad was not local to Bangor.
The ASA believed readers were likely to interpret “local” as referring to their immediate surrounding region. Because the products in the ad were not specifically local to Bangor, the ASA considered that that ad was likely to mislead readers and upheld the complaint.
Beyond the immediate ramifications of the ruling was something that environmentalists are highlighting as a major contributory factor to climate change: supermarket produce from abroad. Supermarkets are under intense scrutiny because of the heavy carbon footprint that they are leaving on the environment. The burden that flying-in produce that began life on a tree on the other side of the world has on the climate is a heavy one because of the significant carbon emissions from planes and lorries. Like many supermarket chains, Tesco was advertising its active support for home grown produce that not only benefits local business but is also kinder to the environment. In this instance the “local” Tesco referred to was not local enough.
Green rules, ok
There are already specific rules on environmental claims in place and the ASA has created a checklist for advertisers who are thinking of going green:
- Get your facts right. Don’t exaggerate the environmental benefits of your product: advertising claims should be backed up with documentary evidence
- This is an area where scientific knowledge is developing all the time. Don’t present claims as being universally accepted if the science is inconclusive
- Don’t use pseudo-science, or terms that will not be generally understood by the readers of your ad
- Avoid sweeping or absolute claims such as “environmentally friendly” or “wholly biodegradable”. It’s unlikely that you will be able to prove your product has no environmental impact
- Saying something is ‘locally’ produced should mean exactly that. Shipping goods in from abroad or the other end of the country doesn’t make them ‘locally sourced’.
The advertising environment
Making environmental claims is not, then, as straight forward as it may first appear. Even when companies are trying to do their bit to pollute less, reduce carbon emissions, help reduce global warming and climate change they can still run into opposition from certain quarters. For instance the ASA regularly finds itself arbitrating the often controversial debates that rage between the renewable energy lobby and those that believe the environmental benefit of these schemes is negligible.
As a famous frog once said, “it aint easy being green”. Advertisers are perhaps starting to see that this is certainly the case. Providing robust evidence to back up environmental claims can be difficult but the ASA will expect advertisers to have documentary evidence to support any green claims they make. The climate may be changing and likewise there is a noticeable change in the amount of eco-friendly advertising claims that are now beginning to appear. Whilst everyone is trying to do their bit to save the earth advertisers should remember that it wastes a lot of energy if they fail to get their message right.
Written by Sally Ramsden