Why the Amsterdam court slams KLM for greenwashing
The Amsterdam court has recognized that the airline KLM (linked to Air France) is not as "sustainable" as it professes. All the details
The Dutch airline KLM has lost the lawsuit brought in the Amsterdam court by the NGOs Fossielvrij NL and ClientEarth for greenwashing , i.e. misleading communication about the alleged positive environmental impacts of a product, an activity or an investment.
MISLEADING COMMUNICATION ON SUSTAINABLE FUELS AND REFORESTATION
The ruling states that the company has “painted too rosy a picture of the impact of measures such as sustainable aviation fuel (obtained from agricultural crops or agri-food waste) and reforestation. These measures, in reality, only marginally reduce the negative environmental aspects of air transport, while giving consumers the false impression that flying with KLM is sustainable.
The company will therefore no longer broadcast advertisements for the “Fly Responsibly” campaign, which, according to the court, makes misleading claims about the sustainability of the company's flights.
THE KLM REPLICA
KLM defended itself against the accusations, but acknowledged that "it is positive that the court has given us greater clarity on what is possible to do and how we can continue to communicate our approach and activities in a transparent and honest way". The purchase of latest generation aircraft, less polluting than previous ones, "is a concrete example of what we are doing to improve" our environmental impact, added Ben Smith, CEO of Air France-KLM, the company's parent company Dutch, speaking at a summit of airline executives in Brussels.
According to him, the accusations of “greenwashing” do not “represent a fair assessment” of the company's efforts.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/klm-greenwashing/ on Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:41:53 +0000.