Misleading advertising: advertiser is not as ‘green’ as suggested

At the end of 2019, two complaints were filed against advertisements by energy supplier Vattenfall, alleging that they were misleading. The two complaints related to a television commercial and a newspaper advertisement, suggesting that Vattenfall generates its energy from (exclusively) clean energy. In both statements, the Dutch Advertising Code Committee is of the opinion that the statements do not make it sufficiently clear that as far as the generation of energy by Vattenfall is concerned, it does not describe the current factual situation, but an ambition. After seeing this commercial or reading the text, the average consumer will not expect that only a (limited) part of the energy supplied by Vattenfall is currently obtained from wind, hydropower and sun. Now that this aspect is not highlighted at all, and the emphasis is entirely on the "clean" sources, the statement is in violation of article 2 of the Environmental Advertising Code, which stipulates that an environmental claim may not contain any suggestion that could mislead the consumer about the advertiser's contribution to the promotion of a clean environment.

In both cases the Committee recommends that the advertiser no longer advertises in such a manner.

Read the ruling regarding the television commercial here and the ruling regarding the newspaper advertisement here.