All the legal crackdowns against greenwashing. Report Nyt
From airlines to pork sellers, companies are facing legal and regulatory challenges for misleading the public with false climate certifications. The New York Times article
A sausage that respects the climate. New trousers labeled as “recycled”. A “sustainable” airline ticket. Big brands are increasingly using slogans like these to satisfy environmentally conscious customers. And they are increasingly coming under fire from courts and regulators for making climate promises they can't keep. The NYT writes.
LEGAL COMPLAINTS AGAINST GREENWASHING
Last year, researchers at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment identified “an explosion of cases of 'climate-washing',” using existing national laws and regulations. Between 2020 and 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the number of cases challenging the “truth of companies' climate commitments” more than doubled.
This year, this dynamic is playing out in several countries.
In Denmark, a national court in March told Danish Crown, the country's largest pork producer, that it was misleading to label its pork "climate friendly," even though it said it was OK to say that Danish pigs “are more respectful of the planet than you think”.
In Britain, also in March, the Competition and Markets Authority, a regulatory agency, examined the climate claims of several fast-fashion brands and concluded that it is misleading to stamp a green leaf on a product and define it as “recycled”, without specifying how much of its content is actually recycled.
A Dutch court has banned KLM from using the slogan “fly responsibly” in its advertisements.
In New York, Attorney General Letitia James sued multinational meat company JBS for making “broad statements” about neutralizing its emissions in the coming years, but offering “no workable plan.”
These cases reflect how activists are using an increasingly broad range of national and international laws to slow climate change. They sued governments for failing to protect their citizens' constitutional rights to life, and sometimes they won, as in one case in Germany. They have used human rights law to challenge governments, recently winning a case in a European regional court. They have tried to leverage international treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to force governments to reduce emissions.
THE COMPLAINTS
Complaints against alleged greenwashing are now gaining traction.
Another database, maintained since 2011 by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University Law School, found that among climate lawsuits filed against private entities, the largest number of cases – totaling at least 77 – involved false advertising.
These complaints also reflect a commercial imperative. Companies selling everything from toothpaste to soup are trying to meet changing consumer demands.
In the United States, sales of consumer products labeled as eco-friendly or sustainable are growing twice as fast as those that are not, according to research from New York University's Stern School of Business.
“This is a market opportunity, and companies should find ways to make authentic claims,” said Tensie Whelan, director of NYU's Center for Sustainable Business.
A DOUBLE-EDGED WEAPON
Lawsuits can be a double-edged sword. They can cause companies to be held accountable for their actions, but they can also cause companies trying to reduce their emissions not to present themselves as such.
The easiest thing for companies is to say, 'I'm not going to talk about this anymore or I'm going to downplay what I do because that minimizes the risks,'” said Branda Katan, a lawyer who represented KLM in court in the Netherlands.
MEAT, PLANES AND ENERGY
JBS, the largest meat producer in the world, is one of the most closely watched cases in the United States. Responding to the latest complaint, he told the New York Times that he disagreed with the accusations and wanted to "help feed a growing population by using fewer resources and reducing the environmental impact of agriculture."
The Danish Crown spokesperson did not respond to an email seeking a response to the Danish court's ruling. On its website, the company explains that “climate controlled” refers to measures taken by pig farmers to reduce emissions from their operations.
Airlines have become a popular target of greenwashing lawsuits. A group of advocates has filed a complaint against more than a dozen airlines for allegedly violating European Union consumer protection laws, arguing that offering offsets is misleading because the emissions savings from offsets are “uncertain ”. (An airline industry group responded to the complaint by saying that “although offsets currently play a role, their importance will decline” as airlines develop more efficient fleets and develop alternatives to jet fuel, a heavy pollutant.)
Meanwhile, three separate lawsuits are pending in US courts against three different airlines over their use of terms such as “carbon-neutral” and “sustainable”.
Energy companies are a relatively new target. In Canada, a climate advocacy group called Client Earth filed a complaint in April against FortisBC over its advertising campaign promoting what it calls “renewable natural gas,” or methane captured from farms and landfills. Lawyers for the Stand Environmental Society, an advocacy group, argue that the ads are misleading because most of the gas FortisBC supplies to its customers for home heating comes from fossil fuels, while a small portion comes from gas captured from landfills and from farms.
FortisBC released a statement saying it disagreed with the plaintiffs' allegations. “FortisBC takes climate change very seriously and is taking action to help BC meet its climate goals,” the statement read.
(Extract from the eprcomunicazione press review)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/denunce-greenwashing-nyt/ on Thu, 25 Apr 2024 05:21:32 +0000.