Dutch airline KLM sued over 'greenwashing'

A few environmental groups are launching legal action to sue the Dutch airline KLM over misleading sustainability advertisements. Allegedly, the airline company has promoted its flights as sustainable. Environmental lawyers and campaigners mention that they want to challenge the greenwashing that the dutch company engaged in by violating European consumer law and misleading its customers with advertising. Moreover, they also had a carbon offset program that “gives a false impression over the sustainability of its flights and plans to address its climate harm." - Hiske Arts, campaigner at Fossielvrij NL. The environmentalists say it's the first lawsuit that challenges "greenwashing" made by an airline arguing that the Dutch company’s scheme gives customers the false impression that the airline’s flights will not worsen climate change. However, the company says that these claims have solid arguments and KLM believes that its marketing and advertising campaigns comply with the laws and regulations. Moreover, the declaration of creating a more sustainable future is based on their desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

The environmentalists say that these claims are very misleading and that KLM’s plans are to achieve a level of flights similar to the one before the pandemic. So this is what means to ‘greenwash’, to lead misleading advertising campaigns that would make the Dutch airline firm more environmentally friendly. Even though the officials claim that CO2Zero doesn’t stop the damage made to the planet, KLM is ignoring these signals and doesn’t take the necessary action to reduce climate change. The airline company says that they address all their communications about climate change and receive all feedback from the stakeholders, in the hope that the court will clarify how to proceed with communications from now on. If the case is successful, KLM will have to withdraw the campaign and stop any similar advertising in the future, also issuing corrections.

Environmentalists say that when it comes to airlines and flights there aren't any sustainable alternatives. In consequence, carbon offsetting can have an impact on mitigating the effects of climate change. However, climate scientists point out that for this offsetting to be successful, the planted trees must be kept in place over their lifespan, which can be a challenge and not a guarantee. The Dutch airline company KLM concludes that they are committed to have a transparent communication policy concerning its approach to everything related to sustainability. But advertising regulators have discovered more misleading marketing and advertising campaigns. For example, earlier this year, the Dutch advertising watchdog said that the airline company’s advertising campaigns are misleading as they tell customers that they can fly carbon-emission free. Sadly, the Dutch company is not the only airline having this issue. In the UK, Ryanair created a campaign that advertised to its customers being "Europe's Lowest Fares, Lowest Emissions Airline" which was misleading. Since then they changed their advertising.