Lindis Jones: Z Energy chief executive on the company apologising amid backlash to 2022 ad campaign

Z Energy is apologising for any confusion caused by aspects of a 2022 advertising campaign. 

In 2022 and 2023, the company ran a 'Moving With The Times' campaign - illustrating its commitments to being more environmentally friendly. 

Consumer NZ, Lawyers for Climate Action, and the Environmental Law Initiative later took legal action against Z Energy, claiming it was misleading New Zealanders. 

Z Energy chief executive Lindis Jones says the ad was designed to be 'bold and provocative'

"That statement was made alongside a whole lot of other information that contextualised it and provided background. So it's a case of - we've agreed to disagree."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now onto something completely different. Z Energy has apologized for
any confusion caused by an advertising campaign that it ran
three years ago. You might remember the campaign. It said
that Z Energy was in the business of getting out
of the petrol business. Now, Consumer New Zealand and some
climate groups said this was untrue and it was greenwashing
and took some legal action. It's now been settled out
of court. Now Lindas Jones is the Z Energy chief

(00:22):
executive and with US now Highlands HI that So, what
is it that you're apologizing for.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, first of all, that statement was intended to be
bold and provocative and it was designed to provoke people
to think about Z differently, not just a fuel provider.
But to the extent that we left any confusion that
we're getting out of selling people petrol anytime soon, we've
apologized and that just reflects our role in the economy

(00:50):
and people's lives that no customers should be confused now
or in the future about anything that we say.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Are you ever going to stop selling petrol?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's my role is to ensure that we provide the constant,
reliable supply of energy to customers and that's something we
take seriously and that's not just the fuel that we
sell today, but where possible we help customers if they
want to transition to evs and lower emission sorts of vehicles.
So the civil answers I don't know, but my role

(01:25):
is to make it as easy as possible for when
customers want to transition, to make that choice easy for them.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
I mean, because you can see how this does feel
like greenwashing, Like if you say you're getting out of
the petrol business, but you don't actually think you're going
to get out of the petrol business, then it feels
like greenwashing.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Well, I disagree with that. It was made against the
background of significant investment and plans and strategies, so things
that we've done, things we're planning to.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Do in such linder Stob, not with any real prospect
of ever getting out of the petrol business. Like you're
not going to stop selling petrol, are you?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think there will come a time when there are
are that's subject a whole lot of uncertainty.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
And away though, isn't it like if I'm for you today,
I might never see that day.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, if we don't start the transition now, we'll never
get there. And it's something that we do need to
get an action over it because every day, year and
month an election term that we wait, that's going to
make the problems harder to deal with in the future.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, I'm mean, I take your point. Do you can
you see why this upset the climate groups.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Look, this is a case where we've just agreed to disagree.
That statement was made alongside a whole lot of other
information that can textualize it and provided background. So you know,
it's a case of we've agreed to disagree and they've
dropped the claim.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Okay, and you'll be more careful with your claims in
the future.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, what I've learned from this is two things. The
first thing is, or it's reiterated to me that customers
should be absolutely able to try everything that you say.
It's not up to customers to kind of second guess,
So being absolutely clear and transparent matters. And yes, Secondly,
I think the putting yourself at any risk ground this

(03:16):
is something we've got to be very careful about. And
one of the one of the considerations from that is
that it could tempt us to say less and disclose less,
and I just think that's the wrong thing to do.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
For a whole lot of reasons say what less, disclose
what less?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Ah. So one of the things that we've always prided
ourselves on, ZET has been absolutely transparent about our business
intends of the emissions disclosures with that's the missions from
our business or the emissions from customers and all sorts
of reporting. I think we've been very transparent with the

(03:54):
purpose of for recognizing actually the business that we're in.
So that transparency, we believes always been critical to people
trusting us. However, a lot of that hasn't been required
or necessary, so you could take a view it's safer
just to say less disclosed less. I don't think that's
the right thing, all right, that would be the temptation

(04:15):
with this sort of litigation.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Right, Lindas, Thanks very much, appreciate your time. That's Linda's
Jones Z Energy Chief Executive.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
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