A complaint made against Shell for advert claiming that its oil sands production in Canada and an U.S refinery expansion were “sustainable” has been upheld by ASA (Advertising Standards Authority).

The advertisement run just once, entitled “We invest today’s profits in tomorrow’s solutions” received a complaint from WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature) on the grounds that it unfairly proclaimed that these actions were indeed sustainable.

A 2006 report by Canada’s National Energy Board, stated that the mining of bitumen and synthetic crude oil from oil sands produced higher greenhouse gas emissions than from the production of conventional crude oil, and identified mining of oil sands as the largest contributor to emissions growth in Canada.

While ASA acknowledged Shell’s expanded refinery, thanks to its modern design, would lower most types of emissions on a per barrel basis.  They upheld, however, that although emissions might be reduced on a per barrel basis, the increased production of the refinery would increase the total overall emissions from the refinery.

The advert will not be run again following ASA’s findings.

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