The UK Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) bots are busy crawling the web on the look-out for bogus sustainability claims again. While it's fashion retail taking another turn in the spotlight, all brands making green claims should take note.

The ASA published rulings on green claims made by Nike Retail, Superdry and Lacoste. Each brand had made a sustainability claim in a paid for Google ad – "sustainable materials", "sustainable style" and "sustainable clothing" respectively.

Each had a good story to tell about their sustainability initiatives – about recycled materials, related reductions in CO2 equivalent, certification against third party standards, and/or an improved environmental footprint. But each of them found themselves telling that story in the context of an ASA investigation.

The references to sustainability in the Google ads were unqualified. The ASA considers that consumers will interpret an absolute claim to be "sustainable", as meaning that the product has at the very least no detrimental impact on the environment across its whole lifecycle. Of course, it's almost always – perhaps always – more complicated than that. Mass-produced products come with some environmental detriments, even where they represent a step forward on where the brand or the market has been previously.

True to form then, the ASA found the claims to be "sustainable" to be too general and therefore likely to be misleading. It said the meaning of the claims was unclear and that the brands did not have the necessary evidence to support the likely (broad) interpretation of the claim wording.

Why 'sustainable' isn't enough – and what to say instead

It is fashion retail under scrutiny this week and not for the first time - a little more than a year ago, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) published guidance on green claims compliance for fashion retailers and that was preceded by action against three (different) well-known brands.

But, next week, it will be a different area – while the political climate in the US may be impacting the popularity of green claims across the Atlantic, there is no obvious slowdown in rulings from the ASA, and scrutiny of environmental marketing has extended to fast moving consumer goods, automotive, travel and tourism, energy, financial services, and more.

The ASA's AI-driven Active Ad Monitoring tool is allowing it to check the compliance of more ads than ever before – it's scraping up to 50 million ads per year, when once its reach was limited to the 30,000 ads or so that were the subject of complaints. And that has also led to rulings linked to advertising on platforms which, in the past, usually escaped inquiry – Linked In ads, for example, or, as in today's cases, Google ads.

It's less and less likely that advertising, particularly in digital media, will slip through the net, and that's particularly the case for sustainability claims, since they are regularly the subject of ASA sweeps.

Brands need to be aware of this heightened risk of action, and of the high standards that the ASA applies to general, vaguely worded environmental claims such as unqualified references to a product or material being "sustainable". They should aim instead to craft more qualified, specific claims, even in space constrained media, such as Google ads. They should be alert to the risk of generative AI and other tools pushing them towards less compliant claim wording, based on the effect on advertising performance – as it will not provide a defence.

Want to know more?

This January, we'll be discussing green claims, the ASA and a whole lot more at our annual, in person round-up of all things ad law, ThinkHouse advertising law - a year in review.

For more on avoiding greenwash, have a look at our recent articles:

Greenwashing and governance: practical pointers for sustainability communications

Greenwashing guide for UK businesses

The future of retail: Success with sustainability