Delta Air Lines is the subject of a class-action lawsuit accusing it of greenwashing after the company declared a few years ago that it would spend a billion dollars over ten years to become carbon-neutral. Greenwashing refers to deceptive commercial practices by companies who claim to be taking steps to protect the environment, but the measures presented turn out to be false or only partially true. One of the most high-profile examples is Volkswagen’s Dieselgate affair between 2009 and 2015. In an article published orecently the Washington Post revealed that Delta Air Lines was involved in a similar affair. At the start of 2020, the company stated that it wanted to invest over a billion dollars to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions in order to become carbon-neutral.
Delta Air Lines ran a major advertising campaign and used social networks to present itself as the world’s first carbon-neutral airline. The class action lawsuit filed against the company aims to show that this claim is false. The Washington Post reports that Delta Air Lines has spent $137 million to purchase carbon credits starting in 2021, enabling it to offset 27 million tons of CO2 emissions, notably through rainforest and wetland conservation projects.
According to the prosecution, this communication led the plaintiffs, now grouped together in a class action, to place their trust in the company, which was content to set up offsetting projects with poor results rather than actually reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Several media outlets relied on an investigation which revealed that around 90% of these credits were probably phantom credits that had no effect on reducing emissions.
The lawyer in charge of the case, Jonathan Haderlein, points to serious methodological errors, both intentional and unintentional, which made it impossible to guarantee Delta Air Lines’ carbon neutrality. In 2022, the company has declared its intention to focus on decarbonizing its own operations, with an emphasis on fuel-efficient aircraft and sustainable fuels. Delta Air Lines’ situation is not isolated, however, as other airlines such as Lufthansa, EasyJet and Air France-KLM have already been warned about misleading advertising.
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