Ad description
A paid-for ad for cruise company Hurtigruten Expeditions, seen in the digital version of a national newspaper on 6 March 2024, featured the headline claim “Free flights to Svalbard and more”. Further text stated, “Selected Svalbard cruises with free flights […] Since 1896, we’ve been the leaders in sustainable expeditions”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the claim “sustainable expeditions” gave a misleading impression of the advertised expeditions’ environmental impact, challenged whether it was misleading and could be substantiated.Response
Hurtigruten UK Ltd t/a HX Hurtigruten Expeditions (HX) said in their view an average consumer would not have understood the claim “sustainable expeditions” as including flights. The word “expedition” had much stronger associations with travel by land or sea, and in the context of an ad for an expedition cruise company would have been interpreted as referring to the cruise component of the trip. They said the use of an image of a cruise ship in the ad, along with the text “SAIL THIS SUMMER”, “Selected Svalbard Cruises” and “comfortable, purpose-built ships”, made it clear the ad was for a cruise company.
Additionally, it was clear the free flight was included as a time limited offer. That being the case, the claim would be understood as meaning Hurtigruten’s expedition cruises, excluding flights, were sustainable. They explained the claim “sustainable” did not mean the cruises had no environmental impact whatsoever; moreover, that their environmental impact was relatively low in the context of other cruise lines.HX explained that they prioritised environmental responsibility and conservation in their expedition operations. They said they were leaders in sustainable expeditions in the expedition cruise sector – launching the world’s first hybrid electric cruise ship, being the first expedition cruise company to banish polluting heavy fuel oil from their fleet and the first to ban single use plastic. They were the only cruise company to produce a rigorous annual Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) report, and they were the only cruise company to be awarded a “Low” ESG Risk Rating. Their 2023 ESG report showed that since 2022 they had reduced their Scope 1 emissions by 18%, per-passenger waste by more than 30% and edible food waste by 22%.
HX said they aimed to make a minimal impact on nature, for example, by using quiet ships to preserve the serene environments they traversed. They also donated cruise nights for scientific researchers, to support projects that included underwater drone surveys of fish spawning grounds, penguin colony monitoring and studying humpback whale behaviour and genetics.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code required that the basis of environmental claims must be clear, and that absolute environmental claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation. Environmental claims must be based on the full life cycle of the advertised product, unless the ad stated otherwise.
The ad featured the claim “Since 1896, we’ve been the leaders in sustainable expeditions”. The ASA acknowledged HX’s comments that consumers would understand the claim as referring to the sea travel aspect of a trip only. However, the claim was not qualified with that information. Svalbard was an archipelago to the north of Norway, and we understood it would be necessary, in most cases, for consumers to fly to the starting point of a cruise in the area. We considered that consumers would therefore interpret the term “expeditions” as meaning the holiday packages offered from Svalbard were likely to include a flight, irrespective of the time-limited free flight offer.We considered “sustainable expeditions” was an absolute claim, which would be understood as referring to the full life cycle of a HX holiday, including travel to and from the destination location.
While we acknowledged HX had taken steps to reduce the environmental impact of its cruises, those steps did not cover all aspects of their holiday packages, and were not referred to in the ad. For example, air travel, such as that required to take a HX cruise, produced high levels of both CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, which were making a substantial contribution to climate change. In addition, the measures in place were insufficient to support an absolute “sustainable” claim in relation to the cruise aspect of the holiday.
We considered the measures taken by HX did not relate to the claim, and that because they had not taken the aforementioned emissions into account, the absolute claim “sustainable expeditions” had not been adequately substantiated.
Because the basis of the claim had not been made clear and we had not seen evidence based on the full life cycle of the product to support the absolute claim “sustainable expeditions” as it would be understood by consumers, we concluded the ad had misleadingly minimised the impact of HX’s holidays and therefore breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 11.1, 11.3, and 11.4 (Environmental claims).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of.
We told Hurtigruten UK Ltd t/a HX Hurtigruten Expeditions to ensure the basis of future environmental claims was made clear and did not give a misleading impression of their expeditions’ environmental impact, and that robust substantiation was held to support them.
