Boeing hauled up by ASA

Boeing have been reprimanded by the ASA for an advert which claimed new planes produced "less than 75 grams CO2 per passenger km". Boeing's calculation was incorrectly based on presuming full occupancy of seats, and was therefore judged to be misleading. So be careful with your measurements guys!

CSR is important: too important to lie about.

Speaking to The Guardian today, Chris Smith of the ASA confirmed that the agency has noted the rising numbers of companies making environmental claims in their advertising:

"We are breaking new ground and this is a growing area, as we are increasingly finding that advertisers are using green claims to sell their products and services and to give them an edge over their rivals.
"They are jumping on the bandwagon about their green claims, but as we make more and more adjudications we are building up a body of solid evidence.
"Whether it's wind turbines or airlines or cars with claims about CO2 emissions, the claims have to be accurate and the companies have to be able to justify that. My message is that erroneous claims will not slip through the net."

On a similar theme, Robert Half have released a report on CSR within businesses. Order your free copy from the company's site.

The offending advert

Flowers, calculators, and a dark dystopian disaster...

Consumers

• Charles Clover writes in the telegraph that our recycling figures are up this year, to 31% of all rubbish (in England). We're now recycling 29.1 million tonnes of the stuff a year!

Business

• Google has launched its own carbon calculator as part of it's igoogle service. It was only a matter of time, really. Has anyone created on of these for facebook yet???
• Shell has been rapped over the knuckles for it's excessively floral advertising, as the ASA upholds a complaint from Friends of the Earth over adverts released earlier this year.
• Have you greened your IT? Greenbang reports today that: 80 per cent of executives surveyed at US businesses told analyst firm IDC that ‘Green IT’ is growing in importance for their organisation. And 43 per cent said they consider a vendor’s ‘greenness’ when selecting their suppliers.

Politics

• The Green Party has branded Brown's vision for the future a "dark, dystopian disaster" in their response to the Queen's Speech.