“Businesses must be honest and clear about the sustainability claims they make. Even with CO2-compensation schemes, flying remains a highly polluting way of travelling,” says Edwin van Houten, Director of the Consumer Department of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM).
Van Houten says airlines may offer CO2 compensation schemes but they cannot give the impression that CO2 compensation will make flying sustainable.
“ACM’s announcement is quite significant,” says Eric Stam, a lecturer at Rotterdam Airport College and member of campaign group Stay Grounded. Stam had asked the ACM to intervene in the aviation industry’s carbon offsetting claims two years ago.
As part of a wider investigation into carbon compensation claims across the Dutch aviation industry, ACM then started looking into Ryanair.
The consumer authority warned that the airline’s statements like “Fly greener to…” and suggestions that offsetting emissions would lead to more sustainable flights were worded in an alarmingly misleading way.
It found that these claims might give passengers the false impression that they would be flying significantly more sustainably with the low-cost carrier and could mean they were attracted to flying with the company over other supposedly less sustainable airlines.
According to euronews.green, as a result, Ryanair has made its carbon offsetting claims clearer. It has made three changes to the CO2 compensation option on its online ticket sales, and its website now also shows how the estimated emissions for each ticket are calculated, as well as the amount of CO2 compensation. The airline also had to clarify which projects the CO2 compensation fee was spent on, highlighting the independent certification of each one.
A clear message that CO2 compensation does not make flying itself more sustainable was added. Messaging that suggested you could “Fly greener to [...]” was instead changed to “compensate your CO2 emissions”. Symbols like green leaves were also removed.
“If more national consumer authorities scrutinise sustainability claims of airlines and co-ordinate with each other to denounce them, airlines and airports have to be more cautious in what they promise their customers and politicians,” says Van Houten.
