British Gas Trading Ltd 30 The Causeway Staines Middlesex TW18 3BY Number of complaints: 1

Date: 30 January 2008 Media: National press Sector: Utilities

Ad
An advertorial in a national newspaper for British Gas stated "Such is the way of life these days it's virtually impossible to exist without having some kind of negative impact on the planet. To counteract this, it's important for all of us to strive for carbon neutrality. One choice we can make is to use energy from renewable sources that produce less CO2 emissions. To help you do this British Gas has recently launched two new green energy tariffs. British Gas Zero Carbon is the greenest domestic energy tariff when compared to those on the energywatch website, and is available for as little as £7 per month. For every customer on this tariff we will supply an equivalent amount of renewable energy into the national grid as well as offsetting all the carbon emissions from the home's gas and electricity supply".

Issue
Scottish & Southern Energy challenged whether:

1. the claim "British Gas Zero Carbon is the greenest domestic energy tariff compared to those on the energywatch website" was misleading and could be substantiated, because they did not believe there was any independent audit to assess the green credentials of energy services, and because the energywatch website specifically stated that its guide did not assess greenness; and

2. the claim "offsetting all the carbon emissions from the home's gas and electricity supply" was misleading, because it did not make clear how the scheme worked.

The CAP Code:

3.1;7.1;49.1;49.2

Response
1. British Gas Trading Ltd (British Gas) said their claim to have the greenest tariff was based on their comparison of all the current green supply offerings contained within the energywatch website. They said where they made such a claim they included a footnote that stated that the claim was true when compared with the other green tariffs listed on the energywatch website.

British Gas acknowledged that energywatch did not rank the green tariffs in order of greenness and that there was not an industry-wide methodology to undertake such a ranking. They said that, in the absence of a ranking scheme, they were not precluded from making such a comparison themselves. British Gas argued that the green tariff descriptions on the energywatch website contained very explicit product information against which an objective comparison of the tariff features could be made. They said energywatch asked suppliers to provide evidence of 'greenness' as well as details of any audit mechanisms they had used. British Gas explained that their claim to have the greenest domestic energy tariff was based on a comparison of the key attributes of the various green tariffs offered by supply. They said two recent consumer reports from energywatch and the National Consumer Council set out the key features of a green tariff, which were Levy Exemption Certificates (LEC) and Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin (REGO) backing, Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) retirement, carbon offsets and green fund contribution. British Gas argued that existing tariffs from other suppliers contained some but not all of those features, but that their Zero Carbon tariff contained them all. They said no other green tariff on the market today offered all of those factors in combination, and that it was that combination that they were using to substantiate their claim.

British Gas submitted a table that summarised and compared the key attributes of the current green energy tariffs available. They said that each of the tariffs in the table were listed on the energywatch website. British Gas said they had also worked closely with the CAP Copy Advice team on the ad.

2. British Gas said they believed they were not obliged to provide substantiation for how their carbon offsetting scheme worked in the advertorial itself, so long as they were able to make it available on request. They said they did not believe the claim to offset "all the carbon emissions from the home's gas and electricity supply" was misleading because they did offset through Kyoto compliant offsetting schemes. They explained that they offset carbon emissions by purchasing and retiring credits from Certified Emission Reductions (CER) projects accredited under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which would also meet the forthcoming DEFRA code of best practice for carbon offsetting.

British Gas explained that they assessed the carbon emissions for each customer on their Zero Carbon tariff by monitoring the actual gas and electricity consumption data of those customers, together with the associated volumes of carbon credits that are purchased and retired. British Gas said they did not verify or assess individual carbon offsetting schemes themselves, but relied instead on the governance structure implemented by the UNFCCC for this. They argued that that would give customers confidence that each unit of carbon offset was matched by real emission reductions under the rules of UNFCCC schemes, and not under their own 'standard' or that of another party.

Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA noted British Gas' claim to have the "greenest domestic energy tariff" was based on a comparison of the key categories of the different energy tariffs listed on the energywatch website. We also noted British Gas' argument that, in the absence of a ranking scheme for green tariffs, they should not be precluded from making their own comparison. Nevertheless, we understood that the energywatch website specifically stated that their guide did "not evaluate a tariff's 'greenness' ... rather it categorises and gives background information about each tariff", and that "there are no independent accreditation or audit schemes for green energy tariffs to give consumers confidence that suppliers claims are true". We considered that the energywatch website made it clear that the information they provided was not a league table of different energy providers. We also considered that most customers would expect British Gas' claim to be ranked as "the greenest domestic energy tariff when compared to those on the energywatch website", would be based on independently authorised material or an accredited ranking system for green tariffs, and not just on British Gas' own interpretation of the available data.

We understood that British Gas had sought guidance on the ad from the CAP Copy Advice team, who had highlighted to British Gas the difficulty of using the 'greenest' claim, because they did not believe it was possible to draw comparisons across the different tariffs listed on the energywatch website. For example, we understood that the Copy Advice team had expressed particular concern about the difficulty of measuring the effect of the tariffs' green fund contributions in reducing carbon emissions and other environmental damage. We considered that it was not possible to establish which tariff had a greater impact on the environment by comparing, for instance, the impact of one tariff's green fund contribution towards renewable technology projects with the impact of another tariff's retirement of additional ROCs. We acknowledged British Gas' argument that, without taking the green fund category into consideration, they were the only energy supplier to make green supply offerings in all of the other categories. However, we considered that customers would expect all of the information in the energywatch table to be taken into account when assessing an energy supplier's greenness. Because the data from across all of the categories in the table did not prove that British Gas' Zero Carbon tariff provided an overall improvement in environmental terms against the other tariffs in the table, and because that data was not audited by an independent authority, we concluded that on this point the ad was misleading.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 49.1 and 49.2 (Environmental claims).

2. Not upheld
We noted British Gas' argument that they were not obliged to provide substantiation regarding how their carbon offsetting schemes worked in the ad itself. We acknowledged that British Gas calculated the carbon emissions of their Zero Carbon tariff customers by monitoring their actual gas and electricity consumption, and that they offset those customers' carbon emissions through Kyoto compliant CER schemes, which were accredited and implemented by the UNFCCC.  We recognised that the Kyoto Protocol was the internationally agreed standard for the regulation of carbon offsetting schemes. Because British Gas' carbon offsetting schemes had been properly accredited under the Kyoto Protocol, we considered that it was not necessary for them to provide further details in the ad itself. We therefore concluded that on this point the ad was not misleading.

On this point we investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 49.1 (Environmental claims) but did not find it in breach.

Action
We told British Gas not to repeat the ad in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)