Campaign group Badvertising has shared a fresh spoof campaign, slamming carmaker Toyota following revelations about the manufacturer lobbying the government to delay the ZEV mandate.
A report from the campaign group calculated that Toyota plans to sell 110 million internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2040, and highlighted that it maintains sponsorship at some of the world’s biggest sporting events such as the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics.
The spoof Toynoca website contains a series of apologies which highlight hypocrisy and comes after Toyota received a ban from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in November last year.
The ruling came after campaigners from AdFreeCities raised that the adverts were irresponsible because they condoned environmentally damaging offroad driving. Following the bran, campaigners held a protest outside The &Partnership, the agency that created the Born to Roam campaign.
Subscribe to Sustainability Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest sustainability news sent straight to your inbox everyday
“We were wrong to be so slow to take global heating seriously, despite knowing about our contribution to it for at least three decades. We are sorry,” the website reads.
“When researchers looked at our fossil fuel car production plans we were found to be the world’s largest car manufacturer. Our plans posed a direct threat to reaching the target of the Paris Agreement,” it continues.
It also contains a spoof endorsement from Olympic gold medallist Etienne Scott which shows him supporting the manufacturer following their apology, and claiming to support the fight against climate change.
In addition, the website includes new calculations from Badvertising which estimate lifetime emissions of 15.8 billion t/CO2e from the brand, and an estimated monetary damage in the region of €10.7 tn.
Speaking to Sustainability Beat New Weather Institute co-director and Badvertising co-author Andrew Simms said: “Car brands sportwash for some of the same reasons that tobacco companies used to.”
“Putting your brand in front of sports brands reaches some of the biggest audiences on the planet.”
“And, even more, the level of emotional engagement from sports fans means that they are likely to feel positively towards brands that align themselves with the teams tournaments that the carmakers either sponsor or use as a billboard for their advertising.”
He added: “But there is an irony similar to when cigarette brands were allowed to sponsor sport: while sport itself, for obvious reasons, stands for healthy activity, cars are bad for our health, whether that’s down to the lethal air pollution they cause, dangers they represent on the street, or because of how they encourage more sedentary lifestyles.”
Simms also highlighted that “most of the major car makers have been guilty of pushing polluting and energy intensive SUVs – so much that in around a decade they went from being just one in ten new cars sold to around half.”
He continued: “That’s a decade lost in the wrong climate direction. Watch this space, we will be looking at ways to make sure the transport industry makes the right turns in future and that any more bad driving is seen for what it is.”
