Denmark's Consumer Ombudsman (DCO) has criticised Coca-Cola's PlantBottle advertising campaign for being misleading. The DCO revealed that it had, after a review of the campaign, found that the company had misled teh public regarding environmental footprint claims contained in PlantBottle related advertising and marketing run by Coca-Cola since 2009. The DCO said that the false claims embedded in the PlantBotlte campaign contravened both Danish and EU marketing rules. The DCO's review was prompted by a complaint filed with the Ombudsman by the Danish environmental organisation Forests of The World, who took the PlantBottle campaign to task on 9 different points. Specifically, the DCO examined whether Coca-Cola had properly documented its CO2 footprint reduction claims around its new recyclable PlantBottle, which the company asserts was made of environmentally friendly plant materials. The Ombudsman ruled that Coca-Cola had acted illegally by focusing solely on the environmental effects in their campaign without actually being able to document the environmental advantages of using plastic-based bioethanol. Furthermore, the DCO said that the company breached Danish and EU marketing practice rules by making environment-related claims that it failed to substantiated.
