An ad for TotalEnergies SE inflated the oil company’s investments in renewable energy, misleading consumers, the UK’s advertising regulator ruled on Wednesday. Another commercial for Shell, which promoted its investments in EV charging stations and renewable energy, as well as its offshore gas, was acceptable, it found.
The two rulings offer some insight into what the Advertising Standards Authority considers admissible when making green claims. The independent body has been weighing in on energy company ads, arguing they must give an accurate impression of the advertiser’s overall business activities, rather than just promoting the renewable energy aspects.
The UK’s advertising rules prohibit misleading marketing. For green claims, that can include “misleading by omission,” where accurate claims can break the rules if they don’t tell the full story about a company’s environmental impact.The recent decisions make it clear that in order to tout green initiatives, oil companies will need to mention their more carbon-intensive business as well.
“These cases helpfully demonstrate where the ASA draws the line when considering whether an advertiser who is promoting its green credentials does so in a way that avoids giving a misleading overall impression about the environmental impact of their business,” a spokesman for the regulator said in an email.
The ASA trawls the internet to find ads in violation of its rules, and in other cases, it reviews examples submitted by the public. It looked into the TotalEnergies and Shell ads after receiving complaints from Adfree Cities, a campaign group, among others.
On Wednesday, the ASA said a video ad TotalEnergiesposted on the social media site X in May promoted the company’s support for clean energy startups, but failed to give a complete picture of its business activities, which mostly still focus on oil and gas. The 30-second ad featured Nash Renewables, a startup that participated in an accelerator program run by TotalEnergies, and its work to optimize the design of wind and solar farms.
Data about the share of the business that focused on low-carbon activities compared to fossil fuels was “material information that should have been included,” the regulator said in its ruling. The promotion should not appear again, it added.
A spokeswoman for TotalEnergies said in an emailed statement the company “acknowledges the ruling.”
In its Shell decision,also issued on Wednesday, the ASA said the company’s TV commercial made it clear that it mostly invests in oil and gas. In its representations to the regulator Shell said it had deliberately included more information about those investments after a previous ruling. In 2023 ASA banned ads from Shell Plc, Repsol SA and Petronas International Corp, arguing they failed to offer a balanced picture of the companies’ fossil fuel and renewable energy-based investments.
Photo credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
On Wednesday the regulator also okayed a magazine ad for Barclays Investment Bank promoting its advice on low-carbon and nature-based investments. The bank’s marketing was aimed at a business and expert audience interested in the services of the investment bank specifically, the regulator said, and therefore was unlikely to be taken as a claim about the company’sbroader environmental impact.
Veronica Wignall, co-director at Adfree Cities, said the regulator was failing to protect consumers from misinformation by allowing the Shell ad and accused the ASA of endorsing greenwashing.
The group is among campaigners calling for fossil fuel companies to be banned from advertising altogether, following similar bans for sectors like the tobacco industry. A spokesman for the ASA said its two rulings set out clearly its reasons for different judgements in the two cases.
Photograph: TotalEnergies headquarters in Paris, France. Photo credit: Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg
Related:
- Deutsche Bank’s DWS Pays $27 Million in German Greenwashing Case
- Lawsuits Targeting ‘Climate Washing’ Becoming More Frequent
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