Saab is green, seriously

GM PREMIUM Brands director Parveen Batish has defended Saab’s environmental record in the wake of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) instituting legal proceedings against its recent ‘Grrrrrreen’ advertising campaign.

In an interview with GoAuto at the Melbourne International Motor Show last week, Mr Batish said that the company did not set out to be misleading – as the ACCC alleges – over claims made in relation to CO2 offsets paid for on a consumer’s behalf whenever a Saab vehicle is purchased.

He also described the ACCC’s action as “rather like taking a sledgehammer to crack a small egg”.

In essence, the ACCC alleges that the advertisements could lead consumers to believe that the carbon offset paid for by Saab on their behalf would cover the life of that vehicle – not a single year, as the car company intended – and that the cars in question had attributes which contribute to reduced CO2 emissions compared to those sold prior to the publication of the offending ads.

“We’re not trying to dupe anybody,” Mr Batish said. “We got together with GreenFleet at the beginning of last year and agreed that, for our customers, we would plant one year’s worth of offset for those customers and that, for every car that is bought, the customer gets a letter from us to say, ‘We’ve bought it for one year, this is how you renew it in the future, etc.’ “Unfortunately, the ACCC has picked up on one ad that we ran, where the wording – they feel – in the body of the ad, wasn’t quite right. In the disclaimer, it explains that it’s for one year. All the other material that we have around the offset explains that it’s for one year. So there’s no ambiguity.”

Mr Batish (left) said Saab changed the wording of the offending advertising material before the ACCC alerted the company to the possible breach of the Trade Practices Act.

“We did change the ad. They wrote to us, we told them what measures we were taking, and then we didn’t hear anything from them for, it must be around three months. Unfortunately, we missed the deadline for whatever reason – through (lack of) communication, etc – and the next thing we heard was that they were going to take action.

“We feel that we’ve done everything in our power to ensure that, first of all, we weren’t trying to take advantage of green issues – it’s actually concerted, it’s something we’ve been doing in all the material that was produced beforehand, we’d spent money on it.

“So this wasn’t just suddenly us waking up, thinking, ‘Ah, let’s take advantage.’ We’ve been running with this for some time – and you’ve seen what we’ve been doing with BioPower and with diesel and with the offset.

“The second thing is, we actually sold a small number of cars during that period of time, and none of those customers, when they received a (clarification) letter from us, wrote back and said, ‘Hang on a second, you told us it was for the lifetime of the car.’ Nobody had said a word about that.

“Unfortunately, they (the ACCC) still want to take action. We feel it’s rather like taking a sledgehammer to crack a small egg. We had some issues with words – we feel we’ve put that right, but they’re adamant that this (legal action) is what they want to do.” In other Saab environmental news, Mr Batish was unable to confirm the timetable for the introduction of E85 ethanol fuel in Australia, which would offer those customers of its BioPower 9-3 and 9-5 models – said to number 150 at this stage – fuel for which their vehicles were designed. He said a United Petroleum service station in Brisbane was expected, but outlets in Melbourne and Sydney were still to be confirmed.

“I really think that we’re going to see it (in Brisbane) hopefully by the end of April ... but we don’t know exactly with Melbourne and Sydney just yet,” he said.

“There is no sticking point from our point of view but they (United) obviously have their own issues, and infrastructure and those kinds of things, to deal with.” Perhaps in an effort to offset some of the criticism of the imposing Hummer H3 SUV, GM Holden’s new chairman Mark Reuss said in Melbourne that an E85-compatible Hummer H3 was also under consideration for Australia.

However, Mr Batish – who is also responsible for Hummer – clarified that this would not be seen for “somewhere in the region of three years”.

Read more:

ACCC challenges Saab’s green claims