Oatly ads banned for making ‘misleading’ environmental claims

Regulator says brand has not provided enough evidence to substantiate its claims

Oatly is a plant-based milk substitute (Getty Images)

Oatly, the maker of a popular plant-based milk substitute, has been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for making misleading environmental claims.

A total of five of its adverts have been banned, including paid-for posts on Facebook and Twitter, two newspaper adverts and two TV adverts.

The adverts in question made various claims about the food industry and the brand’s environmental commitments.

This included the claim that “Oatly generates 73 per cent less CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) vs milk, calculated from grower to grocer”.

The adverts also alleged that “the dairy and meat industries emit more CO2e than the world’s planes, trains, cars, boats combined”, and that “25 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases are generated by the food industry, and meat and dairy account for more than half of that”.

One advert, published in a national newspaper, claimed that “if everyone in the world adopted a vegan diet, it would reduce food’s annual greenhouse emissions by 6.6 billion metric tons (a four per cent reduction)”.

The ASA investigated the claims after receiving more than 109 complaints, including one from campaign group A Greener World, which said that they were misleading.

Oatly said it had received its figures from product lifecycle experts at CarbonCloud, which calculated the climate footprint of its Barista Edition oat drink “from cradle to store” and compared it to the emissions of whole cow’s milk.

But the ASA said consumers would assume the claim, “73 per cent less CO2e vs milk”, means that all Oatly products generate 73 per cent less CO2e compared with any type of cows’ milk.

ASA concluded that, because the evidence was “not sufficient” to support the claim as consumers would understand it, the two adverts that included the claim were “misleading”.

Additionally, the ASA said Oatly’s claim that meat and dairy accounts for more than half of the greenhouse gases generated by the food industry was too narrow a definition and could also mislead customers.

The regulator concluded that consumers would interpret Oatly’s claim that “climate experts say cutting dairy and meat products from our diets is the single biggest lifestyle change we can make to reduce our environmental impact” as “based on scientific consensus”, when it was the opinion of one climate expert.

It ruled that the adverts in their original form must be removed, but could be rerun if the claims were amended or removed.

“We told Oatly UK to ensure that the basis of any environmental claim was made clear, including what parts of the lifecycle had been included and which excluded,” the ASA said.

“We also told them to ensure they held adequate evidence to substantiate environmental claims made in their ads as they would be understood by consumers.”

Tim Knight, a spokesperson for Oatly told The Independent: “It’s clear that we could have been more specific in the way we described some of the scientific data.

“For example, we made a claim stating that ‘Oatly generates 73 per cent less CO2e vs cows milk’. We should have been more specific and said: ‘Oatly Barista Edition oat drink generates 73 per cent less CO2e vs whole milk, calculated from grower to grocer’.

“We’re a science-based company and take pride in being precise, but we could have been clearer. We talk about these things a lot, because we want to make it easy for people to make an informed switch from dairy to oat drink.

“After all, if everyone in the world adopted a vegan diet it would almost halve food’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.”