PRESS RELEASE FROM PLASTICS REBELLION: ASA FIND INNOCENT AD MISLEADING
CONTACT: JANET STOREY 07989185627 MATT PALMER 07710505031 FERGAL MCENTEE (PHOTOGRAPHY) 07812344845
Email: plasticsrebellion@gmail.com
Direct action group Plastics Rebellion have successfully held global Coca-Cola subsidiary Innocent Drinks to account over a greenwashing advertising campaign to sell drinks in plastic bottles that claimed to “fix up the planet”. The Advertising Standards Authority have ruled that the advert breached the advertising code because the campaign implied that buying Innocent products would have a positive environmental impact which is misleading.
The ruling comes after a campaign by Plastics Rebellion, a sister group of Extinction Rebellion, against the “Little Drinks, Big Dreams” advert made by Mother Advertising Ltd in May 2021. Last year Innocent’s parent company, Coca-Cola was ranked world’s top plastic polluter for the fourth consecutive year running. Innocent’s factory “The Blender” in Rotterdam produces 32,000 plastic bottles per hour.
At the beginning of June 2021, Plastics Rebellion hand delivered a letter to Douglas Lamont, CEO of Innocent Drinks and Simon Reid, company Sustainability Lead detailing three demands: to pull the advert immediately, to publicly apologise for intentionally misleading greenwashing and to schedule a meeting with Plastics Rebellion experts before 10th June to discuss what true circularity could look like and a way forward. When no adequate answer was received, Plastics Rebellion staged a sit-in dressed as fruit in the lobby at the company’s HQ, Fruit Towers on 21/6/2021. It was this same week in June that Plastics Rebellion won the Surfers Against Sewage 2021 Plastic-Free Hero award. The sit-in led to the arrest of 6 members of the group for aggravated trespass and intent to cause criminal damage (none was caused and no further action was taken).
Innocent said “Our purpose is to make healthy little drinks, and they do have to go in something. We’re genuinely confident that plastic is the most carbon efficient way to get it to people, and that encouraging recycling and the use of deposit return schemes will improve that even more.”
Plastics Rebellion said “You can’t be a major contributor to a global health and environmental emergency and claim to fix up the planet. Innocent are being disingenuous about the dangers of plastic’s threat to human health and environment, as well as trivialising the horrific scale of the problem by repeating the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle”. They’re guilty of brushing the plastic crisis under the carpet and trivialising it. The truth is that the lifecycle of plastic is more carbon intense than aviation; incineration and chemical recycling are toxic; microplastics in the sea and air are a threat to human and animal health; recycling only happens 9% of the time, much plastic waste is still landfilled which is unsustainable - and anyone involved with profiting from plastic knows this.”