"Green" British Gas ad is nothing but hot air

As reported in the Guardian today, a TV and press ad campaign for British Gas has been banned by the advertising watchdog for making false green claims about an energy tariff:

"In the ad a voiceover made the claim that "Our new dual fuel package is our greenest. With zero carbon." The Advertising Standards Authority received 14 complaints about the "zero carbon" claim because they believe it implied the energy was carbon free and did not produce carbon dioxide. British Gas said that the tariff was backed by 100% renewable electricity so that the net carbon emission impact was zero for each customer. The company added that small print at the foot of the screen said "Relates to offsetting schemes", which made clear that there were carbon emissions. However, the ASA said that the claim "with zero carbon" and the images in the ad would "likely be interpreted by viewers to mean that the energy was carbon free or produced no carbon emissions". The ad regulator ruled that the TV commercial was misleading and should not be shown again in the same form.

A second ad - a national newspaper advertorial, for the same "green" tariff - was criticised by the ASA for making the claim it was the "greenest domestic energy tariff". One complainant argued that the claim was misleading and could not be substantiated because there was no established independent way to assess the green credentials of energy tariffs."

This is yet another example of companies hopping on the CSR bandwagon, claiming that a product is 'green'. But when critics question the validity of this claim, the greenness is shown as nothing more than a facade. This problem has been documented before, when many products that have claims to being 'green' have no such foundation to claim as much.

This issue of companies taking up a facade of CSR was explored more fully in The Economist's recent Special Report on CSR, which reported that many companies were merely saying that they had implemented a CSR policy, rather than fully demonstrate and report on their efforts.

This hasn't been a good week for British Gas as earlier this week Allan Asher, chief executive of Energywatch, said the energy market was uncompetitive and the price rises were unjustified.

"Sadly the market is not working well and that's leading to consumers paying much, much more than they need to," he said. (Link)

British Gas later admitted to the mistake, but this was obviously due more to damage limitation rather than good corporate communication.

"British Gas said that the ad pointed out the claim was based on the comparison of all current green supply offerings monitored by the Energywatch website. The company admitted that the website did not rank tariffs in order of "greenness" and that there was no industry-wide methodology."

The power of consumers to flag up a company's false 'green' claims is as prevalent as ever. Companies and organisations need to be aware that consumers will no longer be fooled by claims that cannot be backed up by hard evidence, especially in the realm of CSR. Those that realise this and prove transparent in their policies and communications will be the companies that prosper.

(For a summary of The Economist's Special Report on CSR, Steven Davies provides a good review here)