The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advertising campaign by Luton Rising for misleading claims about its green growth plan.
The ads appeared in magazines and on posters, including billboards at Westminster tube station – the station most likely to be frequented by members of parliament. The ad copy stated that Luton Airport’s expansion would be halted if it breached environmental limits.
As we have described before, the airport’s Green Growth Plan doesn’t include the emissions from planes – by far the biggest contributor of carbon pollution. Since the ad didn’t mention this, complaints were filed by the Badvertising Campaign, Possible and others.
The ASA upheld the complaints. The purpose of the ads was “to reassure people about the efforts being taken to mitigate the environmental impacts caused by expansion,” they stated in their ruling. People seeing the ad would be “likely to assume that limits relating to emissions from an airport would include those from air traffic movement.”
Indeed they would – the purpose of an airport is to facilitate flights, after all.
While the ASA ruling applies to two specific adverts, Luton Rising has run a concerted campaign on airport expansion in recent months, including ads at Kenilworth Road and on screens at the mall.
Campaigners hope that the ruling will set a precedent for future adverts making green claims on aviation.
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