'Clean Coal' Greenwashing Ad Ruled Misleading by UK Regulator

The UK Advertising Standards Authority, an independent regulator of advertising across all media, has ordered coal company Peabody Energy to stop running a national print ad that claims “clean coal” is emission-free.

The ad in question stated that Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, “is working to build awareness and support to end energy poverty, increase access to low-cost electricity and improve emissions using today’s advanced clean coal technologies. We call it Advanced Energy for Life. Because clean, modern energy is the solution for better, longer and healthier lives.”

The case was brought to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which challenged whether “the term ‘clean coal’ was misleading and implied that the advertiser’s impact on the environment was less damaging than was actually the case.”

The ASA ruling reads, in part:

The regulatory body states: “The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Peabody Energy Inc. to ensure that future ads did not state or imply that their technologies were emission-free or similar unless they could demonstrate that this was the case.”

The decision may spur further scrutiny of fossil fuel industry claims. In a press statement, WWF European Policy Office energy policy officer Darek Urbaniak said:

The victory was mixed, however. The ASA did not uphold two other WWF assertions — that Peabody’s claim “energy poverty is the world’s number one human and environmental crisis” was misleading; and that the ad’s implication that Peabody is working to solve energy poverty “was misleading because it did not make clear the extent of the effects on the environment of the advertiser’s own coal-related activities.”