ASA ruling on Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board

This Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint that the advertisement was misleading as environmental claims must be made on the full life cycle of the advertised product, unless the marketing communication stated otherwise, and must make clear the limits of the life cycle.

The advertisements were featured on TV, Instagram, national press, and a page from a website as part of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) “Let’s Eat Balanced” campaign. One advertisement stated, ‘British beef […] has a carbon footprint that’s half the global average’ and the other ‘British milk […] is produced to world class standards and has a carbon footprint a third lower than the global average’, Both contained a footnote stating ‘[…] Full lifecycle emissions of CO2 eq per kg of beef/milk’.

In their response, AHDB claimed that the ads made specific, clear, and comparative claims between the carbon footprint of British beef or milk to the global average and footnoted to a source supporting the claims with further information set out on the website. The claims were supported by a meta-analysis and a 2020 report which the ad footnoted to, and it drew from the meta-analysis.

ASA ruled that the advertisements were misleading as the average was likely to understand the emissions claim as going beyond the retail stage to include consumption and disposal.