ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

In April 2021, the JDP received a complaint that a BrewDog poster advertising ‘Punk IPA’ beer had disregarded the SDR. The poster depicted a bottle of Punk IPA and the liquid of the beer within a crest shape, accompanied by the text “United we stand for better beer” and “carbon-negative brewery”. The advert referenced an English-language website which contained an explanation that “This means we take twice as much carbon out of the air as we emit”.

The complainant argued that the statement “carbon-negative brewery” was difficult to verify for the majority of French consumers given the website was available only in English and the explanation on the website was imprecise and even misleading.

According to a 2021 “sustainability report” published on BrewDog’s website, the company had bought 3,767 hectares of land in Scotland with a view to planting trees and restoring peatlands, which could store between 800,000 and 1 million tons of CO2 over 100 years.

However, BrewDog emitted 75,000 tons of CO₂ per year, which was a 6% rise on its 2019 emissions, meaning the storage capacity of the proposed ecosystem was insufficient to offset the company’s emissions twice over, as claimed. In any event, the project had not started and in the meantime the company had only purchased carbon offset credits.

BrewDog itself did not submit any observations on the complaint. However, the billboard company, Clear Channel France, denied that the SDR had been violated.

First, it submitted that the explanation for the “carbon negative brewery” claim was legible and visible under normal reading conditions, and referred to the advertiser’s website which the consumer could easily consult and, if necessary, translate by clicking either on the “Translate this page” option or on the “French” button in a pop-up window of the site.

Second, the advertiser had met the recommendation to present precisely the sustainable development actions it had taken by publishing on its website its 2019-2020 and 2021 sustainability reports, which detailed BrewDog’s investment plan and its initiatives to remove carbon from the atmosphere and help fight climate change.

In its decision, the JDP acknowledged that BrewDog had made significant investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its beer production and had taken action to absorb CO₂ by carbon sinks. However, it found that the SDR had been disregarded because:

• The company would neutralise its carbon emissions only if its plantings were fully carried out and if its CO₂ emissions did not increase at the current rate. Meeting the goal of becoming carbon negative was hypothetical and could not be presented as certain. In the immediate future, the company appeared to be limiting itself to acquiring carbon credits to offset its emissions.
• The statement “carbon-negative brewery”, without further explanation in the advert or clarification that it was initially to be achieved by purchasing carbon credits, with reference to an English language website without translation to French.
• The 2021 “sustainability report” did not fully enlighten even the English-speaking consumer. There was a constant focus on the realisation of the carbon sinks, despite the process having only recently been launched, while the purchase of carbon credits was mentioned only discreetly. The statement that “since 22 August 2020, we have been removing twice as much carbon from the air as we emit each year”, suggested it had done so itself, which was not the case and, in any event, the report stated its annual emissions were estimated at 74,562 TCO₂e while the impact of its removal actions were estimated at 59,622 TCO₂e.
• Finally, by reference also to other statements made in the 2021 report (“every time someone buys a BrewDog beer, the world receives less carbon”) and BrewDog’s other advertising communications (“Every multipack of BrewDog plants one tree” and “Buy one, get one tree”), the JDP considered that the presentation of the carbon offsetting mechanism in the advert concerned might incorrectly lead the average consumer to think that the consumption of BrewDog beer would, by itself, directly reduce carbon emissions.