Description
Who: Dutch airline KLM
Where: Advertising watchdog, the Netherlands (Reclame Code Commissie)
What: ‘CO2 neutral’ claim and ‘CO2ZERO’ program are misleading ruled misleading
When: April 2022
The Dutch watchdog (RCC) has ruled that the Dutch airliner KLM is misleading its customers by giving them the impression that they can fully neutralise their flight if they buy compensation. By using terms such as ‘CO2ZERO’ and ‘CO2 neutral’, the average consumer will wrongly think that, through reforestation projects, their flight has no impact on the climate.
The case was brought forward by Eric Stam, a Dutch language teacher at an aviation school, together with 80 others including scientists and organisations such as SchipholWatch and Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising).
Reforestation projects: no scientific consensus
Since 2008 KLM has offered the CO2ZERO-program, with which customers can compensate for the CO2 emission of their flight for a few euros, according to KLM. This money is then used to plant new forests or to preserve existing forests, which would cancel out the emissions of the flight. But the projects that KLM uses for compensation only meet theoretical standards, without guaranteeing all compensation in reality, according to the watchdog. The watchdog takes into account that there is no scientific consensus on the degree of compensation through these projects.