Remember those Grrrrrreen adverts that appeared on billboards, internet sites and in newspapers for Saab cars last year? Apart from the gross misuse of the word green the advertisements also contained misleading and deceptive claims about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
So it was a great start to the year to read that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has initiated legal proceedings against GM Holden Ltd over 'green' claims for the Saab vehicles they market.
Last year my office made a detailed complaint to ACCC about the Saab promotion campaign in Australia.
One of the glaring misrepresentations in the Saab advertising campaign was in the line Every Saab is green. With carbon emissions neutral across the entire Saab range. But the concept of carbon neutrality is not the same as carbon offsets as is suggested.
A paper from the Total Environment Centre clarifies the distinction between these two concepts: there has been a blurring of the difference between carbon offsets and carbon neutrality.
The former can offer partial and often delayed offsets to todays emissions; while the latter is more about a comprehensive program involving a number of strategies to achieve the broader goal of carbon neutrality.
The outlandish statements that formed the basis of this Saab advertising campaign seem to be based on nothing more than the companies plan to plant 17 native trees for each car brought. GM went so far as to announce this initiative as an important part of the brands environmental leadership.
The Saab cars advertised as Grrrrrreen in fact had a poor greenhouse rating, poor to average air pollution rating and after the first year the cars all created above average emissions.
And dont believe the hype that you can drive off into the sunset happy in the knowledge that the company has planted trees to absorb all your emissions. The Australia Institute has put a strong case to exclude forestry-based offsets from an emissions trading system in Australia or at least restrict their use. To put it simply, sooner or later most of those planted trees will die - felled, burned or destroyed by disease releasing any stored carbon.
The rockgroup Coldplay found this out the hard way. Wanting to offset emissions from the production of their album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, they paid for 10,000 mango trees to be planted in India. New Scientist reported that something went badly wrong and around 4,000 of the trees died.
So now that ACCC has initiated legal proceedings against GM, hopefully car buyers in Australia will be saved from such rorts. And hopefully the principles of fair-trading and consumer protection will see GM cop it for a major con job.
Remember the best way to beat the emissions is to walk and cycle.
For the record below is a summary of the complaints we submitted to the ACCC for a possible breach of the Trades Practices Act -
The environmental claims in its marketing campaign are, in my view, both vague and non-specific and misleading and deceptive because the vehicles that Saab is labelling as green:
- are relatively fuel inefficient, and are therefore relatively high sources of greenhouse pollution
- have a poor greenhouse rating according to the Federal Governments Green Vehicle Guide
- have a poor to average air pollution rating according to the Federal Governments Green Vehicle Guide
- have no green features substantiated or verified by their advertisements (with the possible exception of their biofuel vehicle)
- the offsets attached to the sale of the car are of insufficient quantity (only cover one years pollution from average usage) and poor quality (leading offset providers do not offset emissions with tree plantings due to a multitude of problems including the long term viability of plantations).