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The Guardian: Shell rapped over CO2 advert

Rachel Williams The Guardian
Wednesday November 7 2007

A Shell advert featuring a drawing of flower heads emerging from refinery chimneys, implying the oil company used its waste carbon dioxide to grow flowers, broke industry rules, a watchdog ruled today.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint that the press advert, which featured the drawing misleadingly implied all CO2 emissions helped produce flowers and decided it breached industry code clauses on truthfulness and environmental claims.

The image was used above text about the need to find creative ways to recycle and the words: “We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers, and our waste sulphur to make super-strong concrete.”

Friends of the Earth complained to the ASA that the slogan implied Shell used all its waste CO2 to grow flowers, while it believed only 0.325% of the company’s emissions were used for that purpose, and said the advert also misleadingly implied that all Shell’s waste sulphur was used to make concrete. The ASA concluded that both claims were likely to mislead.

The advert is no longer appearing and Shell told the ASA it would not be used again. But in its response to the investigation, Shell said it supplied 170,000 tonnes of CO2 to local greenhouse growers in 2005 and expected to supply 320,000 tonnes this year, saying this stopped the equivalent of the annual CO2 emissions from about 102,894 vehicles being released.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/07/climatechange.energy

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