An advertisement by Australia’s gas lobby has been taken off the airwaves after it was found to mislead viewers with environmental claims.
The television campaign, aired in June and run by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), claimed natural gas is “50 per cent cleaner” and “together with renewables it gets emissions down”.
A complaint to Australia’s advertising watchdog argued that although gas was “scientifically slightly less bad” than some other coal and oil energy sources, the blanket statement of “50 per cent cleaner” was unacceptable.
“It is a blanket and misleading statement that gas is ‘green’, when in truth the exploration, extraction, transport, processing and logistics of gas are very damaging to the environment and emit a lot of greenhouse gas – especially methane,” the complainant said.
The watchdog, Ad Standards, upheld the complaint in a ruling last month.
A community panel of Ad Standards found the commercial breached the advertising code for environmental claims by making an unclear comparison with coal.
The gas lobby had defended its ad and qualified the claim with two reports.
“The panel considered that the ’50 per cent cleaner’ claim was not clearly stated in either report with supporting evidence and without the use of qualifiers,” the panel’s decision said.
“As such, the advertiser had not provided supporting evidence with sufficient detail to allow the evaluation of the claim.”
APPEA, which represents Australia’s upstream oil and gas industry and has more than 60 member companies, said it disagreed with the verdict.
“APPEA believes the advertising was clear, factual and does not agree with the community panel findings,” its chief executive Samantha McCulloch told AAP on Friday.
Ms McCulloch said the fact gas produces around 50 per cent less carbon dioxide emissions than coal when used for power generation is supported by robust international and Australian research.
The lobby group ultimately agreed to update some of their campaign material “out of respect for the decision and the process”.
It has now been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for allegedly airing false or misleading statements regarding the relative greenhouse gas emissions of coal and gas.
Lock the Gate spokesman Nic Clyde said that at a time when Australians need to back renewable energy, the lobby group has chosen to “double-down on their promotion of fossil gas”.
Environmental Defenders Office lawyer Kirsty Ruddock said the advertisement was “designed to make the public think gas is good for the environment, when in fact it is driving dangerous climate change”.
When caught out for false advertising like this, the company should be required to take out equally-prominent ads retracting the initial statement. No clever branding allowed, just a simple “we put out a misleading ad. It said gas is a clean option. This was a lie, and we apologise.”
Better yet; they have to have MORE prominent advertising with the retraction. At least a ratio of 1.5:1 for every ad they played on TV or radio and every billboard/print ad, etc. If they have to spend more than the initial ad outlay, maybe it’ll make them think twice.
Anything less is pointless. They can put out retractions, but the damage is already done for most of the people who heard/saw/read the original ad. Obviously it should involve a financial penalty as well (beyond the cost of running the retraction ads.)
