VWDarkside

For several months, our intrepid active supporters Jedis have been out in force, persuading thousands of members of the public to sign VW Darkside cards - which we've been sending through to the top brass at the VW's headquarters in Milton Keynes, and to their biggest dealerships.

For almost a year now, you’ve been asking VW to turn away from the dark side and reduce its fleet’s CO2 emissions. Today we took that message to the company’s AGM in Hamburg with a giant banner reading "Take responsibility seriously! Honest climate protection now" (in German, obviously).

This morning, two activists in Germany climbed the towering VW office building, dropped a banner reading “CO2 - Das Problem”, demonstrating that VW’s boss needs to show more responsibility when it comes to climate change. The climbers were removed, but another Greenpeace activist has since managed to paraglide around the tower - sending the message that the rebellion will continue until VW commits to real climate protection.

Earlier this week, VW announced some improvements to its new cars that will reduce emissions by enough to beat existing European targets. It's not the success we're looking for – we're still a long way from that – but there's no doubt about it: a massive part of this is down to half a million Jedi demanding that VW lives up to the green image it paints for itself.

In short, the rebellion is strong and it's working!

VW has launched its latest advert ahead of the US Super Bowl this weekend.

The advert is a follow-up to last year’s Little Darth one which we lampooned to reveal the Dark Side of VW’s environmental claims. It still riffs on a Star Wars theme and throws in a cute dog for good measure, but is there any mention of supporting ambitious climate laws?