The United Kingdom should ban the advertising of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in order to help drive down transport emissions and accelerate progress towards the country's net zero goals, a study published this week has urged, drawing parallels with the ban on tobacco advertising and its success in changing behaviors.
Produced by climate think tank the New Weather Foundation, the report highlights how average emissions for new cars sold in the U.K. increased in 2019 for the fourth year in a row. The same trend has documented across much of Europe, as soaring sales for electric vehicles and low emission models are more than offset by increased demand for heavier and more polluting SUVs, which made up four in 10 of the U.K.'s new car sales last year. By contrast, while sales of electric and plug-in hybrid models are growing exponentially, they are doing so from a low base with data from the European Environment Agency showing that fewer than two in every 100 new cars are fully electric.
The growth in SUV sales comes alongside increased advertising expenditure to promote the vehicles, the study adds, a marketing strategy that appears to run in conflict with the stated decarbonization ambitions of some of the world's biggest car firms. The study highlights the example provided Ford, which has set a net zero emissions target and promised to invest $11.5 billion in developing electric models through to 2022, but has at the same time stepped up efforts to promote its most high carbon models. From September 2016 to September 2018, Ford went from a roughly 50/50 split in U.S. advertising spend between cars and SUVs/pickup trucks, to spending 85 percent on the latter, in pursuit of the higher profit margins provided by larger vehicles, the study notes.
Analysts told us Ford makes $10,000 on every large SUV, while it breaks even or even loses money on other lines.
"SUVs are far more profitable for car manufacturers," Leo Murray, co-founder of pressure group Possible, which contributed to the report, told BusinessGreen. "Analysts told us Ford makes $10,000 on every large SUV, while it breaks even or even loses money on other lines. So of course, from a corporate perspective, it makes sense to want people to buy the product lines you're making money on."
A spokesperson for Ford pointed out the firm's range in the U.S. has shifted in recent years, so the change in advertising expenditure in favor of larger passenger vehicles noted by the study simply reflects a broader change in business strategy. "What is driving increased sales of SUVs/Crossovers is increased customer demand for these vehicles — consumers decide what they will and will not purchase," the spokesperson argued. They added that Ford is committed to adhering to the Paris Agreement, is investing more than $11.5 billion in electrification, and is on track to meet the EU's 2020 emissions targets.
But whether advertising is helping to stimulate demand for SUVs or simply looking to build on a pre-existing consumer trend in favor of larger vehicles, there is no doubt sales of SUVs have surged over the past decade. More than 150,000 new cars sold in the U.K. last year were too big to fit in a standard parking space, the New Weather Foundation study noted. Globally the trend is even more pronounced: More than 200 million SUVs are on the world's roads, up from just 35 million in 2010, and the market accounts for 60 percent of the increase in the global car fleet over the past decade.
However, this trend has come at considerable environmental costs. The size, weight and drag of SUVs and other larger passenger vehicles means they consume more fuel and emit more carbon dioxide than the average car, studies have shown. The emissions savings provided by the considerable improvements made in the fuel efficiency of conventional engines, as well as advances in lightweight materials and the emergence of electric and hybrid models, have been significantly undermined by increased demand for larger cars.
In response to these trends, the authors of this week's report argue that bolder policy interventions are required, starting with a tobacco-style advertising ban on cars with average emissions of more than 160gCO2/km, as well as any cars exceeding 15.7 feet in length. Such a ban would cover what the report describes as "the dirtiest third" of cars sold in the U.K.
"The IPCC has said we need wide-ranging and unprecedented changes in every area of our lives, and that includes driving less and driving smaller, cleaner cars," Murray added. "But it's just not going to be possible to reach those public policy goals while swimming against the tide of billions of pounds of spending pushing consumers in the opposite direction." In total, $34.76 billion was spent on advertising by car firms globally last year, and $1.57 billion in the U.K. alone, the report notes.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) trade body was quick to oppose the idea of a ban. "To single out a particular body type is to ignore the huge advances in emissions and powertrain technology made with every new model," chief executive Mike Hawes said in a statement. "Ongoing investment means today's vehicles of all types are the cleanest in history, with average CO2 emissions from dual purpose cars more than 43 percent lower than 20 years ago. Their body type is also well suited for alternative fuel usage, making up more than a quarter of the 80 different zero emission-capable models available to U.K. buyers."
