KLM, Fly Responsibly campaign

The practice of greenwashing, where companies try to appear more sustainable than they are, has become a widespread phenomenon. A 2020 study by the European Commission showed that 53% of environmental claims were found to be vague, misleading, or unsubstantiated, and 40% were truly unfounded, meaning they had no connection to reality.
That's why the Commission proposed a directive to fine such claims, with enormous sums for large companies.

However, before the European directive comes into effect, there are other ways in which companies can be held accountable for misleading sustainability claims, such as consumer protection laws.

A famous greenwashing lawsuit, the first in the aviation industry, is related to KLM's Fly Responsibly campaign. You can see the advertisement in the video interview.

Vasile Lazăr, sustainability consultant: “Here we are dealing with greenwashing through compensation. The customer was somehow led to believe that if they buy a plane ticket along with some carbon credits that compensate them, their flight would be neutral, truly neutral. In reality, it has been shown - at least so far - that those carbon credits were actually used by the company to purchase biofuel, not to actually offset the emissions."

The discussion is still in court, no final decision has been made, but the company has already withdrawn the advertisement from the media, following numerous complaints from people.

Carbon footprint offsetting through certificates

The KLM case also brings into discussion the practice of several airlines in recent years, which offer the option of paying extra to offset the carbon footprint for a given flight when purchasing a plane ticket. However, these certificates are controversial because their impact is difficult to quantify.

Opponents of these carbon credits say they were designed more as a counteroffensive to the global "flight-shame" movement, which shames people for choosing planes for short flights and flying too often in general. This is considering that flights are responsible for at least 3% of the global warming we are experiencing.

In other words, carbon credits would make people feel less guilty and continue to fly at least as often, rather than truly offsetting the carbon emissions of those flights and thus contributing to the decarbonization of the aviation industry.

The KLM campaign is the second case study we conducted with sustainability consultant Vasile Lazăr, out of a total of six concrete examples of greenwashing. The first case study was about the Kaufland Zero Waste campaign. The rest will be published in the coming days here, on eEco, followed by the full interview.

The purpose of this endeavor is to explain the phenomenon of greenwashing as clearly as possible, so that companies no longer practice it and risk losing their reputation and paying fines, and people are no longer misled.