Self-regulation: responsible advertising for the green transition

 

Advertising self-regulation contributes to responsible advertising for the green transition. Helping protect consumers from greenwashing for decades, it now uses A.I. technology to monitor online ads at scale and supports the industry in enhancing advertising as a force for good.

Lucas Boudet is Director General at EASA

The UN Climate Change Conference, which recently took place in Egypt, stressed the importance of sustainable patterns of consumption and production to address climate change. The European Commission, in line with its ambitions set out in the European Green Deal, has recently tabled a proposal for a Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green transition aiming to tackle the issue of greenwashing and will soon issue one on Substantiating environmental claims.

Everyone in our society bears a share of the responsibility to rise to the challenges related to climate change. Advertisers are very much aware of the instrumental role they can play. Marketing must make sustainable products attractive and desirable to consumers. Responsible marketers need to be able to tread a fine line, communicating about the positive environmental attributes of their products and services whilst staying clear from any greenwashing. This is where the numerous unique assets of collective advertising self-regulation (SR) come into play. EU Commissioner for Justice underlined that “[European Advertising Standards Alliance, EASA’s] self-regulatory approach to ensure that companies advertise products and services responsibly whilst staying clear from greenwashing has impressive results.” (...)