[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on BusinessGreen.com, and is used with permission.]

Airlines seeking to promote their environmental credentials yesterday received a reminder about the need to choose their words carefully, when the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned an ad from Finnair detailing its "eco-smart" fleet.

The offending poster showed an Airbus flying over the Finnish coastline with text stating: "Be eco-smart. Choose Finnair's brand new fleet." It attracted two complaints, which argued that the term "eco-smart" implied that flying was environmentally friendly, and that Finnair had not proven that its planes were greener than other fleets.

Finnair said that it had not intended to claim flying was "environmentally friendly", arguing that the advert implied that it was "eco-smart" to select an airline that sought to limit its environmental impact.

It added that Finnair offered a greener alternative to many airlines as its long-haul flights to Asia via Helsinki were more direct and allowed aircraft to operate with less fuel.

It also argued that the average age of its fleet of aircraft is less than five years, making it one of the most fuel-efficient fleets in operation.

However, the ASA upheld the complaints and banned the poster in its current form. It ruled that while Finnair had not intended to present flying as a green mode of transport, "readers were likely to interpret the claim eco-smart, without qualification, as a claim analogous to environmentally friendly."

It also noted that separate research had challenged the notion that taking two short-haul flights was more fuel efficient than simply taking a long-haul flight, and ruled that the implication that Finnair's fleet was more fuel efficient than its competitors had to substantiated by "robust comparative data."

_{Photo CC-licensed by Flickr user swambo.}