The Advertising Standards Agency has decided that Friends of the Earth can claim on its website that “Fracking is incompatible with tackling climate change” and “Fracking risks contaminating groundwater”.
The watchdog rejected a challenge that questioned whether the comments could be substantiated and sugegsted they were misleading.
In a lengthy discussion of the issue the ASA decided that the page was intended to provide information and set out why FoE was campaigning against fracking in the UK. Website visitors would be aware that there was political discussion underway.
The ASA considered the views of the Climate Change Committee, saw that it thought the government had not met tests for making fracking climate-compliant. The ASA also decided that it was not misleading to claim there was a risk that fracking could contaminate groundwater and that groundwater could end up being used as drinking water. It had examined experience in the USA and how that differed from the UK situation.
Read the ruling in full
Further reading
Welsh government to outlaw fracking and extraction of coal bed methane
Interview: Allison Roche, Policy Officer, Unison