Yahoo Finance Shell adverts featuring wind turbines and EV charging points banned for ‘greenwashing’
Shell has been banned from running “greenwashed” advertisements that overstated the amount of green energy the oil giant produced.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found the FTSE 100 company had “misleadingly” trumpeted its investment in renewables in ads on billboards, television and Youtube, while omitting that most of its business came from fossil fuels.
A poster in Bristol carrying the Shell logo said that “78,000 homes use 100pc renewable electricity from Shell Energy”, while a TV ad stated that 1.4 million British households received “100pc renewable electricity” from the company as well.
In another ad posted on Shell’s Youtube account, viewers were told: “From electric vehicle charging to renewable electricity for your home, Shell is giving customers more low-carbon choices and helping drive the UK’s energy transition.”
Campaigners at Adfree Cities complained that the ads misled consumers by leaving out information about the overall environmental impact of Shell’s business. The group accused Shell of “greenwashing”.
In a ruling published on wednesday, the ASA agreed. It said: “We understood that large-scale oil and gas investment and extraction comprised the vast majority of the company’s business model in 2022 and would continue to do so in the near future.
“We therefore considered that, because [the advertisements] gave the overall impression that a significant proportion of Shell’s business comprised lower-carbon energy products, further information about the proportion of Shell’s overall business model that comprised lower-carbon energy products was material information that should have been included.
“Because the ads did not include such information, we concluded that they omitted material information and were likely to mislead.”
Shell said it strongly disagreed with the ASA’s decision. The company argued that most consumers associated it with petrol stations and that it was trying to raise awareness about its activities in clean power generation.
A spokesman added: “People are already well aware that Shell produces the oil and gas they depend on today.
“When customers fill up at our petrol stations across the UK, it’s under the instantly recognisable Shell logo.
“But what many people don’t know is we’re also investing heavily in low- and zero-carbon energy, including building one of the UK’s largest public networks of EV charge points.
“No energy transition can be successful if people are not aware of the alternatives available to them.
“That is what our adverts set out to show, and that is why we’re concerned by this short-sighted decision.”
The ASA said it was aware of this point but that consumers would also be aware of a need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions from oil and gas in response to global warming.
It added that Shell’s own activities “represented a large contribution to greenhouse gas emissions” in 2022.
Veronica Wignall, from Adfree Cities, said: “Today’s official ban on Shell’s adverts marks the end of the line for fossil fuel greenwashing in the UK.
“The world’s biggest polluters will not be permitted to advertise that they are ‘green’ while they build new pipelines, refineries and rigs.”
She called for further measures to stop oil companies such as Shell from advertising “at all” due to their climate records.
It came as Shell separately announced plans to sell its household energy supply business in the coming months following an internal review.
The business has already been put up for sale, and there are reports that Ovo and Octopus Energy have launched bids for the unit.
“As we stated at the end of January 2023, we have been conducting a strategic review of our home energy retail businesses in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany,” the company said on Tuesday.
“That review has now concluded and as a consequence, we intend to exit those businesses.”
Shell Energy was launched in 2008 as First Utility, but bought by the oil major a decade later. It employs around 2,000 people in the UK and supplies energy to around 1.4 million homes.
In addition to that around half a million households get their broadband from Shell Energy.
