The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned advertisements for Grind Coffee, SportShoes.com, ProCook and toilet paper brand Who Gives a Crap over "misleading" claims about their carbon neutral or carbon positive deliveries.
In all four cases, the advertisements asserted that the delivery of goods was either "carbon neutral" or "carbon positive". The ASA ruled that the ads failed to make sufficiently clear that carbon neutral delivery depended on offsetting credits rather than a genuine reduction in emissions.
Details of the banned advertisements
A promotional video for recycled toilet paper brand Who Gives a Crap included text in its caption stating "carbon neutral shipping", with the company later informing the ASA that consumers could click through to a page explaining the basis of the claim.
An advertisement for Grind, also spotted in June, stated: "Coffee From The Grind Roastery, Delivered To Your Door Each Month. Carbon Positive Delivery." In banning the advertisement, the ASA said it had "reminded Grind to ensure that they made the basis of all environmental claims clear, including in relation to what extent any 'Carbon Positive Delivery' claims depended on the use of offsetting credits or the actual removal of any source of emissions".
The prohibited advertisement for SportsShoes.com read: "Over 12,000 products on site from a wide range of brands ... Carbon Neutral Deliveries" while kitchenware retailer ProCook promoted "Next Day Delivery Available – Carbon Neutral Delivery."
ASA statement and company response
The ASA said: "Environmental claims must be made clear and supported by evidence. If ads leave out important information, they can risk misleading people."
Justine Grimley, investigations manager at the ASA, said: "Carbon neutral or net zero claims can mislead if it's not clear what they actually mean or how they've been achieved. Where these claims rely on carbon offsetting, this must be made clear so that people don't think what's being advertised produces no or few emissions. We'll continue to take action when these types of claims are misleading or lack the information people need to make informed decisions when it comes to making greener choices."
Ted Robinson, chief of staff at Grind Coffee, said: "Since May 2020 we've offset the carbon from our deliveries through Shopify Planet and its precursor Shopify Offset. Both of these are schemes that use shipment weight and distance to estimate emissions, and then fund carbon removal. Since then, we've funded the carbon removal of over a million orders through the Shopify Planet scheme and we're in the top 0.2% of all contributors to the programme. Previously we had referred to this as 'carbon positive delivery', but we felt it was a bit confusing – so more recently we call this carbon neutral delivery."
He added: "As you'll see in the ruling, the issue that the ASA challenged was whether the ad made the basis of the claim 'Carbon Positive Delivery' clear. The challenge was not that we weren't able to substantiate the claim, but rather that we didn't explain it fully in the ad. We've since updated our website with a clear definition of 'carbon neutral delivery'."
