A national press advertisement from the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has been ruled as misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The advert attracted criticism when environmental journalist, George Monbiot, challenged whether the strapline ‘Biofuels- a sustainable answer to OPEC’s oil’ was strictly correct.
In association with other biofuel bodies, Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, the European Bioethanol Fuel Association and the Sugarcane Industry Association, the ad was entitled ‘OPEC rakes in billions but blames biofuels –confused?’ The text of the ad formed a letter to the President of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), defending the biofuels industry against reports by the oil producer’s cartel suggesting that the bioethanol market is responsible for a 40 per cent rise in the world’s oil prices.
RFA defended that biofuels met the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of ‘sustainable’. Meanwhile ASA ruled that, based on evidence from other research such as the Gallagher Review which called into question the impact biofuels have on food production, the destruction of natural habitat and on emissions of greenhouse gases; that the claim was unsubstantiated and that the advert must be amended.
ASA has instructed RFA to remove the claim, ‘ a sustainable answer to OPEC’s oil’.
