Luton Rising’s airport expansion adverts banned by watchdog for being ‘misleading’

The ASA upheld the complaints made by eight environmental organisations, including Stay Grounded, Badvertising and Adfree Cities, after finding that the adverts “omitted significant information and were therefore misleading”.

In its ruling published today (July 10), the watchdog ordered Luton Rising, Luton Borough Council’s company which owns Luton airport, to not run the same adverts again.

The adverts were seen earlier this year in The New Statesman magazine and on posters on the London Underground. They featured an image of an aircraft marshaller signalling to a plane with text stating: "If we miss our environmental limits, our expansion will be stopped in its tracks."

The campaigners argued that the adverts had tried justify the airport's expansion on the grounds of environmental responsibility, without giving the public a complete picture of the project’s environmental impacts. The news was welcomed by anti-noise group LADACAN, which is against the airport expansion which could see passenger numbers increase from 18 million to 32 million per annum.

Andrew Lambourne from LADACAN said: “The ASA has clearly exposed Luton Rising’s greenwash for what it is. Anyone can see that a massive increase in flights at Luton Airport would lead to a massive increase in carbon emissions, just when we’re all focused on trying to be responsible for the sake of the planet and reduce carbon emissions.”

The watchdog said that most people “assume that limits relating to emissions from an airport would include those from air traffic movement” and interpret the phrase “environmental limits” as “meaning the limits included carbon emissions from both airport ground operations and emissions from air traffic movement”.

Luton Rising said it would make distinctions about emissions made by air movements and their Green Controlled Growth (GCG) proposals clearer in any future advertising.

The ASA added: “We considered the image of an aeroplane taxiing on a runway in both ads contributed to the impression that emissions from air traffic movement would be a key factor into the Green Controlled Growth framework.

"We considered their exclusion was material information that was likely to affect people's understanding of the ads' overall message, and should have been made clear."

Luton Rising said: “We are proud that our airport expansion proposals include what we believe are some of the most far-reaching commitments to minimising environmental impact ever put forward by a UK airport.

“The advertisement in question centred around our Green Controlled Growth (GCG) proposals, which would mean that if the airport breaks the environmental limits set out in our expansion proposals, further expansion is stopped. If our expansion proposals are consented by Government, GCG will introduce limits for the airport’s noise, carbon emissions, air quality and road traffic impacts. The GCG framework would be legally binding, and independently monitored.”

It continued: “The ASA’s ruling concerns the carbon emissions element of GCG, and how this is presented in the advertisement. GCG covers carbon emissions generated by the airport’s operations and by staff and passengers travelling to and from the airport by road and rail. Emissions caused by air movements are not part of GCG, but are instead, subject to the Government’s Jet Zero goal, which commits to net zero UK aviation emissions by 2050.

“The ASA accepted that the specific carbon emissions covered by GCG were set out on the Luton Rising website, to which viewers of the advertisement were pointed. They felt that this distinction should have been made clearer in the advertisement itself, which we will do in any future advertisements.”