The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Google search ad for coffee retailer Grind, ruling today that it failed to explain the basis of its “Carbon Positive Delivery” claim and was likely to mislead consumers.

The paid-for ad, seen on 12 June 2026, carried the headline “Grind Coffee Delivery”. Text beneath stated “Speciality Coffee, Delivered […] Coffee From The Grind Roastery, Delivered To Your Door Each Month. Carbon Positive Delivery […]”.

The ruling is part of wider ASA work on ads making carbon neutral delivery or similar claims. The ads were identified through the regulator’s own intelligence and its Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to search for online ads that might break the rules.

Grind, told the ASA it expected consumers to understand the claim as referring to emissions associated with the delivery or shipment of orders placed through its website. The company said the claim did not cover emissions from earlier in the product’s life cycle, such as the coffee’s cultivation, harvesting, processing and roasting, or the manufacture of its packaging.

The company said that, through a third-party service, it offset the estimated emissions from each delivery by funding a carbon removal scheme. It said it had not intended consumers to understand that its deliveries produced no emissions, or that its entire supply chain was carbon positive.

It said search ads had limited space and that its website made clear the claim applied only to delivery. It also told the regulator it had decided more than a year ago to replace references to “Carbon Positive” with “carbon neutral”, because that term was easier to understand and had become more widely adopted. The search ad was missed in a subsequent review, the company said, and it was working to change and clarify future references to its deliveries being carbon neutral.

The ASA accepted Grind’s view that consumers would understand the claim to apply to delivery only, rather than the full life cycle of its products. However, it said the meaning of the term was ambiguous.

According to the ruling, consumers were likely to read the claim either as broadly synonymous with “carbon neutral”, which was in more widespread use, or as suggesting that Grind’s efforts were more impactful than a carbon neutral delivery scheme.

The regulator said the ad did not make clear how the status was achieved, including whether it relied on buying offsetting credits or on actually removing sources of emissions. It understood that the claim depended on offsetting credits and that Grind had intended it to carry the same meaning as carbon neutral, but said neither point was clear in the ad.

On the question of space, the ASA noted that the ad had a limit of 270 characters. It said the format was not so limited that Grind could not have made the basis of the claim clear, and found that the ad’s landing page did not include information explaining that basis.

The regulator welcomed Grind’s work on future references, but concluded that the ad had omitted material information and was likely to mislead. It found breaches of CAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.3 on misleading advertising and rule 11.1 on environmental claims.

The ad must not appear again in the form investigated. The ASA reminded the company to make the basis of all environmental claims clear, including the extent to which any “Carbon Positive Delivery” claims depended on offsetting credits or on the actual removal of any source of emissions.

The ASA assessed the ad against CAP guidance, which states that advertisers should avoid unqualified carbon neutral claims. When CAP updated its guidance on carbon neutral and net zero claims in February 2023, it said offset-based claims should meet the usual standards of evidence and that marketers should provide information about the offsetting scheme they use.

The regulator has previously upheld rulings against BrewDog’s “Carbon Negative” claim and Charles Tyrwhitt’s “100% carbon neutral” claim because neither ad explained its basis, according to a 2024 ASA update on carbon neutral and net zero claims. In May, the ASA banned two British beef and milk adverts after ruling that their carbon footprint claims could not be substantiated.

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