NHS privateer Richard Branson just got slapped down by the UK’s advertising regulator

Campaigners have welcomed the UK advertising regulator’s decision to ban an advert from NHS privateer Richard Branson-founded Virgin Atlantic for “misleading” the public over their promotion of so-called “SAF”.

Virgin Atlantic: slapped down by the ASA

Airlines are heavily promoting so-called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) despite scientific evidence showing these fuel alternatives cannot be sustainably produced at the scale that would be needed to fuel current levels of aviation.

The decision by the regulator, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), further confirms campaigners’ criticisms of the flight back in November for being a misleading marketing gimmick.

Hannah Lawrence, spokesperson from campaign group Stay Grounded, said:

The ASA’s ruling makes it clear: Virgin Atlantic’s promotion of so-called “SAF” and their media fuss about this supposedly 100% SAF flight is a greenwashing delay tactic, not a climate solution. So-called “SAF” cannot be sustainably produced at anything close to the amount that would be needed and these fuel substitutes divert precious resources like biomass and renewable energy from essential sectors.

Rather than allowing airlines to continue wasting precious time with misleading environmental claims we need strong regulation to urgently reduce the amount of flights that take off each day. This means introducing a Frequent Flyer Levy, placing caps on airports, and immediately ending all airport expansion.

The radio advert, which first aired in November, claimed the transatlantic flight would fly “on 100% sustainable aviation fuel.

In their ruling, the ASA said customers:

were unlikely to be aware of the extent to which fuels described as sustainable aviation fuel still had negative environmental impacts, and in what ways. Those listeners who interpreted the claim “100% sustainable aviation fuel” to mean that the fuel was 100% sustainable were likely to expect that it had no negative environmental impacts at all.

The ruling said the future Virgin Atlantic adverts that reference so-called “SAF” must include information about the environmental impact of the fuel.

SAF: not what it seems

So-called “SAF” is an industry term for a range of fuel alternatives which can generally be separated into two categories: biofuels and synthetic electro-fuels. Evidence shows, no form of so-called “SAF” feedstock would be sustainable at the amount needed to fuel the current level of global flights.

Virgin Atlantic’s flight relied heavily on so-called “SAF” produced from used cooking oil which is by far not scalable at the level that would be necessary and already subject to fraud that leads to increased production of dangerous palm oil in exporting countries.

The aviation industry’s promotion of so-called “SAF” is coming under increasing pressure from advertising regulators for being misleading.

In March, a Dutch court ruled that KLM’s ‘Fly Responsibly’ campaign was ‘misleading’ for customers and ‘painted an overly rosy picture of so-called “SAF”’.

Featured image via Reuters – YouTube