ASA Ruling on Lufthansa

A poster for Lufthansa, seen in June 2022, featured an image of the front of a plane in flight. The underside of the plane was represented by an image of the earth from space. The ad included text which stated, “LUFTHANSA GROUP. CONNECTING THE WORLD. PROTECTING ITS FUTURE. #MakeChangeFly”. The Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) challenged whether the ad gave a misleading impression of Lufthansa’s environmental impact. By ruling of March 1, 2023, the ASA upheld that challenge. The CAP Code required that absolute environmental claims be supported by a high level of substantiation. The claim “PROTECTING ITS FUTURE” was likely to be interpreted by consumers as an environmental reference to how Lufthansa's approach to aviation was protecting the future of the world. Further, it was likely to be understood to mean Lufthansa had already taken significant mitigating steps to ensure that the net environmental impact of their business was not harmful. However air travel produced high levels of both CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, which were making a substantial contribution to climate change. Many of the initiatives Lufthansa said they were committed to delivering were targeted to deliver results only years or decades into the future. There were currently no environmental initiatives or commercially viable technologies in the aviation industry which would substantiate the absolute green claim “PROTECTING ITS FUTURE”, as consumers would interpret it. The basis of the claim had therefore not been made clear and it had not been adequately substantiated, meaning the ad breached the Code. The ASA told Lufthansa to ensure that the basis of future environmental claims was made clear and did not give a misleading impression of the impact caused by travelling with the airline, and that robust substantiation was held to support future claims