Three UK travel companies have been found guilty of breaching advertising rules by using unsubstantiated environmental sustainability claims amid increasing scrutiny of travel marketing across the supply chain.
The UK Advertising Standards Authority upheld rulings against Thomas Cook Tourism, WeLoveHolidays and DialAFlight on September 9 after finding that claims, including “eco” and “eco-conscious”, were not sufficiently explained to consumers.
The European Union’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, which becomes effective on September 27, is introducing stricter rules for environmental claims while regulators in the UK, US, Australia and Canada examine “green” claims.
The specifics of the cases are worth noting. The three companies are not accused of lacking evidence of environmental programmes as they each run various solar power, greywater recycling and food waste initiatives.
“The change required is not to stop making claims. It is to make sure every environmental word you publish has documented evidence behind it and that the specifics sit where the consumer actually sees them,” says Dimitri Syrris, Founder and CEO of Baotree.
Third-party liability
In their defence, all three companies argued that they did not originate the environmental claims but relied on information or wording supplied by third parties.
Thomas Cook Tourism said it used the Google Ads tool Performance Max, which generated parts of advertisements in response to user search terms.
DialAFlight took its “eco-conscious” claim from an accommodation fact sheet.
WeLoveHolidays argued the aggregator position, Syrris points out. “It resells third-party accommodation, does not own or operate the properties and only reproduces supplier trading names for identification.”
The rulings indicate that advertisers cannot simply pass responsibility for substantiating claims back to suppliers.
Melissa Foley, Community and Conservation Impact Lead of Africa’s Eden Tourism Association, says a travel company is responsible for conducting reasonable due diligence.
“If a travel company publishes a claim, promotes it and financially benefits from the booking, ‘The supplier told us’ cannot be used in defence,” Foley points out.
“Suppliers should be asked what a claim means, what evidence supports it, who produced the evidence, whether it has been independently verified, when the information was last updated and whether the evidence applies to the entire business or only one initiative.”
Value chain
Foley and Syrris believe the UK ruling exposes a major procurement blind spot.
“Tourism companies have traditionally focused supplier contracting on price, availability, health and safety and service quality. Environmental and social claims must now become part of supplier onboarding and ongoing due diligence,” says Foley.
The responsibility follows the claim through the value chain, she adds, stating that a business cannot outsource credibility while retaining commercial benefit.
Syrris says the UK cases point to a supply chain data problem as much as a legal challenge.
“Underneath that sits a sequencing mistake. Marketing writes the line first and operations gets asked to prove it 18 months later when the data is scattered across spreadsheets, WhatsApp threads and somebody’s camera roll. Build the evidence system before you write the copy – not after.”
The issue is more complex as travel businesses use automated tools to generate high volumes of advertising copy without human sign-off.
Evidence over perfection
Standards vary across jurisdictions and there are legitimate questions about universally applying sustainability frameworks developed in a specific market. But the underlying principle is harder to dispute: tourism businesses should be able to provide evidence for their environmental and social claims.
“My simplest advice is: if you cannot measure it, you cannot market it. At its core, this is about basic capitalism, competitive advantage, risk management and continued market access,” says Foley.
“African tourism companies that can provide credible evidence, particularly where that evidence is supported by recognised independent certification, will be easier to contract, easier to market and lower risk to sell.”
Risk of ‘greenhushing’
Increased scrutiny also carries the risk of companies deliberately reducing their environmental communication for fear of being penalised for getting the language wrong.
South Pole’s 2024 Net Zero Report, covering 1 400 companies with dedicated sustainability leads across 12 countries, found companies in nine of 14 sectors deliberately reduce their climate communications.
Syrris finds most operators do far more environmental and social work than they ever say out loud because they don’t want to be accused of greenwashing.
“The instinct is right. The response, going silent, is wrong because it hands the field to whoever is least careful,” he says.
“I would also diagnose the cause carefully. What makes companies go quiet is not scrutiny. It is not having evidence that would withstand it. If you hold the data, scrutiny works in your favour because it removes the competitor making the same claim without doing the work.”
