Emerging Issues webinar: a deep dive into some prominent high-carbon industries
On 28th June, Badvertising and Adfree Cities jointly organised a webinar to look into the wider picture of high-carbon advertising and more specifically food, fashion, finance and flights adverts. A quadruple F combo that promised to be as explosive as thought-provoking!
At Badvertising, we have been campaigning for the end of advertising fuelling the climate emergency - calling, in particular, for a ban on ads for cars, fossil fuel companies and flights as these sectors have a huge climate debt in terms of their past and present carbon emissions, and require immediate demand reduction. But what counts as high-carbon advertising isn’t straightforward. When looking at the climate, let alone the social and human rights impacts, of industries such as fast fashion, finance and private jets, one can safely assume that marketing of these also fall under the banner of high-carbon advertising.
Below is a whistle stop tour of the four key topics covered during the webinar.
Public funds & stereotypes: a meaty package
Alessandro Saccoccio, from Greenpeace International, brought to light how much public money goes into the promotion of meat at the EU level, despite EU’s objectives of reducing meat consumption. Their Marketing Meat report found that between 2016-2020, around 250 million euros had been directed to the promotion of meat and dairy. This amounts to 32% of the EU Commission’s five-year farm product promotion budget. Greenpeace and others are still campaigning on the removal of these funds from the promotion of animal products. Another Greenpeace investigation looked specifically at the types of arguments used by the meat industry to promote its products and came up with a list of 7 myths such as that “eating (red) meat makes you more of a man” or “eating meat is about freedom and choice”. All these stereotypes are conveyed thanks to advertising and marketing, hence the need to double down on meat advertising.
Fast fashion ads: a dirty business
Urška Trunk from Changing Markets Foundation delved into the issue of fast fashion advertising and clearly laid out the links between fashion and the fossil fuel industry. Fashion, one of the most polluting industries in the world, accounts for 10% of GHG emissions - more than shipping and aviation combined. Worse, the sector’s planned growth is expected to account for 25% of the global carbon budget by 2050.
Fashion industry’s fossil fuel ties - research by Changing Markets Foundation
The production of synthetic fabrics, made of oil and gas, which has largely overtaken other fabrics like cotton goes hand in hand with the rise of the ‘fast fashion trend’ first seen at scale in the late 1990’s-early 2000’s. With clothing now largely made of fossil fuels, fashion advertising is fossil fuel advertising.
Advertising is a core engine for the growth of the industry as it encourages consumers to take part in these cycles of fast fashion. Today, the average consumer buys 60% more clothing than 50 years ago and wears them half as long. Greenwashing is also rife in the fashion industry. Changing Markets’ research finds that no less than 59% of all claims by fashion brands are misleading and greenwashing. In some cases, it goes up to 90% (H&M). As long as these are not regulated, these brands’ advertising goes unchallenged and keeps fuelling the fast fashion cycle.
Banking on climate breakdown
Beau O’Sullivan from the Sunrise Project works for ‘Bank on our Future’ - a campaign aiming to get banks to stop funding fossil fuels. The campaign focuses on HSBC and other US and Canadian banks, zooming in on the bank’s advertising as well as their sponsorship of cultural and sports events. Watch out for some actions ahead of Wimbledon - sponsored by fossil fuel financier Barclays!
HSBC’s adverts banned by the ASA following Adfree Cities’ complaint
Banks are heavily tied to the fossil fuel industry through their direct investments into the sector. HSBC’s “Climate change doesn’t do borders” advert - promoted during COP26 - is a telling example of banks’ dangerous greenwashing despite their huge impact on the climate. In reality, HSBC has a very poor climate track record after pumping nearly £100 billion into the fossil fuel industry since the Paris climate agreement. Adfree Cities' complaint to the advertising regulator led, a year later, to a landmark ruling - the first time finance was slammed for greenwashing.
Fossil Free Netherlands also led a brilliant campaign at ING bank on the same grounds as HSBC. ING’s ads ended up being banned by the Dutch regulator who ruled that by omitting information about their fossil fuels investments, the ad was misleading consumers into thinking their business was only about sustainable finance. While these rulings are helpful to the cause, we don’t have time to waste and need an outright ban on advertising by fossil banks, dubbed “enablers” of fossil fuel companies by the UN Secretary General (alongside advertisers, or, in Guterres’ words, “the massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny”).
Flying into oblivion
Ali Warrington from Possible painted a pretty dire picture of the aviation industry’s false green solutions and the UK Government’s completely inadequate plans to set us on the path to reduce aviation emissions.
Airlines and airports are responding to increased public pressure to reduce their emissions with dishonest communication strategies promoting techno-fixes such as sustainable aviation fuels, electric planes or carbon offsets. This is used as a cover-up to push for airport expansion and increase demand.
This type of greenwash marketing is baked into how the aviation industry operates - this is illustrated in their adverts and in their sustainability reporting on their website. Possible is currently filing complaints to the OECD about both British Airways and Virgin Airlines for their misleading greenwash claims in their adverts.
Private jet advertising - a sector in constant expansion
The private jet market is also a growing industry which tends to be more private about its operations and plans for emissions reductions despite its disproportionate impact on the climate. Possible used a ‘mystery shopping’ technique to find that the sector is equally making misleading green claims.
Possible denounces the UK Government Jet Zero’s strategy which only helps to further greenwash the aviation industry and would get us completely off track to meet net zero emissions targets.
Challenging high-carbon advertising, alongside policies like a ‘frequent-flyer levy’ and banning private jets, are key to prevent the industry’s further growth.
All in all, this webinar brought to light some key industries’ climate impacts and how their advertising and marketing is central to their harmful business model. It is perfectly obvious that adverts by these industries indeed count as high-carbon and that these should similarly be brought forward when campaigning for a ban on adverts fuelling the climate emergency. Read our briefing, Emerging Issues in High-Carbon Advertising, for a full discussion of these issues in the context of tobacco-style restrictions on fossil fuel advertising.