However, previous research from the end of last year found that growing demand for SUVs was the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018. In that time, SUVs doubled their global market share from 17 percent to 39 percent and their annual emissions rose to more than 700 megatonnes of CO2, more than the yearly total emissions of the U.K. and Netherlands combined, according to a study from the International Energy Agency.
Furthermore, large vehicles play a notable role in driving global inequality in energy consumption, according to a paper published this year by researchers from Leeds University's School of Earth and Environment. The researchers — including Anne Owen, who argued that policymakers must work to "change the vastly unequal distribution of global energy consumption to cope with the dilemma of providing a decent life for everyone while protecting climate and ecosystems" — found that inequalities were particularly stark in the context of transport, with the top 10 percent of consumers using more than half of the energy related to mobility.
"Without reducing the energy demand of these services, either through frequent-flyer levies, promoting public transport and limiting private vehicle use, or alternative technology such as electric vehicles, the study suggests that as incomes and wealth improve, our fossil fuel consumption in transport will skyrocket," lead author Yannick Oswald said at the time.
The call for a ban on SUV advertising comes as local authorities step up efforts to incentivize bike travel, following the government's announcement of $2.61 billion of funding to spark a cycling and walking "revolution" last week. Talking to BusinessGreen, the London Cycling Campaign's infrastructure campaigner, Simon Munk, backed the call for an advertising ban for SUVs.
"Repeated studies have shown that the majority of car journeys in London are unnecessary: fit people driving on their own with light loads that could easily be done on bikes or public transport," Munk said. "We are stuck in a loop, just as we were years ago with smoking — doing something that is really harmful to ourselves and that we need to change."
We are stuck in a loop, just as we were years ago with smoking — doing something that is really harmful to ourselves and that we need to change.
The New Weather Foundation study is being published as part of a broader campaign calling for a ban on "badvertising" in the context of climate change, encompassing ads for cars, flights and fossil fuels. The campaign draws parallels with the ban on tobacco advertising and promotion, which came into effect in the U.K. in 2002. Subsequent studies repeatedly have showed the effectiveness of such measures in helping to reduce smoking rates. Crucially, bans on advertising are also regarded as a means of eroding the social license of companies that sell products with significant externalities, providing them with a further incentive to develop cleaner alternatives and leading to increased pressure from investors and customers for them to develop credible transition strategies.
It remains to be seen if radical proposals to ban SUV advertising will be adopted. It is clear higher rates of road tax for vehicles with higher emissions have failed to adequately shift demand towards cleaner models and as such the considerable progress made by the fast-expanding EV market is yet to make a dent in the average emissions of new cars. A ban on SUV advertising would be entirely in keeping with the government's net zero goal, its air quality strategy, and its new found willingness to intervene in the market to tackle issues that may have contributed to the coronavirus crisis. Meanwhile, manufacturers' insistence that they are only responding to pre-existing demand simply begs the question why they need multi-million pound advertising budgets at all in that case.
And yet at the same time the government is desperate to reignite demand for new vehicles as it seeks to restart the economy and as such will be loath to embrace proposals that could be interpreted as damaging to the market. Ministers obviously hope the multi-billion dollar investments being made in EVs soon will trigger sharp reductions in emissions without the need for potentially controversial measures such as a hike in fuel duty or a ban on SUV advertising. The auto industry is also optimistic it can find a way to both slash emissions and meet consumer demand for SUVs, as a raft of plug-in SUVs start to come to market.
However, Murray is clear bold action is required if the U.K. is to meet its emissions goals. "The case of SUVs is a really clear example showing the role of advertising in exacerbating the climate crisis and undermining efforts to tackle it," he said. "You can follow the money and see exactly what is happening. This needs to be stopped."
