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Shell: Stop the Greenwash!
Oil refineries emit smoke not flowers
In May 2008, Friends of the Earth Europe filed simultaneous complaints to the national advertising standards authorities of Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK about a against a shameless advert that makes exaggerated and misleading green claims about oil giant Shell's operations. The advert depicts the outline of an oil refinery emitting flowers rather than smoke and claims that it uses its "waste CO2 to grow flowers and [its] waste sulphur to make concrete.
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We object to the overall message and imagery used. The advert says 'Don't throw anything away, there is no away' - which may be true, but the implication that Shell carries out its operations in line with this is false and misleading. Shell's advertis also misleading because it suggests that Shell uses all of its waste CO2 to grow flowers while in reality it uses less than 0.5 percent of it to grow flowers. |
Shell boasts that at a refinery in the Netherlands, CO2 is piped to heat greenhouses, saving 350,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. This is only 0.325 per cent of Shell's direct emissions. According to Shell's own figures, it emitted 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005.
Shell also claimed in the advert that it uses its 'waste sulphur to make concrete'. This claim is misleading because it gives the impression of applying to all of the waste sulphur generated by Shell. In reality, a major part of Shell's sulphur waste is used for fuel for sea ships and is finally released in the air. Sea ships are one of the biggest sources of sulphur dioxide pollution.
Shell explain that their "playful design" of the ad is intended to raise awareness, and that they do not
believe the ad could mislead a reasonable reader into thinking that "the smoke coming out of the chimneys
is now suddenly harmless for the environment". Read Shell's reaction to their nomination for the Worst EU Greenwash Awards 2007
They fail to mention that these kind of playful images
serve the purpose of downplaying the seriousness and urgency of the problem. We believe that Shell uses
this kind of imagery to manipulate public perception (including that of policy-makers) about the need for
effective regulatory action.
Both the Dutch Advertising Authority and the British ASA agreed with our view on Shell's advertisements
and ruled that Shell's claims in the advertisements are likely to mislead because they could wrongly be
interpreted as applying to all or large part of Shell's waste CO2 and sulphur.
In Belgium and in Germany, where a complaint was filed at a later stage, the Advertising Authorities rejected the complaint. We were not given the possibility to appeal thses decisions by the authorities as no appeals procedures are in place.
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