Our big win on car advertising

We Are Futureproof's legal challenge has great results for CO2 labeling on all car ads.

We all know the hot topic of the 21st century. Well, we did before the financial crisis hit the planet and the tabloids. It's CO2.

Over a year ago I started looking at car advertisements, and I started to wonder at the myriad ways that the creative advertising people hide or place, or leave out entirely, the CO2 and fuel efficiency information. We all know that they sell car brands (and sex) (and desire), not public service announcements about CO2 and other toxic fumes. So they have begrudgingly added the CO2 information in little ditsy fonts in the oddest places for readers to find, like an egg hunt on Easter morning.

After some digging around I realised that there was a big gaping loophole that the government was allowing the car advertisers, probably out of laziness more than anything else (though it could have possibly, just possibly, come from fierce lobbying or payola under the table, wink wink...don't know and don't care).

We were finding big glossy fold out car ads without a shred of CO2 info. Mercedes. Land Rover. Bentley. Kia. Didn't matter, they were all doing it. And when we started a campaign about it and wrote to their CEO's they all said the same thing - the VCA told us it was ok. They checked it first, it was OK.

Well, after seeing a barrister, and then bringing on a solicitor, we packed up our bags and went to Westminister, and we challenged the Secretary for Transport, the DfT and the VCA. We told them they were in breach of the law. We asked them to change their Guidance Notes to the advertising industry and car makers, or face a judicial review.

And now, this week, after over 13 months of writing and meeting and compiling 100's of copies of auto ads and photos of billboards from across the UK, we finally won. Sure, we had to compromise a little. And we had to listen to some real howlers. Like this: the advertising companies actually told us that car billboards weren't targeted at car drivers. Whoa. Really? And the DfT said they would be horrified if car drivers were actually reading billboards whilst driving, because they would get in an accident. So in the end we agreed that anyone had to be able to read the CO2 info from across the road, just like financial information.

Now every single car ad wil have to contain CO2 and MPG information and it has to be legible and easily readible, and just as big a font as all the other information.

So what does this all have to do with We Are Futureproof? Why the big deal?

Well, when you step back you realise that all the cars we currently make are polluting cars. They're all toxic to the planet. Even the Toyota Prius and the little shoe shaped G whiz electric 'vehicle'. From the way the raw materials are mined to the manufacturing processes, to the way we dispose of them at the end of their life.

But we do think that can change. We think it's entirely possible in this day and age to design a vehicle that can also actually benefit the environment. A car that produces oxygen whilst it drives you around from A to B. Or produces extra energy for your home at night, putting less pressure on the energy grid. A car that can be completely recycled into a new car, instead of into a flower pot, tin can or a bit of tarmac.

Until we get to that point we want consumers to think about the effect their dream car is going to have on the environment. Sure we could display the information in a much more creative and simpler way that anyone can glance at and quickly comprehend, but we'll leave that up to the advertisers and the government. I mean, what could we do about it?

Blake, for We Are Futureproof