INTRODUCTION

Subjects related to the use of ecology for purely marketing purposes have become a major issue in the modern world of advertising. Creating the illusory and often false impression of caring for the environment, pretending to be green and environmentally friendly with a view to boosting the sales of products or temporarily changing the company’s reputation are infamous practices of many businesses these days.

For the Advertising Council, the leading entity that promotes ethics in advertising, addressing the topic of greenwashing has turned into one of the most important milestone projects. Our organisation was established to promote the idea of self-regulation as a formula for organising the rules of operation in a given area of business in a way that is incomparably more friendly and acceptable than standard state regulatory actions. At the beginning of 2021, we initiated activities related to the development of principles describing the marketing use of the idea and image of ecology in line with basic ethical principles.

The commencement of work on the creation of new provisions of the Code of Ethics in Advertising coincided with an increasing number of violations reported by consumers to the Advertising Ethics Committee, related to the potentially unauthorised use by the complainees of the argument of caring for the environment in order to improve their image or achieve the desired sales results. Nearly 100 such complaints have been filed with the Advertising Ethics Committee in the past several months. They have not always involved conscious violations, but it has become clear that without regulation and proper definition of environmental issues in advertising, the scale of the problem will only grow. The educational nature of the Advertising Council’s activities is also of importance – a clear formulation of the rules for the use of environmental aspects may indirectly (although significantly) influence the development of correct pro-environmental attitudes in the actions of advertisers.

Months of work on extending the Code of Ethics in Advertising, in our organisation called the Green Project, have led to self-regulatory provisions detailing these issues. All market actors were involved in the work – representatives of industry organisations and companies being members of the Advertising Council, as well as numerous external experts. In the course of the work, 37 entities from various industries were consulted on the project. The work did not focus solely on the experience of the Polish market; the entire Green Project was also extensively discussed with our international partners affiliated with the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA).
The work has resulted in the creation of absolutely unique, pioneering self-regulation that is poised to become the flagship project of the Union of Associations Advertising Council.