Norwegian expedition cruise company Hurtigruten has fallen foul of UK advertising authorities over claims about the sustainability of its operations.
An advertisement for cruise line HX Hurtigruten Expeditions has been banned for “misleadingly claiming that its trips were sustainable”.
The paid-for advert seen in the digital version of a national newspaper on 6 March 2024, featured the headline claim — “Selected Svalbard cruises with free flights […] Since 1896, we’ve been the leaders in sustainable expeditions”.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a complaint that the claim “sustainable expeditions” gave a misleading impression of the trips’ environmental impact.
“Hurtigruten Expeditions said in their view an average consumer would not have understood the claim ‘sustainable expeditions’ as including flights,” the ASA said.
“They said that the claim ‘sustainable’ did not mean the cruises had no environmental impact whatsoever, but that their environmental impact was relatively low in the context of other cruise lines.”
The ASA said the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP Code) required the basis of environmental claims to 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 ASA added.
The ASA said it acknowledged Hurtigruten Expeditions’ comments that consumers would understand the claim as referring to the sea travel aspect of a trip only. However, it said the claim was not qualified with that information.
“We considered ‘sustainable expeditions’ was an absolute claim, which would be understood as referring to the full life cycle of a holiday, including travel to and from the destination location,” the ASA said.
“While we acknowledged Hurtigruten Expeditions 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 is required to take one of its cruises, 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,” the ASA added.
“We considered the measures taken by Hurtigruten Expeditions 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 Hurtigruten Expeditions’ holidays and therefore breached the Code,” the ASA concluded.
