Shell adverts banned for not mentioning ‘large-scale’ investment in oil and gas
Three adverts by Shell have been banned after it was found the energy giant ‘misleadingly omitted’ information about its oil and gas operations.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found three adverts promoting Shell’s low-carbon products failed to mention that oil and gas make up the ‘vast majority of its operations’.
One advert, a poster seen in Bristol last June, featured text reading: ‘Bristol is Ready for Cleaner Energy’ and: ‘In the South West 78,000 homes use 100% renewable electricity from Shell Energy.’
A television advert, also broadcast last June, said 1.4 million households used 100% renewable electricity from Shell, and also mentioned the firm was working on a wind project that could power six million homes and aimed to fit 50,000 electric car chargers nationwide by 2025.
A video on Shell’s YouTube channel was captioned: ‘From electric vehicle charging to renewable electricity for your home, Shell is giving customers more low-carbon choices and helping drive the UK’s energy transition. The UK is ready for cleaner energy.’
Adfree Cities complained to the ASA, saying the adverts misled people by omitting information about Shell’s overall environmental impact.
Shell UK hit back, saying it wanted to raise awareness of its lower emission products as research suggests 83% of consumers primarily associated the brand with petrol.
The ASA acknowledged this, and added people will be aware that many companies in carbon-intensive industries aimed to dramatically reduce their emissions in response to the climate crisis.
Shell’s operations produced an estimated 1,375 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.
The ASA concluded: ‘While that estimate did not capture Shell’s absolute emissions in 2021, given that it included deductions linked to carbon offsets and did not cover certain commercial contracts, it nonetheless represented a large contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
‘We understood large-scale oil and gas investment and extraction comprised the vast majority of the company’s business model in 2022 and would continue to do so in the near future.
‘We therefore considered that, because (the ads) gave the overall impression that a significant proportion of Shell’s business comprised lower-carbon energy products, further information about the proportion of Shell’s overall business model that comprised lower-carbon energy products was material information that should have been included.
‘Because the ads did not include such information, we concluded that they omitted material information and were likely to mislead.’
Shell said it ‘strongly disagreed’ with the ruling and argued it could ‘slow the UK’s drive towards renewable energy’.
A spokesman added: ‘People are already well aware that Shell produces the oil and gas they depend on today.
‘When customers fill up at our petrol stations across the UK, it’s under the instantly recognisable Shell logo.
‘But what many people don’t know is we’re also investing heavily in low and zero-carbon energy, including building one of the UK’s largest public networks of EV charge points.
‘No energy transition can be successful if people are not aware of the alternatives available to them.
‘That is what our adverts set out to show, and that is why we’re concerned by this short-sighted decision.’
Two other energy companies, Repsol SA and Petronas, were found to have ‘misleadingly omitted’ details within adverts describing their work to reduce emissions.
The ASA published the three rulings this morning, as part of wider work on environmental claims in the energy sector, and all three companies must not run the adverts again in the form complained of.
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