Āé¶¹ĪŽĀė°ę

News
19 May 2022, 12:05
Sƶren Amelang

NGO takes legal action against companies’ ā€œfakeā€ climate neutrality claims

Āé¶¹ĪŽĀė°ę

A German NGO specialising in environmental litigation has launched legal action against Nivea maker Beiersdorf, oil majors BP, Shell, TotalEnergies and other companies for allegedly ā€œmisleadingā€ consumers regarding their climate neutral products. The companies’ claims constitute ā€œfake climate protectionā€ that conceal continued emissions and use incomprehensible compensation mechanisms, Environmental Action Germany (DUH) . ā€œThe advertising promise of climate neutrality is often consumer deception,ā€ the NGO’s managing director, Jürgen Resch, said. He added that emission compensation payments resembled a ā€œsale of indulgencesā€ to greenwash entire companies or their products but without real climate effect. ā€œWe will not put up with this insanity any longer and file lawsuits against violations, if necessary,ā€ Resch said. His NGO also asked drug store chains dm and Rossmann, aviation company Green Airlines and sustainable products start-up The Mother Nature to refrain from making certain advertising claims and said it will make the fight against misleading ā€œclimate neutralā€ claims a new focus of its market monitoring activities.

The number of companies claiming climate neutrality for themselves and their products is growing rapidly, but so is scepticism about these claims. ā€œIn fact, the companies either completely or partially conceal how they provide the alleged CO2 compensation, or they refer to compensation projects that usually receive only a small amount of money. There are hardly any emission savings,ā€ DUH said. ā€œVerifiable information on payments, projects and actual climate impact is either not available or not comprehensible for consumers.ā€ The NGO said genuine climate protection is only possible if consumers receive honest information about the climate impact of individual products or services.

All texts created by the Āé¶¹ĪŽĀė°ę are available under a . They can be copied, shared and made publicly accessible by users so long as they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
« previous news next news »

Ask Āé¶¹ĪŽĀė°ę

Researching a story? Drop Āé¶¹ĪŽĀė°ę a line or give us a call for background material and contacts.

Get support

+49 30 62858 497

Journalism for the energy transition

Get our Newsletter
Join our Network
Find an interviewee