Biofuels ad banned by ASA after George Monbiot complaint

• Mark Sweney, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday, 14 January 2009

George Monbiot with the biofuels ad. Click on the bottom right corner to see a larger version of the advert. Photograph: Murdo Macleod.

A complaint to the advertising watchdog by Guardian columnist and environmental campaigner George Monbiot has caused a national press ad claiming biofuels offer a sustainable alternative to oil to be banned.

The national press campaign, by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), was headed "OPEC rakes in billions, but blames biofuels – confused?"

Copy in the ad formed an open letter to the president of OPEC, the oil producers' cartel, from the "world's biofuels industries." The open letter offered a defence against accusations that the presence of biofuels in the market has caused a 40% rise in oil prices.

"We are proud of our efforts to provide a lower priced, renewable fuel to the world today," stated the letter. It ended with the line "Biofuels – a lower priced, sustainable answer to OPEC's oil."

Monbiot, who has previously argued against the idea of sustainable biofuels in the Guardian, lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority that the RFA claim in the press campaign was misleading.

In its response to the ASA, the RFA claimed that feedstocks for biofuel production, such as grain, sugarcane and vegetable oil, met the definition of sustainability as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

The ASA noted this, and other evidence, but also said that the Gallagher Review, commissioned in the UK by the Secretary of State for Transport, concluded that only with strict policies on where biofuel production could be allowed would it be viable after 2020. Without such strict policies, biofuel production would "result in net greenhouse emissions and loss of biodiversity through habitat destruction."

The Gallagher Review also said that while it should be possible to develop a long-term sustainable biofuel industry globally, until adequate controls were in place to address the indirect impact of production "the introduction of biofuels should be significantly slowed."

The ASA said that despite the OED definition of sustainability it considered that the term was used and understood in many ways.

While the RFA believed it should be viewed in terms of economic sustainability, the ASA said this was misleading as most readers of the press ad were "likely to consider the concept of sustainability primarily in environmental terms."

The watchdog concluded that "at the present time" references to biofuels in general as sustainable were likely to mislead and banned the ad for breaking the advertising code.

Link to article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/14/guardian-writer-george-monbiot-gets