Advertising Standards Agency takes Tier to task alleging greenwashing

The Advertising Standards Agency of the UK has upheld a complaint relating to the wording on a Tier electric scooter hire advert, pointing out that while the transport mode can comparatively be considered a greener form of transport versus says petrol vehicles, it cannot claim to be “be environmentally friendly”.

In what may seem to some a harsh indictment given the number of other products currently focused on environmental messaging, the Advertising Standards Agency took issue specifically with what it deemed to be the firm’s suggestion that no environmental damage occurs in the production, shipping and life cycle of the service.

Tier gave a robust response to the single complaint, citing research from the international Transport Forum and providing documentation that its production facilities were certified to minimise environmental risks.

The Advertising Standards Agency were unmoved, taking issue specifically with the tagline “be environmentally friendly”. This claim, said the Agency, was deemed to come across as “absolute” and gave off the impression to consumers that ” the Tier electric scooter caused no environmental damage over the full lifecycle of the scheme, rather than that it had lower carbon emissions than the comparator vehicles.”

The advertising body outlined that to make such a claim more specifics would need to be given in order to make clear that the tagline was a comparison to other mobility forms, rather than an implicit claim of no environmental damage at all.

“We considered that it was not presented as a clear comparison with any other modes of transport as it showed only an image of an electric scooter and did not refer to any other transport options. We also considered that the claim was not expressed in a more limited comparative way, such as ‘environmentally friendlier’, neither did it make clear if it was intended to refer to swapping to a Tier scooter from another form of transport and if so, what that was,” wrote the ASA.

Tier electric scooters are manufactured in China and transported to destinations in Europe by container ship, truck, rail and airplane; the ASA used this fact as a further support for upholding the complaint.

Furthermore, the ASA picked out from the papers provided by Tier to support its claim that a Berlin study found a “global warming impact associated with the use of aluminium parts in the production of the electric scooters.”

The advertising watchdog deemed that the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.7 (Misleading advertising), 11.1  11.3 and 11.4 (Environmental claims).

The net result of the complaint? The ad must now be amended to show comparative claims, rather than absolute implications. The ASA said it had faith that Tier had the evidence to hand to produce a more informed campaign.