The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is making it clear this week that it will not tolerate sloppy language around green claims in advertising. Two challenges in relation to composting coffee capsules or bags have been upheld and are worth a read if you are reviewing how you take your products to market.

The first relates to Lavazza Coffee; and the second relates to Dualit Ltd. 

Green claims over what is compostable or not, and whether a product is compostable at home or at an industrial facility are fraught with difficulty. In both cases, the ASA asked what a consumer would understand the claim to mean. Under these circumstances, the everyday meaning was determined to be that the capsules or bags could be composed at home when that was not, in fact, the case.

It is time to get tough with copywriting.