Environmental claims continue to be the focus of regulators across the world and given the volume of emissions produced by air travel, the aviation industry remains a key focus point. Back in May, we reported on an investigation by the European Commission against 20 airlines for over potentially misleading green claims. Whilst the Commission has yet to report an update, the ASA has published a ruling about Luton Airport's advertising.

The ads

The ad on the top appeared in a magazine in March 2024, with the poster on the bottom appearing on the London Underground network in April 2024. The ads referred to the “Green Controlled Growth" “plan” or "framework" ("Framework"), designed to introduce “legally binding and independently monitored” “limits for airport's noise, carbon, air quality and road traffic impacts.”

The ASA investigated, following complaints from Adfree Cities and the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport. 

Luton Airport's response 

Luton Airport said that the ad's purpose was to show that “mitigating environmental impact were central to the airport's expansion plans”. They highlighted the “fundamental” part of their Framework was that an expansion would be halted if there was a breach or a high risk of one. 

Lastly, Luton Airport said that the Framework made clear which emissions it included - those generated by the airport's operations, by staff and passengers travelling to and from the airport. 

ASA tells Luton Airport to abort flight

The ASA was not moved by the response and ruled the ads to be in breach of CAP Code rules 3.1, 3.3 (Misleading advertising), and 11.1 (Environmental claims).

The ASA considered that people would understand the main aim of the airport “expansion” was to increase capacity and volume of flights and as such, the reason for the ads was to reassure people about efforts made to minimise the environmental impact. 

Importantly, the ASA considered that phrases such as “carbon impact” or “environmental limits” were understood by consumers as carbon emissions from both the airport's ground operations and increase in the air traffic movement. This was further supported by use of an image of airplane taxiing on a runway. 

However, arguably the biggest factor which led to the ads being labelled as “misleading” were the principal sources of emission used to make these claims. Whilst the Framework identified three principal sources of emission (airport operations, surface access and air traffic movement), air traffic movements were excluded from carbon emissions limiting initiatives. 83.7% of Luton Airport emission came from air traffic movement, with 1.3% from airport operations. As such, the ASA considered that consumers were likely to expect environmental limits to include those derived from that source. This was considered a significant omission and therefore misleading. 

Our spin

The failure to include (or make a clear reference to) emissions from air traffic movement for the purpose of limiting environmental impact is misleading. However, should air traffic movements count as part of an airport's emissions or the airline's? The ambiguity around these types of questions means that if you want to make environmental claims, you need to be pragmatic about those claims and keep abreast of developments. 

Last month, the Council of the EU adopted its general approach to the Green Claims Directive, with negotiations about the Directive happening soon. The outgoing UK government said that the current UK rules about unfair commercial practices are sufficient to combat greenwashing. However, the new Labour government might take a different line.  Watch this space.