Businesses are coming under mounting pressure over the accuracy of green claims. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned Shell ads promoting its renewable energy activities because they omitted the fact that oil and gas still account for most of Shell’s business, while a Swiss regulator said FIFA made misleading claims about the carbon footprint of the Qatar World Cup. Marketing plays an important role in steering consumers towards more sustainable choices, as part of broad lifestyle changes needed to hit net zero. These rulings, coupled with successful legal challenges over greenwashing, suggest that if companies can’t support marketing rhetoric with data, the most heavily polluting among them run the risk of being banned from advertising altogether (France banned fossil fuel ads last summer).
