Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A Facebook post and website for Easigrass, an artificial grass supplier:
a. The Facebook post on the Easigrass account, published on 9 June 2023, featured text that stated “Today we installed our first garden with our new fully recyclable Kensington Eco grass [shocked face emoji]…We [green heart emoji] this…We took out their old grass to replace with the best quality and fully recyclable grass!”.
b. The website for Easigrass www.easigrass.com, seen on 5 October 2023, featured a product webpage for “Kensington Eco 38mm” artificial grass. At the top of the page, a box contained a tick next to text that stated “Eco friendly”. Further text on the webpage stated “Fully recyclable”, and an image of the artificial grass was accompanied by a recycling logo labelled with the text “fully recyclable”.
A second webpage titled “How to upcycle artificial lawn offcuts” included a text box that stated “recycling”. The webpage featured the text “While installing a synthetic lawn is a great alternative to natural grass, many still question its environmental impact. Thankfully it offers a range of environmental benefits that include reducing water usages and the use of harmful pesticides, but it doesn’t stop there. Your artificial grass offcuts provide a fantastic opportunity for you to help the environment […] This is a great way to utilise your offcuts while creating an eye-catching feature wall for your garden that ticks all the environmental boxes”.
Issue
Five complainants, including Plastics Rebellion, challenged whether:
1. the claim “fully recyclable” was misleading and could be substantiated; and
2. the name “Kensington Eco grass” and the claims “it offers a range of environmental benefits” and “ticks all the environmental boxes” misleadingly implied the product was eco-friendly, because they believed artificial grass was damaging to the environment.
Response
1. Easigrass said their Kensington ECO range of artificial grass had an alternative backing, which enabled the product to be completely recyclable.
They said they worked with three recycling centres in Germany, Amsterdam and Denmark that offered mechanical recycling, and that process enabled them to reuse polymer materials. For contractual reasons, however, they were unable to provide further details of the full recycling process. They also said that there was a recycling centre in Scotland, where UK-based consumers could recycle ‘Kensington Eco Grass’ independently. They intended to be able to offer a recycling service to all customers in the future, either by running an in-house recycling facility, or to have an agreement in place with the main recycling centre in the UK. However, they explained that, in line with the product’s warranty, they didn’t expect consumers would need to recycle the product until 2033, and by that time, the recycling service would be in place.
2. Easigrass explained that, because the Kensington ECO Range could be fully recycled, the product was more environmentally friendly than other traditional artificial grasses that couldn’t be recycled. Nonetheless, they said they would remove the word ‘Eco’ from the product name, and the wording “recycling” and “ticks all environmental boxes” from ad (b).
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim that Kensington Eco-Grass was “fully recyclable” to mean that the entire product was easily recyclable once it had reached the end of its life cycle. We considered that consumers would expect that recycling process to be widely available and easily accessible to UK consumers.
We understood the composition of their product was different to that of traditional artificial grass products. A new method of binding pile fibres to the backing of the grass was used, which did not necessitate the use of non-recyclable latex or a polyurethane (PU) coating, which were typically used in the production of artificial grass. In their place, we understood that a recyclable coating was applied to the backing. However, we were not provided with further information about that coating, its recyclable properties or the way in which it would be recycled as part of the product at a recycling plant. As such, we considered that we were not provided with sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the artificial grass was fully recyclable.
In any case, we understood that the product could only be fully recycled at specialist recycling centres, and at the time the ad was seen, there were only three such locations in mainland Europe, and only one location in the UK. We therefore understood that it would not be possible for UK consumers to easily recycle the artificial grass at local recycling centres. Also, as there was only one centre in the UK which could recycle the materials used in the Kensington Eco artificial grass, we considered that access to recycling facilities for their product were not readily available to consumers.
As we were not provided with sufficient evidence of the recyclable nature of the coating, and because of the lack of existing UK infrastructure to process the product, we concluded the ad was misleading.
On that point, the ad breached the CAP Code rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 11.1 and 11.4 (Environmental claims).
2. Upheld
The CAP Code required that the basis of environmental claims must be clear and that unqualified claims could mislead if they omit significant information. It required that absolute claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation. It also said that claims must be based on the full life cycle of the advertised product, unless the ad stated otherwise.
We considered that the inclusion of “Eco” within the name of the product, as seen in both ads, implied that the artificial grass was “eco-friendly”. The claims “ticks all the environmental boxes” and “offers a range of environmental benefits” in ad (b) were used on a webpage related to the use of artificial grass offcuts. We considered that these would be interpreted by consumers to mean that the use of artificial grass would positively impact the environment in several ways, and reinforced the understanding that the product was “eco-friendly”.
We noted that the ads did not contain any qualifications or further information about the basis of those claims. In the absence of further context or qualification, we considered the direct and implied claims that the product was “eco-friendly” would be understood to mean that the advertised product was not harmful to the environment at any point during its full life cycle. We therefore expected to see a high level of substantiation demonstrating that absolute claim.
We understood that Easigrass had included the term “eco” within the product name because the grass could be recycled fully at specific recycling centres, unlike traditional artificial grass products. However, as stated above, we understood that only one recycling centre offered that service in the UK, and therefore, recycling the product would likely not be possible for many UK-based consumers. In addition, we understood that the Kensington Eco artificial grass was made from plastic. We considered that, even if it was recycled at the end of its life cycle, the extraction of raw materials and subsequent processing in order to produce the artificial grass had a negative impact on the environment.
We understood that the claims “offers a range of environmental benefits” and “ticks all the environmental boxes” referred to a reduction in the use of water and pesticides when replacing real grass with artificial grass, because artificial grass did not need to be watered, nor did it require upkeep with chemical-based products, such as pesticides. We considered that did not demonstrate that the artificial grass had a positive impact on the environment across its full life cycle. Furthermore, we considered that in those circumstances, the product would be used to replace real grass, thereby having a detrimental impact on biodiversity.
We acknowledged that Easigrass said they would remove the claims and amend the product name. However, because at the time the ad was seen we considered that consumers would understand that the Kensington Eco.artificial grass was eco-friendly. We had not, however, seen evidence of that regarding the full life cycle of the product and therefore concluded the claims were misleading.
On that point, the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation ), 11.1, 11.3, 11.4 (Environmental claims).
Action
The ads must not appear in their current form. We told Easigrass (Distribution) Ltd to ensure their marketing communications did not mislead as to the ease of the recycling of their products and did not imply their products were environmentally friendly if that was not the case.
