Shell ad: claimed that the company used waste carbon dioxide to grow flowers
Chris Tryhorn Guardian Unlimited
Wednesday November 7 2007
Oil giant Shell has been censured by the advertising watchdog over an press ad that showed refinery chimneys emitting flowers.
Environmental lobby group Friends of the Earth was among those who complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the press ad, which ran with the slogan, “Don’t throw anything anyway. There is no away.”
Friends of the Earth said the ad’s central image – of refinery chimneys spewing out flowers – misrepresented the environmental impact of Shell’s activities.
It also disputed Shell’s claims that it used waste carbon dioxide to grow flowers and waste sulphur to make super-strong concrete.
The ASA said the image itself could not be regarded as misleading as it was “conceptual and fanciful”.
“We considered that most readers were unlikely to interpret it as a depiction of reality,” the watchdog said.
However, the ASA ruled against Shell on the factual points, arguing that the wording of the ad implied that a significant amount of the company’s emissions were recycled.
“In the absence of qualification, most readers were likely to interpret the claim, ‘We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers’… to mean that Shell used all, or at least the majority, of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion, when compared to the global activities of Shell,” said the ASA ruling.
Similarly, the watchdog noted that the amount of waste sulphur used in Shell’s initiative was only a small proportion of its global activities, and that this claim was also misleading.
In its defence, Shell argued that trying to quantify the significance of its project by comparing its benefits to their global business could “serve no recognisable benefit”.
Shell said the ad was the first phase of its “Throw Away” campaign aimed at business decision-makers and well-educated readers, and that it did not intend to use the ad again in future.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
