USA: Delta Air Lines faces lawsuit over alleged “false and misleading” $1bn carbon neutrality pledge
"Delta Air Lines faces lawsuit over $1bn carbon neutrality claim", 30 May 2023
Delta Air Lines is facing a lawsuit over its $1bn carbon neutrality claim which plaintiffs say is “false and misleading” as it relies on offsets that do little to mitigate global heating.
In February 2020, the US airline announced plans to go carbon neutral, pledging $1bn to mitigate all greenhouse gas emissions from its business worldwide over the next decade. It included plans to purchase carbon credits generated from conserving rainforest, wetlands and grasslands along with decreasing the use of jet fuel and increasing plane efficiency.
The new legal action, filed in California on Tuesday, targets Delta’s statement that it is “the world’s first carbon-neutral airline”, a claim it has made in adverts, LinkedIn posts, in-flight napkins and comments by company executives, according to the lawsuit.
The class-action lawsuit says Delta’s carbon neutrality claim is demonstrably false as it heavily relies on junk offsets that do nothing to counteract the climate crisis. It alleges that customers would have purchased Delta tickets believing they had no impact on the environment and many would not have bought them without the carbon neutrality claim.
Delta has not responded to request for comment from the Guardian...
The case argues that there is a market premium for green products and that Delta has profited from a misleading environmental claim. It cites scientific and journalistic evidence that there are deep flaws with carbon credits from the unregulated voluntary market that Delta has purchased for its environmental claims.
In January, a nine-month investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and the investigative group SourceMaterial found Verra rainforest credits used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations were largely worthless, often based on stopping the destruction of rainforests that were not threatened, according to independent studies. The lawsuit against Delta mentions the investigation. Verra strongly disputed the findings...
The new lawsuit comes amid a wider regulatory crackdown on green claims in the UK and Europe...