An image from the UK-sanctioned Shell commercial.
The advertising regulator has ruled that ads by Shell and other fossil fuel companies are misleading
L’Advertising Standards Authoritythe UK advertising industry’s self-regulatory body, Wednesday 7 June decided to ban the publication of an advertising campaign by the British multinational Shell, one of the most important companies in the world in the oil, petrochemical and energy sectors. The advertisements that make up the campaign have been considered misleading for consumers, since they would only show energy production processes through the use of renewable and non-polluting sources, distorting reality. Most of Shell’s business still depends on fossil fuels.
The sanctioned advertising campaign consists of a series of video promotional items circulated online and on television, as well as on some billboards. The reasons given by theAdvertising Standards Authority concern the lack of transparency of Shell on the fact that the latter uses almost exclusively fossil fuels to produce energy, while within the films there was almost exclusively talk of energy from renewable sources thanks to which Shell claimed to collaborate in the energy transition process of the United Kingdom.
In response to the decision, a Shell spokesman argued that the advertisement only concerned the work of a subsidiary of the company, Shell Energy UK, which deals with electricity distribution in the United Kingdom. He then added that consumers would be aware of the main company’s environmental responsibilities and their use of fossil fuels.
According to theAdvertising Standards Authoritywho decided not to lift the campaign ban, the ads misled the public into believing an environmental pledge by Shell that would not be reality: Shell’s management, which in 2021 committed to zero emissions I say2 by 2050, it also unveiled a plan that same year to increase its investments in natural gas extraction by a fifth.
Other similar decisions have recently concerned the Spanish company Repsol and the Malaysian company Petronasobliged byAdvertising Standards Authority to withdraw their ads for much the same reasons. Between March and April of 2023 theASA instead, it had rejected the advertising campaigns of two airlines: one by Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, and one by Lufthansa, the main airline of Germany, both accused of misleading consumers about the true environmental impact of flights.
Shell, among the offers of its subsidiary that deals with energy, does indeed propose more environmentally friendly energy alternatives: but it does so to an extent that according to many is insufficient, which is why it often receives criticism from environmental groups. In May of 2023 some climate activists had protested during a shareholder meeting, arguing that Shell is not doing enough to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and accusing it of promoting greenwashingor “facade environmentalism”, with initiatives similar to the advertising campaign in question.
Shell was founded in 1907 with the merger of a Dutch and a British company, to compete with the US-based Standard Oil, which was the main player in the oil market at the time. Over the years it has received many criticisms from environmental groups and scholars: companies operating in the oil sector are among those that emit the greatest amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contribute to the greatest extent to the phenomenon of global warming. Enrico Mattei, who was in charge of the Italian energy company ENI in the years before his death in 1962, he inserted Shell was one of what he called “the seven sisters”, the major oil companies until the 1970s.
– Read also: Who was Enrico Mattei
Shell is one of the leading retail distributors of fossil fuels: it owns 150,000 filling stations around the world. For the extraction, processing, distribution and consumption of the fuels it sold in 2022, Shell said it emitted 1,232 million tons of CO2: less compared to previous years (in 2018 it had issued 1,719 million). However, this reduction is not the direct consequence of more sustainable choices: it largely depends on the contraction of the fossil fuel market following the energy crisis following the Russian invasion and the war in Ukraine.
CO recovery projects2 emissions that Shell proposes represent a very small portion of the emission reductions of recent years. 2022 was the year Shell made the most money since its founding, with a profit of $40 billion.