ASA Pulse Report on environmental claims in online advertising

The question

What does the ASA’s recent Pulse Report reveal about the current trends for environmental claims in online advertising?

The key takeaway

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) report found that environmental claims feature in only around 1% of UK online ads. When environmental claims do appear, they are often framed in “absolute” terms, such as “eco-friendly”, or “sustainable”. As absolute claims typically require a higher level of substantiation under the CAP Code, they therefore carry a greater risk of non-compliant advertising. Following these findings, the ASA intends to reinforce its expectations and best‑practice guidance on environmental claims - its report highlighting “that the potential for consumer harm in environmental advertising is shaped less by how often claims appear, and more by how they are framed and understood in context”.

The background

As part of its shift from complaint-led intervention to proactive, data-driven enforcement, the ASA is continually expanding its digital operations to accelerate content review and enable large-scale ad monitoring. In its June 2026 Pulse Report: Environmental Claims in Ads, the ASA confirmed this approach, showcasing that its AI “Active Ad Monitoring” system screened 6 million B2C ads on Google and 1.7 million website banners over a three-month period in late 2025. Of these ads, 61,000 were identified as containing environmental claims. The ads were then assessed using large language models (LLMs) to identify whether they contained environmental claims, which were classified as either absolute or comparative. The report found that environmental claims were relatively rare, appearing in only around 1% of the ads assessed. However, of the claims identified, around three-quarters were categorised as absolute. The findings suggest that compliance risk is driven less by the volume of environmental claims than by the specific language and framing advertisers use.

The development

The Pulse Report represents the ASA’s first large-scale, cross-sector surveillance of environmental claims in online advertising. It also reflects the ASA’s continued shift towards proactive, technology-driven monitoring, using its Active Ad Monitoring system to identify cross-market patterns and emerging areas of activity that would not be visible through individual complaints alone. The ASA’s findings indicate that broad, absolute environmental claims, such as “planet-friendly” or “sustainable”, are common within online advertising. These absolute claims carry a greater regulatory risk because they imply an overall environmental benefit, which requires a more robust level of objective substantiation under the advertising codes. These types of claims were found to be most prevalent in the food and agriculture (95%) and fashion retail (94%) sectors. However, the report also identifies architecture as an emerging area of activity, with “low-carbon” and “eco-friendly” home design claims featuring prominently. The ASA has indicated that it intends to use these findings as the basis for continued monitoring and targeted follow-ups. It also intends to issue further guidance through its “Green Speaking with Confidence” initiative to help advertisers develop more specific, evidence-based environmental claims.

Why is this important?

As the ASA’s AI-assisted monitoring enables it to identify patterns in environmental claims at scale, advertisers relying on broad or unqualified absolute environmental claims are more likely to face regulatory scrutiny, even in the absence of a consumer complaint.

Any practical tips?

Businesses making environmental claims should review their online advertising and amend any broad or unqualified absolute environmental claims – it’s very rare that these can be substantiated! This means:

• avoid making environmental claims in isolation. To comply with the CAP Code advertisers must define the scope and context of the claim, including (if the claim does not relate to the whole product) specifically which aspect of the product, or its manufacturing process or distribution it relates to
• when making environmental claims, include balancing information about the business’ overall environmental impact and the proportion represented by the specific claim to avoid creating a misleading impression
• where absolute terms are used, advertisers should hold robust documentary evidence to substantiate the claim and ensure any limitations are clearly and unambiguously communicated. In this regard, terms such as “eco-friendly” “sustainable” or “green” are almost inevitably tripwires and advertisers are advised to avoid such claims altogether, or at least proceed with extreme caution.

Autumn 2026