Best Foot Forward

To avoid this problem, BFF has been employed by high profile companies (other than Shell!) to ensure their carbon claims are not just 'greenwashing' and stand up to scrutiny. For example, Volkswagen employed us to calculate the emission savings from driving the Polo BlueMotion over a year instead of the average car in its class, and compared the figure to savings from recycling paper, drinks cans and plastic bags. Advertising campaigns were run in print, online and on television.

In the Radio 4 interview, Guy Parker, Deputy Director of ASA, said: "There are more and more environmental claims and we are receiving more and more complaints about them. We are at the forefront of trying to decide whether or not claims like 'sustainable', 'carbon neutral', 'carbon zero', 'carbon negative' are justified in the context of the initiatives that the advertisers have got."

Read more about the Shell case on the FT, Guardian and Telegraph websites. The ASA interview is available on the BBC's website (listen to the business news at 2hrs43mins). The ASA's full adjudication can also be read on their website.

In May, edie reported that greenwash complaints to the ASA had soared: "The ASA's Annual Report 2007 revealed objections about green claims more than doubled with 561 complaints about 410 adverts, compared to just 117 complaints about 83 adverts in 2006".