Car adverts must promote greener habits, say agencies

ADVERTISING agencies are making their commercials for vehicles reflect sustainable behaviour, such as showing cars full of passengers, as part of plans to go green by 2030, industry leaders have said.

An initiative called Ad Net Zero seeks to make every commercial sustainable within a decade, with a push to show green behaviour in their campaigns, an Advertising Association director has told members of the House of Lords.

Matt Bourn, the director of communications at the industry body, said a project called Change the Brief, which was started by an arm of the British agency WPP, is trying to have adverts depict more sustainable activities.

He told the Lords environment and climate change committee: “It essentially says, look at the brief that comes in from the client and say, ‘How can you make that work better?’

“If I’m making a car ad and I want to challenge the way people think about driving ... I’d like to see three or four people ... in that car because we know that behaviour is a better behaviour.”

Ad Net Zero aims to make every advert “green” by 2030, he added. “Every ad should be made in a sustainable way through the production and through the distribution ... it should be promoting a sustainable product or a sustainable service, something that we know is better for the planet.”

The “majority” of car adverts are now for electric or hybrid models, he said.

Advertising agencies have faced criticism from campaign groups such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) for carrying out campaigns for fossil fuel companies and other polluting industries.

In a 2019 open letter, XR urged the industry to “tell the truth” about climate change, adding: “Advertising has

‘Every ad should be made in a sustainable way and promote something we know is better for the planet’

helped promote high-carbon lifestyles and hyper-consumption ... if we’re to survive, this must change rapidly.”

However, companies have also faced penalties from the Advertising Standards Agency for using misleading green claims to promote products.

Last September, the agency launched a crackdown on “greenwashing” and pledged to “shine a brighter regulatory spotlight on environmental matters” as well as “tightening up our positions on problematic ad claims”.