ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

The Dutch Advertising Code Committee has upheld in part a claim against MSC Cruises. The claim alleged that advertisements published by MSC Cruises made misleading environmental statements, thereby violating the Sustainability Advertising Code and the Dutch Advertising Code (DAC).

The ACC assessed a number of MSC Cruises’ advertisements for compliance with the rules. The first related to TV commercials containing the lines “I am here to be discovered and protected. In the most beautiful places, reached with the latest energy.” The ACC held that “latest energy” may mislead consumers about the sustainability of the cruise trips because the advertisements failed to mention that MSC Cruises’ two newest ships were powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) which, contrary to the impression created by the advertisement, is a fossil fuel.

The second set of statements were found on a MSC Cruises webpage, and included “It is a responsible way to sail into the future”. This statement was held to be misleading. It was not clear from the webpage that only two of the twenty two ships advertised as part of the fleet sailed on LNG, and that the rest sailed on conventional fuel.

Another webpage statement, “That is why our new ships are powered by one of the cleanest marine fuels: Liquefied Natural Gas”, was held to mean that LNG was one of the cleanest fuels available. However, the ACC noted that the environmental impact of shipping was more than just greenhouse gas emissions, and the communication in the statement was not limited to emissions alone. The total environmental impact of LNG must also take into account issues such as the energy cost of making LNG ready for use. Ultimately, MSC Cruises had made an absolute claim, whereas only a relative environmental benefit could be made out. The statement therefore breached the SAC.

The webpage statement “Hopefully in the not-too-distant future we can use bio- and synthetic LNG and further reduce our impact on the journey to net zero greenhouse gas emissions”, was considered to advertise a goal that could not reasonably be expected to be achievable. MSC Cruises pointed to sustainability goals such as renewing its fleet and running two ships commissioned in 2023 on LNG, which was later to be replaced by renewable fuel. However, the ACC said, MSC Cruises had not sufficiently demonstrated that ‘in the not too distant future’ sufficient bio- and synthetic LNG would be available on a commercial scale for shipping such as to achieve the result of net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The same reasoning applied to two further statements contained in MSC Cruises advertisements regarding their goal to be net zero by 2050. MSC Cruises had not sufficiently demonstrated that 2050 was a target that could reasonably be achieved.

The third set of statements were contained in an MSC Cruises Facebook post, which according to the ACC made absolute environmental claims including “cruising the blue in a green way” and “#save the sea”. MSC Cruises had not made clear what interpretation it gave to those phrases. It was unclear whether the statements implied a comparison with competitor ships, or as between MSC Cruises’ new ships running on LNG and its old ships running on conventional fuel. In that sense, the advertisement breached the SAC.

Finally, the ACC assessed web pages titled “MSC Cruises – the future of cruising”, which contained the statements “We put environmental responsibility at the heart of everything we do” and “A statement of our commitment to the future of this planet”. These were absolute statements in relation to which only a relative environmental benefit could be claimed. They were not demonstrably correct and therefore breached the SAC.

Ultimately, the ACC recommended that MSC Cruises change its approach to advertisements found to be in breach of the SAC.