UK: ‘Context is key’ according to new greenwashing rulings from advertising regulator in respect of oil & gas companies and banks

On 9 April 2025, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) handed down several new rulings on adverts for low carbon investments by oil & gas companies (see here and here) and banks (see here).

The ASA’s rulings provide useful guidance on what is needed to give an accurate impression of a business’ “overall environmental credentials” and on misleading by omission.

These latest decisions come just as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been given expanded enforcement powers under new UK consumer protection law (see our previous blog post), indicating that regulator activity on green claims and greenwashing allegations in the UK is likely to continue at pace during 2025. 

Key takeaways 

• Giving a balanced account of where your business is on its decarbonisation and sustainability journey is crucial, especially if you are in a high-carbon emitting sector. The significance of a business' lower carbon activities and adverts which focus on specific lower carbon initiatives should explain where the initiatives fit in the business' wider activities (and net zero plan, where relevant).
• The less prominent any qualifying information is, and the further away it is from any main claim being made, the more likely it is the claim will mislead consumers. The information does not have to dominate ads, but it must not be hidden away.
• Always put yourselves in the shoes of the reader. For retail (non-expert) consumers, you should assume a low level of knowledge when marketing green claims.
• The general rule of thumb is that claims should be truthful, accurate, clear and unambiguous and not mislead by omission. 

High-carbon sectors: the need to accurately represent your overall business model

Both energy-related ads described, to varying degrees, the companies’ investments in low-carbon energy and/or technology. The first ad showed both higher carbon activities (e.g. the provision of offshore gas to consumers) and “green” activities (e.g. the development of EV chargers and windfarms), with text superimposed explaining the proportion of the business’s higher vs lower carbon investments. The second ad ran as part of a series intended to demonstrate various roads to carbon neutral and highlighted a green energy start-up in which the company had invested. Both ads displayed the companies’ goals to become net zero by 2050.  

The ASA allowed the first ad but objected to the second on the basis that it omitted material information about the proportion of the company’s overall business model that comprised lower-carbon energy products. 

The ASA makes it clear that unqualified environmental claims could mislead if they omit significant information. Where businesses are responsible for a significant amount of environmental harm (e.g. emissions), any ads which focus on environmentally beneficial initiatives are more likely to be misleading if they do not include “balancing information” about the business’s ongoing contribution to that harm. This is particularly the case where the overall impact of the ad is likely to give a misleading impression of the company's overall environmental credentials. 

The ASA did acknowledge that, for companies in high-carbon sectors, consumers would generally be aware of a historic and ongoing contribution to emissions, but held they are less likely to be aware of the significance of these companies’ green activities as a proportion of their total activities, and so qualifying information is required when making claims about specific environmental initiatives or where ads promote more general positive environmental credentials. 

The ASA held that the overall impression of the second ad, which focussed on a specific “green” initiative, was that a significant proportion of the company’s business activities was focused on the development and expansion of renewable energy (including through supporting other companies in doing so) and that this was directly driving the business towards being carbon neutral. Although the ad referred viewers to a website for further information, this did not clarify the significance of the business’s progress towards carbon neutral in relation to its wider business (oil & gas) activities. 

By contrast, the ASA allowed the first ad on the basis that it made clear the business was involved in both higher and lower carbon activities and included qualifying information that the majority of the company’s investments comprised oil & gas (and to what degree). The ASA therefore concluded that the ad gave an accurate impression of the company’s overall environmental impact. In its decision, the ASA highlighted that the ad did not focus singularly on the company’s environmentally beneficial initiatives. Instead, it included elements that drew out “representative examples” of lower and higher carbon aspects of the company’s business. Accordingly, the ASA found that viewers were likely to understand that the company’s business model involved “a combination of the two”. The ASA also considered that the superimposed text enabled viewers to understand the relative balance of the company’s investments, and that these figures were robust and substantiated. 

Financial sector: advertising to an expert investment audience  

The third ad, by a large bank, ran in The Economist and highlighted its investment bank offerings, including the claim: “we're helping power the transition to a low-carbon future”. A third party challenged whether the ad was misleading because it omitted significant information about the bank’s contribution to CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. 

However, the ASA allowed the ad on grounds that it focussed specifically on services of the bank’s expert investment team and was being promoted to readers in a business-focussed publication “who had responsibility for and were interested in seeking advice and financing solutions to support the transition of their own company towards a lower-carbon future”. Readers were therefore likely to interpret the ad as being solely about the provision of these services and were unlikely to interpret it as representative of the bank’s wider brand activity, its own carbon transition plans, or the advice and funding being provided to the bank’s overall client base.

As such, the omission of information about the bank’s contribution to carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions was unlikely to be misleading.

Where can I find out more?

For more information on enforcement activity by the ASA and CMA, and on managing greenwashing risk in your business, see our new greenwashing page.