Summary:

European Union in order to promote public awareness on green house gas emissions of vehicles has stipulated vehicles advertisements to provide information about vehicles emission details. This is not an isolated case. The world is waking up on issues of air pollution and planning various strategies to counter it. But all these acts have not influenced vehicle manufactures of New Zealand according to a study by four researchers from Department of Public Health, University of Otago.

The researchers have captured around 514 vehicle advertisements in the two monthly current affairs magazines, North & South and Metro over a five year period (2001-2005). The analysis has shown some surprising results with only 3% and 4% information on fuel efficiency and emissions. The advertisements focused more on fuel type (52%) and engine size (39%). The other notable facts were, over the five-year period the reported engine size increased significantly, while fuel efficiency did not improve.The advertisements were poor in supplying much of the basic data on which consumers could make informed vehicle purchase decisions (eg, fuel type, engine size, engine efficiency and emissions). There was also little advertising for vehicles using fuels associated with lower greenhouse gas and certain other exhaust emissions per distance travelled (ie, diesel, LPG and electric/petrol mixes). Even vehicle manufacturer websites were poor at supplying data about fuel efficiency and, in particular, emissions information. This is despite having in-depth detail about engine specifications and performance data. Read more

URL: http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/1476-069X-7-14.pdf