Following a complaint filed by Adfree Cities, the UK advertising regulator has banned Lloyds Bank’s “low carbon economy” advert for greenwashing. The watchdog said the ad would mislead the public and businesses by failing to mention Lloyds’ “large contribution” to global climate-harming emissions.
For press enquiries, call 07517 408513 or email hello[at]adfreecities.org.uk
An advert for Lloyds Banking Group has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for misleading businesses and the public over the bank’s contribution to climate change through its ongoing financing of fossil fuels. Adfree Cities reported the ads to the watchdog in May 2024.
Lloyds is the first UK bank to have been ruled to break the ASA’s greenwashing rules since the watchdog ruled against HSBC in a landmark case in 2022.
Lloyds’ ad, made by agency adam&eveDDB, gives a strongly ‘green’ impression – talking up the bank’s green financing with green imagery and claims about the renewable energy supply to the bank’s buildings. There is no mention of Lloyds’ continued financing of polluting industries, including fossil fuels. Some key information missing from the ads includes:
- In 2022, after the bank committed to end direct financing to new oil fields, it increased fossil fuel financing by $178 million compared to the previous year.
- Despite being a member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, Lloyds Bank provided $1.9 billion in finance to fossil fuels in 2023, and more than $17 billion between 2016-2023.
- Lloyds Bank provided $5,918 million to the world’s largest oil and gas expanders between 2016-2021. As yet it has no policies in place to prevent financing companies expanding oil and gas production, including BP and Shell.
Between 2016 and 2023, Lloyds funnelled £16 billion into climate-harming fossil fuels projects, including billions in finance to companies that are expanding their fossil fuel operations. Despite its misleading climate ads, Lloyds increased its fossil fuel financing by $178 million in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to experts.
Ongoing financing of fossil fuels directly contradicts global efforts to “transition away from fossil fuels” agreed by governments at COP28 last year, and threatens the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The ASA ruled that Lloyds’ sponsored LinkedIn advert overemphasised the bank’s financing of renewable energy while failing to mention the bank’s “large contribution” to climate-harming emissions. Lloyds continues to finance highly polluting industries, including fossil fuels and agribusiness.
In light of the barrage of greenwash we face everywhere, all the time, Adfree Cities are calling for tobacco-style laws to end advertising by major polluters – including banks financing fossil fuels. In October 2024, the BMJ banned adverts for fossil fuel financiers, including Lloyds, on health grounds.
Veronica Wignall, co-director at Adfree Cities, said:
“Lloyds isn’t a climate leader, despite its eco adverts. Lloyds is trying to sell a green story, while it continues to pour money into unethical polluting companies. It’s completely possible and even beneficial for Lloyds to show genuine climate leadership and stop funding fossil fuels altogether, rather than just spending big on greenwash ads.”
“While the ASA’s ruling is welcome, advertising regulation is nauseatingly slow and ineffective; we need a tobacco-style ban on high-carbon advertising to stop greenwash and clear the way for meaningful climate action.”
In its ruling, the ASA noted that the emissions from projects financed by Lloyds’ in 2022 were equivalent to 33 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, and that “investment in and financing of areas of climate risk comprised a notable amount of the company’s activities and would continue to do so in the near future”.
In October 2023, analysis from consumer champion Which? placed Lloyds into the worst category owing to its continued financing of polluting sectors, alongside high street competitors Barclays, HSBC, Santander, JPMorgan Chase and NatWest.
The same analysis found that other high street banks Nationwide and The Co-operative Bank, as well as Triodos, explicitly do not fund fossil fuels.
In response to the ruling against Lloyd’s Bank’s misleading “low carbon” advert, ClientEarth lawyer Megan Clay said that bankrolling fossil fuel companies may breach international law regarding human rights:
“Once again, a major UK high-street bank has been penalised for trying to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to the climate crisis. Lloyds is claiming to be a financial force for good when it comes to the energy transition, but in reality they have funnelled $6.45 billion into new fossil fuel infrastructure since the landmark Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.”
“So it should come to no surprise to both Lloyds and other major banks that claiming to be part of the climate solution has to mean something. As a bare minimum, banks making claims like the one the ASA has ruled on today must rule out financing oil and gas expanders and fossil fuel companies that refuse to veer away from business-as-usual.“
“Setting out clear financing red lines will also reduce the growing legal risks for banks like Lloyds – as UN human rights experts warned last year that indiscriminately bankrolling fossil fuel expanding companies may breach human rights law.”
Andrew Simms, co-director of the New Weather Institute and coordinator of the Badvertising campaign, said: “Only the dark arts of the advertising industry could market a bank as accelerating “the transition to a low carbon economy” and conveniently ‘forget’ to mention the same bank is channeling billions into expanding oil and gas companies, and last year actually increased its funding of fossil fuels.
“Like the previous collusion between advertisers and the tobacco industry, disinformation is central to their defending a lethal, unacceptable business model, and the response should be the same, agencies should drop polluter clients, and adverts that promote self-destruction should be banned.”
Lloyds has been under pressure over its financing activities, with its 2024 AGM disrupted by climate and pro-Palestine activists protesting the bank’s financing of fossil fuel companies and arms companies.
While Lloyds has made a commitment not to finance new oil and gas fields directly, Jeanne Martin, Head of Banking Programme at ShareAction, said that Lloyds’ action so far does not yet make it a climate leader given that the bank still finances fossil fuel companies: Lloyds’ current policy covers ‘only a fraction of the financing provided by banks to new oil and gas. Lloyds Banking Group should not rest on its laurels just yet, but instead urgently turn its focus to the companies behind these new oil and gas fields.“
The watchdog investigated three other Lloyds adverts reported in Adfree Cities’ original complaint, but, concerningly, did not find them in breach of its advertising rules. Lloyds has been warned that its future advertisements should not mislead by omitting information which helped with consumer understanding of environmental messages, for example by including information about its financing of fossil fuels.
What next?
The ASA’s judgement is too little, too late, and its failure to act on other misleading adverts for Lloyds and other banks sets a concerning precedent. We’ve previously raised concerns that the regulator is neither timely nor effective, and despite its best efforts it simply isn’t able to prevent the volume of greenwash advertising that’s reaching us.
We’re calling for a ban on advertising for fossil fuel companies and their financiers, as well as other high-carbon industries including aviation. We no longer see ads that promote smoking. Together we can act on ads that are driving global heating.
Want to help us tackle greenwash and high-carbon advertising by fossil fuel financiers, carmakers, fossil fuel companies, airlines and more? Write to your MP to ask for tobacco-style restrictions on polluting advertising.
Adfree Cities is a network of groups across the UK who are concerned about the impacts of corporate advertising on our health, wellbeing, environment, climate, communities and the local economy. We lobby for policy change at national and local levels, showcase alternatives, organise locally to stop new advertising sites in UK cities, and produce resources to raise awareness about the impacts of commercial advertising.
For press enquiries, call 07517 408513 or email hello[at]adfreecities.org.uk
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