EDF sidesteps ban over 'green and British' dispute

LONDON - EDF's climate change campaign has escaped a ban by the Advertising Standards Authority after a large number of people challenged claims that the firm is both eco-friendly and British.

Read: EDF sidesteps ban over 'green and British' dispute.

This is utter greenwash. The Green Union Jack, the symbol used to promote British Renewable Energy Co Ecotricity and emblazoned across its vans, website and promoted in press advertising, was hi-jacked by EDF to represent Green Britain. Their campaign focussed on Green Britain day, which is clearly intended to lure consumers into believing that EDF has green issues and Britain at its heart. Which it doesn't. Questions need to be asked about the integrity of the ASA which is starting to look like the FSA before the credit crunch. Consumers need to be protected from corporate propaganda. It is dangerous to deceive people into believing that a company is part of a solution when in fact it is part of the problem. EDF is a coal importing, nuclear building, target missing, corporate giant that puts extraordinary pressures on government to bend its way. It is neither Green nor British. The Green Union Jack clearly implies that t is.

Never ever bite the hand that feeds u.

Extraordinary. From a company that imports 300 million tonnes of coal into the UK every year, boasts itself \(EDF Trading) to be "one of the largest participants in the global coal market', allegedly dumps nuclear waste in the open air in Siberia and is French.

Taken from www.edf.com: "The Group is involved in supplying energy and services to more than 38 million customers around the world, including more than 28 million in France. EDF is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange and is a member of the CAC 40 index." So it's French listed and approximately three quarters of its customers are in France - how, exactly, is EDF a British company?

The ASA really is a weak and useless entity

When companies are on the stock exchange anyone can own them, therefore the national terms of British, French, German, etc. no longer apply. Is 'Guinness' Irish when it is owned by Diaggeo? Is 'Jameson Irish Whiskey' Irish when it is owned by Pernod Ricard? The idea of nation hood and brands is dieing at a rate as fast and large as the requirement of the super corporations to satisfy their shareholders \(the real owners) appetite for profit, and they could be based anywhere. Just because a company was started in France does not mean it is French owned. It's amazing how people hold onto this idea of nation hood and brand. I don't see it like that anymore, not when a brand goes global or European wide via expansion and shares to investors. As for the green credentials. I don't know much about that side of it. Doesn't look good by the sound of the previous comments.

Perhaps a dirty brown tricolour flag would have been more appropriate...

Put aside all the British/French/Nuclear/Coal/Green stuff for a mo and ask yourself this: is it right for one company to take another company's idea and present it as their own... Would a RBR be happy if an AMV began sticking 'Every little helps' on their Sainsbury's ads? Campaign is the ad biz trade organist after all.

To be fair, the ad didnt explicitly state that EDF was a British company or that it is a green company. Hard to see how the ASA could find the ad guilty of the claims levelled at it.

But Jim, that was the desired outtake. One doesn't have to be a wise Vulcan to see you can achieve that objective without having to explicitly state it. Even I, with two non-pointy ears, can fathom that waving a Green Union flag, Green Britain Day in front of the eyes of the British public, and paying '10 Big Ones' to get Britain's Olympic Team for 2012 all over my publicity material could easily give the impression I want to give, namely, I'm British, I'm Green and I wanna be seen... as such.

What does the ASA actually do? Why do they exist? They're useless. This is a scandal. Everyone knows what EDF are implying.

Fair point, Grilla - I agree that the implication was clearly there. My badly expressed point was that I wasn't sure if the ASA was able to deal with implied messages. Maybe it is. I dunno.

I'm with the ASA. nowhere in the ad's do they as a company claim to be green and british, they are only supporting the idea that THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN should try to be greener. We can only hope they are also encouraging the people of France to be greener, although their flag is a bit too boring to patchwork.

Ruby, you and the ASA would suit each other just fine.