UK regulator axes Etihad Airways’ ads over greenwashing: The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) issued a ruling yesterday halting circulation of two of UAE national carrier Etihad Airways’ advertisements for its failure to substantiate claims regarding sustainable aviation, Bloomberg writes.

Airlines have to back up absolute green claims like “sustainable aviation,” according to the ASA, which says the ads Etihad Airways ran last year do not clarify how sustainable, net-zero, or low-carbon flights would be achieved. “We understood that there were currently no initiatives or commercially viable technologies in operation within the aviation industry which would adequately substantiate an absolute green claim such as ‘sustainable aviation’ as we considered consumers would interpret it in this context,” ASA notes.

Etihad has been battling with greenwashing allegations for some time: Climate activists reported the airline to the Austrian Competition and Consumer Commission for running last year an ad spotlighting its net zero targets for 2050, allegedly without having a solid path to achieving carbon neutrality. Despite the blowback, the airline has been making strides in the sustainability front, signing an agreement in 2022 with Microsoft to begin using AI to measure and benchmark its environmental footprint, as well as operating its first SAF-fueled flight last October.

The ASA is clamping down on other airlines too: ASA took another ad by Austrian airline Lufthansa off the air in March for asserting flying with the carrier can “protect the future of the planet” without providing concrete initiatives or technologies backing up their claim.