Unsustainable advertising

The ASA continues to make rulings about environmental claims in the retail fashion industry, releasing three on 3 December.  This is part of its ongoing investigation into the sector.  The advertisements in the latest rulings are all examples of ads located through the ASA's new AI tool, that sweeps the internet looking for potentially infringing content (as opposed to the more traditional route arriving at the ASA following a complaint).

The rulings have many other things in common and follow a similar pattern.  All three of the relevant fashion retailers (Lacoste, Nike and Supergroup) have been pulled up for use of the word "sustainable" (or derivations of it) in Google ads.  Across the rulings the ASA repeatedly cites the CMA's guidance "Complying with consumer law when making environmental claims in the fashion retail sector" and the CMA's view that the meaning of words such as "sustainable" is unclear and that they are likely to mislead customers.  The ASA also approvingly notes the CMA's observation that consumers are likely to assume from the use of "sustainable" that the product about which it was used has on balance a positive environmental impact, or at least no adverse impact.  In each ruling the ASA adds its own view - "sustainable" at the very least means no detrimental impact on environment of a product (or product range) across its entire life cycle.

Unsurprisingly, as the ASA considered all the ads absolute claims not supported by sufficient evidence, it has ruled against all three retailers - this despite what appears to be some relatively strong environmental credentials pleaded in defence (as well as arguments about space constraints within Google ads).

So - nothing surprising here, but indications of a cookie cutter approach where certain words ("sustainable", "green", "eco-friendly") are used - words that are no doubt the focus of the ASA's AI trawling for non-compliant environmental claims.

The rulings can be found here:

Lacoste E-commerce - ASA | CAP

Nike Retail BV - ASA | CAP

Supergroup Internet Ltd - ASA | CAP