A ‘climate controlled’ sausage. New trousers marked ‘recycled’. A “sustainable” airline ticket.
More and more, big brands are using labels like these to serve their green customers. And increasingly, they’re coming under fire from courts and regulators for making climate promises they can’t keep.
Researchers at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment last year 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 corporate climate commitments” more than doubled, their account was found.
This year, this dynamic is playing out in many countries.
In Denmark, a national court in March told Danish Crown, the country’s biggest pork producer, that it was misleading to label its pork as “climate controlled”, although it said it was fine to claim that Danes pigs ‘are more climate friendly than you think. .”
In Britain, also in March, the Competition and Markets Authority, a regulatory agency, looked into the climate claims of several fast-fashion brands and concluded that they are deceptive to stamp a green leaf into a product and call it “recycled”, without specifying how much of its content is actually recycled.
Dutch court prohibited KLM from using the slogan “throw away responsibly” in its advertisements.
And in New York, State Attorney General Letitia James sued the multinational JBS for making “sweeping performancesabout neutralizing its emissions in the coming years, but offering “no viable plan”.
These cases reflect how campaigners are using an ever-widening range of national and international laws to slow climate change. They have sued governments for failing to protect their citizens’ constitutional rights to life, and occasionally won, as in one case in Germany. They have used human rights law to challenge governments, most recently winning a case at a regional European court. They tried to use international treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to force governments to curb emissions.
Complaints against alleged greenwashing are now gathering steam.
Another database, maintained by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University Law School since 2011, found that among climate lawsuits filed against private entities, the largest number of lawsuits — at least 77 in total — alleged misleading advertisements.
These complaints also reflect a business imperative. Companies that sell everything from toothpaste to soup are scrambling to keep up with changing consumer demands.
In the United States, sales of consumer products labeled as green or sustainable are grow twice as fast as those that are notaccording to research from New York University’s Stern School of Business, with younger and wealthier consumers more likely than others to buy these products.
“This is a market opportunity, and companies will have to figure out how to make claims authentically,” said Tensie Whelan, director of NYU’s Center for Sustainable Entrepreneurship.
Lawsuits can be a double-edged sword. They can hold companies accountable, but they can also make companies that are trying to reduce their emissions reluctant to market themselves as such.
“The easiest thing for companies is to say, ‘I’m just not going to say anything about it anymore or downplay what I’m doing because that minimizes the risks,'” Branda Katan, a lawyer who represented KLM in court, told The Netherlands .
JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, is among the most closely watched of these cases in the U.S. Responding to the latest complaint from Ms. James’ office, JBS told The New York Times that it disputes the allegations and that it “will help feeding a growing population while using fewer resources and reducing the environmental impact of agriculture.”
A spokesperson for Danish Crown did not return an email seeking a response to the court’s decision in Denmark. On her website, she explains this “climate controlled” refers to the measures taken by pig farmers to reduce emissions from their activities.
Airlines have become a popular target of greenwashing lawsuits. An advocacy group filed a complaint against more than a dozen airlines for allegedly breaching European Union consumer protection law, arguing that the offer of compensation is misleading because Emissions savings from offsets are “uncertain”. (An airline industry group responded to the complaint saying that “while displacements play a role today, their importance will diminish” as airlines develop more efficient fleets and develop alternatives to jet fuel, a heavy polluter.).
In the meantime, three separate cases are pending in US courtsagainst three different airlines for using terms like “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 by livestock farms and landfills. Lawyers with the Stand Environmental Society, an advocacy group, argue that the the ads are misleadingsince most of the natural gas that FortisBC supplies to its home heating customers comes from fossil fuels, while a small share comes from gas captured from landfills and farms.
FortisBC issued a statement stating this disagrees with the plaintiffs” claims. “FortisBC takes climate change very seriously and is taking action to help BC meet its climate goals,” the statement said.