The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has outlined four key requirements for making environmental and sustainability claims, following a series of recent rulings.
The watchdog clarified that firms need to be clear about what their environmental claims are based on, and if the claim isn’t immediately obvious, then firm’s must provide additional information.
For example, general statements such as ‘Good for the planet’ are “almost certainly going to be a problem for ad regulators, without additional information.”
It added d that for industries with a major environmental footprint, whether direct, such as energy, or indirect, such as banking, adverts must present a balanced view and avoid overlooking harmful impacts.
ASA also urged firms to clearly define any terms they use. While consumers are expected to be reasonably informed, the regulator stressed that advertisers shouldn’t assume detailed knowledge of sustainability.
Firms must also ensure they are able to support environmental and sustainability claims with appropriate evidence before publication, as this is the cornerstone of the ad regulatory system, according to ASA.
Finally, ASA stated that firms must have thorough full lifecycle analyses to back their claims. For broad ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘sustainable’ claims, this analysis must demonstrate that the product or service causes no environmental harm from production through to disposal.