The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has today (18 December) confirmed to ship.energy that it has reached an ‘informal resolution’ with MSC Cruises regarding references to LNG as ‘cleaner fuel’ in its ‘For a greater beauty’ global ad campaign.
The ASA was responding to a complaint lodged by the environmental NGO Opportunity Green in March 2024, which claimed that MSC Cruises’ representation of LNG marine fuel as ‘Clean, Green Technology’ was misleading.
Commenting on the ‘informal resolution’, a spokesperson for the ASA told ship.energy: ‘A complainant challenged whether the claims “cleaner fuel” and “Clean, Green Technology” in the ads were misleading and exaggerated the benefits of cruising with MSC Cruises. We approached MSC Cruises about the issues that had been raised, and they agreed to remove the ads without the need for a formal investigation. On that basis, we closed the case informally.’
While an ‘informal resolution’ does not carry the same weight as a ruling and the case has been closed without an investigation, Opportunity Green still welcomed the result. The NGO’s Legal Director David Kay commented: ‘MSC Cruises taking down its misleading fossil LNG claims is a great result for consumers and the environment, but it shouldn’t have taken a nine-month long regulatory investigation for MSC to do the right thing – we wrote to them privately in June 2023 about the legal risks of misleading consumers about fossil LNG and they carried on regardless.
‘But while MSC may have taken down its claims, it is still raking in profit from its ad campaign through ticket companies that continue to use the misleading claims to attract customers. We’ll be contacting all of those companies over the coming days to make sure they take these ads down.’
ship.energy approached MSC Cruises for comment and received the following statement: ‘As the relevant legal framework for marketing claims is evolving, we will continue to work collaboratively with advertising bodies and regulators to ensure that our communications are delivered in a compliant way.
‘We continue to invest heavily in researching and implementing new technologies and innovative solutions for some of our ships, including bio and synthetic LNG fuels.
‘We will continue to develop responsible and transparent communications around sustainability, which are informative to consumers, substantiated by evidence and fully compliant with relevant regulations.’
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