New Weather Institute v. FIFA

In November 2022, the New Weather Institute (the Complainant) submitted a complaint against FIFA to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry in the UK. The Complainant alleges that FIFA’s claims that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was carbon-neutral are wrong and likely to mislead consumers in the UK, therefore breaching multiple provisions of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (“the Code”), and specifically the provisions on misleading advertising and on environmental claims. FIFA presented the 2022 Qatar World Cup as “fully carbon-neutral” in its online presence. It operated a “climate pledge” mechanism targeting ticket holders, requesting of them to make efforts towards reducing their carbon footprint in their daily life, and informing those taking the pledge that their emissions were offset by FIFA. In particular, the Complainant alleges that FIFA: - firstly, ignored emissions reductions as an essential part of carbon-neutrality; it did not demonstrate that it has done everything it can to reduce its own emissions prior to compensating for the remaining emissions (e.g. when it decided to attribute the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a country with little football infrastructure in place). - secondly, used unsound methodology for its GHG accounting, breaching the Code by only partially accounting for the life cycle of the stadiums, by sending wrong signals regarding the stadiums’ impact on the environment, and by not taking into account day shuttle flights advertised for by Gulf regional airlines when calculating flight emissions of ticket holders. - thirdly, and more broadly, generally claimed that a mega-event like the World Cup can be compensated with offsetting. The carbon credits bought by FIFA fail to meet some of the carbon market standards, as they lack additionality and do not permanently remove carbon. Further, the Code was allegedly breached by FIFA by failing to reach the level of substantiation required for an absolute statement like that of carbon-neutrality. By claiming carbon-neutrality in this way, FIFA allegedly gave ticket holders the impression that attending the World Cup does not have an impact on the environment. The claim was joined with four other complaints into one joint proceeding before the Swiss Commission on Fairness. The commission upheld all five claims in June 2023.