UK Knowledge Collection | Artificial intelligence and greenwashing

This year has seen tremendous regulatory and consumer focus on claims being made by businesses about their sustainability and green credentials – and this high level of scrutiny is likely to continue. Our Insight on recent adjudications by the UK Advertising Standards Authority in the airline sector considers how to mitigate the risk of greenwashing.

The financial services industry is also having to respond and adapt to increasing regulatory obligations around greenwashing. In the EU, the Commission is consulting on future sustainability regimes while the European Securities and Markets Authority is concentrating on the existing system. The UK's financial regulator, the FCA, is also taking active measures against misleading green claims, and has recently published new rules for sustainability disclosure requirements.

2023 has also witnessed intense interest in the possibilities of artificial intelligence. The technological leap into generative AI has been made by businesses and the population at large – prompting many novel legal questions. Regulators are scrambling to find the right approach to regulate a technology that is evolving and being adopted at almost dizzying speed. In the EU, political agreement was reached last week on its proposed AI Act – though much detail remains to be finalised.

Our podcast discusses the impact of AI in the energy sector, and our Insight considers the implications for patent applications following a recent English High Court decision that a system for providing media-file recommendations to end users based on an artificial neural network that had been trained in a distinct manner was capable of being patented.

Recent Insights

Green aviation claims fail to land with UK regulator

2023 saw a real upturn in levels of enforcement against misleading environmental claims by both the Competition and Markets Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK. The latest sector to fall under the ASA's spotlight has been the aviation industry.
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The EU's AI Act: what do we know so far about the agreed text?

The European Parliament and Council of the EU negotiators reached political agreement on the shape and contents of the EU regulation on artificial intelligence. This represents the beginning of the end of the legislative process, although the agreed text is not available and does not yet exist in its final form.
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How UK and EU regulators plan to hold financial service providers accountable for greenwashing

There have been significant recent supervisory developments in the UK and EU regarding the risks of greenwashing in the financial services sector.
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UKIPO updates patent examination guidance after High Court AI patentability decision

The immediate change to the patent examination practices at the UK Intellectual Property Office is beneficial for AI developers, meaning that inventions involving artificial neural networks should not be objected to on the basis of the computer program patentability exclusion.
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The Energy Innovation Podcast | What impact will AI have on the energy sector?

A discussion of the growing use of artificial intelligence in the energy sector, touching on confidentiality and IP concerns, ethics, and HR strategy and policies.
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