The Catalan Consumer Agency initiates sanction proceedings against four vehicle manufacturers for the CO2 information in their advertising, as a result of the complaints presented by the UCE and Ecologistas en Accion.

The Catalan Consumer Agency has begun sanction proceedings against four automobile manufacturers following the charges presented by Ecologistas en Accion and the Spanish Consumers Union-UCE. In May of 2008, both organizations presented a complaint for breaching Decree 837/2002, of August 2nd, which regulates the information regarding fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of new vehicles. The investigated manufacturers are SEAT, Nissan, Honda and Volkswagen Audi.

Decree 837/2002 establishes that the “promotion forms” (which according to the Decree itself includes, “at least… advertisements in newspapers, magazines, specialized press and posters”) will have to include the data on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in a way that is “at least as visible as the main information on the promotion form” and “in an easily comprehensible manner, even after a superficial reading”.
This obligation has been systematically breached by all of the vehicle advertisements that include the information regarding CO2 emissions in very small print that is hardly legible. There are even some advertisements that do not include this information at all, and what is worse, brands use words like ecological or green in their main messages to advertise vehicles with high emission levels, as well as phrases about emissions without any criteria at all, with the sole purpose of creating a false perception and misleading consumers.

The General Consumer Directorate of the Community of Madrid has decided to shelve the charges that the UCE and Ecologistas en Accion presented for the same charges against Citröen, Hyundai, Renault/Dacia, Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot. Both the UCE and Ecologists in Action have indicated their perplexity about this difference in criteria, even more incomprehensible when in other European countries sanctions are being imposed due to the same charges. Last October 2007 the General session of the European Parliament requested that the European Commission introduce legal requirements for the labelling, publicity and commercialization of new vehicles in the EU Common Market.
They have also suggested that at least 20% of the space dedicated to the promotion of new cars in publicity, commercial literature or advertising surfaces in the exhibition halls of the points of sale «should be dedicated to offering information on the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in an authorized format «. Their report also suggests a classification system of the environmental results based on “green stars”, which would take into consideration all the environmentally related results, including the CO2 emissions.

General Motors Rectification
In addition, General Motors Spain has communicated to the Main Consumer Directorate of the Government of Aragon that they will modify the characteristics of the references to the CO2 emissions in the advertising leaflets of their vehicles, after the charges presented by the UCE and Ecologistas en Accion. General Motors recognizes that the publicity for the charged model, the Opel Corsa, “does not fit article 7 and Annex IV of Royal Decree 837/2008, 2nd August (…)”. General Motors has declared that, “we are going to modify our publicity relative not only to the model of the car in question, but also all the car publicity distributed by our company, so that the references to fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are as visible as the main information”.

The Spanish Consumers Union and Ecologistas en Accion will present new charges and advertising breaches of Royal Decree 837/2002, against the following automobiles manufacturers; BMW, Skoda, Toyota, KIA and Jaguar. Both organizations detect continuous breaches regarding the CO2 information in the publicity used by the manufacturers, in written press as well as other forms of advertising (billboards, posters or Internet).