ASA Ruling on Renault UK Ltd

Ad

A TV ad for Renault featured a montage of images of how cars were used and their impact on society. The voice-over stated “For us, global warming goes beyond the emissions coming out of the exhaust. It’s an issue we address before, during and after manufacture. From next year, Renault will launch a range of zero emission vehicles to drive the car forward again”.

Issue

Several viewers challenged whether:

1. the claim "Renault will launch a range of zero emission vehicles" could be substantiated because they believed that using electricity to charge the vehicle would produce emissions, and

2. the ad was misleading because they did not believe the claim "zero emission vehicles" took the full life cycle of the vehicle into account.

BCAP TV Code

Response

1. Renault said, if their vehicle was powered by electricity from wind power or a renewable resource, it would not produce any emissions in use. However, they accepted that if electricity was sourced from coal or gas, emissions would be generated through charging the vehicle. Renault believed the ad showed the car being driven to convey the message that there would be zero emissions from the car while driving.

Clearcast endorsed the advertisers comments.

2. Renault said the ad intended to convey the message that there were no emissions emanating from their electric car when it was in use. They argued the ad was not claiming the entire process of making the car was without emissions and refuted the challenge on that point.

Clearcast believed that the claim "zero emissions" was readily understood in car advertising to refer to the emissions created during the cars use and did not think viewers would understand the claim to relate to the emissions created during the cars manufacture and disposal. They argued that, if the ad claimed the car was "green" or "environmentally friendly" they would expect the full life cycle of the product to be taken into account; however, they said that was not the case in this instance because the ad referred only to the vehicles emissions.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA acknowledged that, if the vehicle was powered by electricity from renewable sources it could, in use, operate without emissions. However, we noted that if the car was charged using energy sourced from the UKs national grid, CO2 emissions would be produced as a result. We considered it was likely that electricity to power the vehicle would be sourced from the national grid and that, due to the UKs energy mix, electricity would be drawn from non-renewable sources. We therefore concluded that, because driving the vehicle would result in CO2 emissions if charged from conventional energy sources, the claim the vehicle had "zero emission(s)" was misleading.

On this point, the ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Code rules 5.1.1, 5.1.2 (Misleading advertising) and 5.2.1 (Misleading advertising- Evidence) and 5.2.6 (Misleading advertising-Environmental claims.)

2. Upheld

We acknowledged Clearcasts argument that a generic claim about a vehicles carbon emissions would not always be understood to include potential emissions from its manufacture or disposal, but might only pertain to emissions produced when driving. However, we noted the voice-over in the ad stated "For us, global warming goes beyond the emissions coming out of the exhaust. Its an issue we address before, during and after manufacture", which we considered was a claim that invoked the full life cycle of the electric vehicle. In conjunction with the "zero emission" claim, we considered the ad gave the impression the entire production, use and disposal of the vehicle would not produce any emissions or have a detrimental effect on the environment. Because Renault were unable to substantiate that, when including the emissions from production to disposal the vehicle would not result in any emissions, we concluded the claim was likely to mislead.

On this point, the ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Code rules 5.1.1, 5.1.2 (Misleading advertising) and 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 5.2.6 (Environmental claims.)

Action

The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)