The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has recently upheld two claims against BMW (UK) Ltd and MG Motor UK Ltd for their “zero emissions” claims on paid-for Google ads on some of their latest hybrid and electric cars.

The ASA challenged whether their “zero emissions” claims were unqualified and misleading because they are only true when the vehicles are being driven (not during charging or manufacture - which uses electricity from the national grid) and therefore misleadingly represented the vehicles’ environmental impact. Both challenges were upheld, and MG Motor and BMW were told to not allow the ads to appear again. 

Not long after this, the ASA announced a further decision into a similar claim made by Ford Motor Company Ltd which it targeted for investigation under its AI ad monitoring system which actively searches for online ads that "might break the rules.”

However, the ASA did not find any issues with Ford’s claim that their new all-electric SUV had “zero emissions driving”, as the ASA found the addition of the word “driving” made it more accurate and sufficiently clear for consumers to understand that the claim did not apply to the vehicles in general. 

Despite the investigation not being upheld, Ford have still agreed to amend the claim to “zero-emissions whilst driving” to make it even clearer. 

The Head of Transport at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (a non-profit organisation that supports debate on UK energy and climate change issues) has called the ASA’s recent approach to zero emissions claims as “perverse” for penalising car manufacturers’ attempts to market the “zero emission” vehicles that they are producing under UK government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

The ZEV mandate, introduced earlier this year, legislates for the government’s pathway for all new cars and vans being zero emission by 2035, and sets out the percentage of new zero emissions cars and vans that manufacturers are being required to produce each year up to 2030. However, as the number of zero emissions vehicles being registered for the first time in the UK continues to increase, this small clarification on zero emissions claims makes all the difference in the ASA’s eyes to protect consumers from greenwashing.