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Promotional material for four companies—ProCook, Grind Coffee, SportShoes.com, and toilet paper manufacturer Who Gives a Crap—has been prohibited following rulings that assertions surrounding their distribution were “misleading”.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stepped in after the campaigns asserted product delivery was either “carbon neutral” or “carbon positive”. Regulators determined the businesses omitted key details by failing to clarify that these environmental claims relied on offsetting credits, rather than genuine emissions cuts.
In one case, a video about Who Gives a Crap featured a caption promising “carbon neutral shipping”. The company later told the ASA that customers can now click a link detailing the foundation of the claim.
Meanwhile, an ad for Grind, seen in June, stated: “Coffee From The Grind Roastery, Delivered To Your Door Each Month. Carbon Positive Delivery.”
Banning the ad, 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 banned ad for SportsShoes.com said: “Over 12,000 products on site from a wide range of brands … Carbon Neutral Deliveries” while kitchenware brand ProCook offered “Next Day Delivery Available – Carbon Neutral Delivery.”
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 per cent 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.
“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.’”
A spokeswoman for Who Gives a Crap said: “The finding concerns the level of detail included in that ad, specifically that it should have made clearer that the claim was achieved through verified offsets.
“It does not question the validity of our offsetting programme, our methodology or our broader impact commitments.
“Transparency matters to us. We had already begun reviewing our sustainability communications before receiving the ASA notification and have since removed the ad, updated our website language and introduced clearer disclosures around carbon-related claims.”