绿色洗手并不是新的，也没有旨在保护消费者免受公司的误导性环境索赔。Businesses that advertise in the U.K. have had to comply with rules around environmental claims for decades, and it is more than 13 years since the advertising watchdog ordered Shell to pull an ad that used flowers floating from refinery chimneys to promote a carbon capture and utilization project.
While the influx of new products on the market is undeniably a welcome development and one that will play a role in putting the U.K. on track to meet climate goals, there are understandable fears that a simultaneous surge of "greenwash" could drive sales of environmentally harmful products and services, undercut companies whose green claims are accredited and credible, and damage consumer understanding of — and confidence in — the products, services and technologies that would allow them to contribute to the net-zero transition.
Miles Lockwood，ASA的抱怨和调查主任，与CMA在指导下，告诉BusinessGreen The Watchdog的新框架提供了一种解决企业绿色洗手的整体方法，这些方法补充了广告监管机构的持续努力。“这很棒，CMA注意转向这个地区，”他说。“它燕尾榫并补充了我们多年来一直在做的工作，使我们能够采取更多360个方法来实现一些问题。”
The ASA's Climate and Environment Project — initially scheduled for last year but delayed due to COVID — will see the agency look at legislation being developed by the U.K. and other governments on green claims before deciding whether the advertising code rules need to be "tightened up," Lockwood explains. This also will include a gap analysis of the U.K.'s advertising regulation against regulatory regimes in other countries — an exercise that will look closely at tough new rules introduced by French advertising regulator ARPP in the wake of demands from the nation's Climate Assembly for tougher advertising standards.
有些竞选人员认为这是一个直接禁止产品的时间 - 如化石燃料或SUV - 对环境有害影响，类似于上世纪烟草的广告暂停，或者本月政府的决定介绍一个ban on TV advertising of food that is high in sugar, salt and fat before 9 p.m. But Lockwood insists that such a move lies outside of the ASA's remit and would need to be enforced by legislation. "We just don't have the powers on the consumer protection regime to ban a product which is legally bought and sold," he says.
