UK's advertising regulator bans Lloyds Bank advert for suspected 'greenwashing'

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) today confirmed that it has issued a ruling against Lloyds Bank for misleading advertising regarding its environmental claims.

The ruling followed a complaint by Adfree Cities which claimed that four advertisements by Lloyds (one poster and three paid-for posts on LinkedIn) were misleading because they omitted significant information about Lloyds’ contribution to carbon dioxide and GHG emissions.

The ASA dismissed claims against three of the four advertisements in question, but found there were grounds to proceed in relation to one of the LinkedIn posts. The post in question claimed that Lloyds was putting "the weight of [its] finance" into renewable energy, which the ASA ruled to be misleading on that the basis that this misrepresented the bank’s broader activities and other investments.

In comparison, the three advertisements for which claims were not upheld all referred to Lloyds promoting specific nature recovery projects and small business growth. ASA determined that consumers would understand the claims in these instances to be limited and would therefore not interpret the ads as making wider environmental claims about Lloyds’ business practices.

The ruling is a reminder of the application of the requirement in the CAP Code that the basis of environmental claims must be clear, and that unqualified claims could mislead if significant information was omitted.