Cars and the environment

Pressure continues to build on the automotive industry to include more and more environmental information in new car advertising.

In 2007, the European Parliament passed a report which expressed more radical demands than had been expected. It called for 20% of the space in new car advertising to be used for information on CO₂. ISBA and the World Federation of Advertisers are working with European–wide representatives of the industry to address public policy concerns.

In 2008, the UK Government-commissioned report from Professor Julia King demanded that new car advertising include comparative information on emissions across the class of cars. While the issue of emissions is an important one, which the industry has taken very seriously, car manufacturers and advertisers question the statutory nature of these recommendations.  ISBA’s automotive working group is working alongside the motor industry body SMMT in responding to these reports.

Car advertising is subject to the same strict codes of practice on environmental claims as any other type of advertising. These rules are based on recommendations from ISBA and were implemented more than 15 years ago.

You can view the codes here on the CAP site. We recommend you read the whole code as car issues (e.g. speed and safety) are dealt with separately from environmental issues.