Updated: Ecotricity wind farm claims hit by ad watchdog ban

Having seen a number of its customers complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the green claims of some of its larger rivals, wind energy supplier Ecotricity has itself fallen foul of the watchdog over one of its marketing statements.

The ASA today banned a direct mail leaflet from the company relating to a proposed wind farm development in the Cotswolds, ruling that it breached advertising rules relating to truthfulness.

The decision brought an angry response from Ecotricity managing director Dale Vince who accused the watchdog of "hypocrisy", arguing that the decision had been reached "in the absence of all the facts and in the face of others".

The letter at the centre of the ruling stated that the company had " consulted with the statutory bodies… and all responses are positive so far".

The direct mail campaign promoted a complaint to the ASA that the material was misleading as the Cotswolds Conservation Board (CCB) had not been positive about the development in their response.

Ecotricity said the CCB was not a statutory body for the purposes of the planning process for the proposed project, and that at the time the mailing was sent on July 3 2009 the company had received no negative response from either the CCB or any statutory bodies.

It added that, while the CCB had subsequently lodged an objection to its proposed wind monitoring mast application, this had not been done until August 17, meaning the claim was factually correct at the time of writing.

However, the complainant said that he had received a letter from the CCB stating that they had met with Ecotricity prior to the production of the mailing and that they did not consider that their response at that meeting had been positive – a version of events confirmed to the ASA by the CCB itself.

The ASA ruled that the CCB had a "legitimate role in planning matters" and had not given a positive response to Ecotricity's plans.

As such it upheld the complaint and ordered that the marketing material not be distributed again in its current form.

Vince said he was "very disappointed" with the decision. "Nobody has been misled by our letter to residents," he added. "The facts are that we have never asked the Cotswolds Conservation Board for their opinion of our wind farm proposal - and we have never had their opinion offered to us. So when we said, in our letter that all of the bodies we had consulted with so far had been positive, that was the absolute truth."

He said that the ASA had informed Ecotricity that it was "too busy" to get the facts themselves, and had relied on information from third parties.

"They should have made enquires with the CCB (who have not been totally straight in this), in the absence of that basic diligence this judgement is premature and ill founded," Vince said. "What's more the ASA have failed to meet the standard of their own code of practice (clause 7.1) - the one that says advertisers must have evidence to support up the claims they make. The ASA has no evidence to back up this judgement. The dictionary definition of such practice is hypocrisy."