BEUC NEWS - 27 September 2024

If you’ve been browsing for plane tickets recently, you surely have come across a flurry of claims praising how sustainable flying is. “Compensate your flights”, “Fly more sustainably”, “Offset your carbon emissions” are just a few of the misleading claims consumer groups from our network regularly find across airlines’ websites.

According to our analysis, such marketing amounts to greenwashing. So last year, with 23 of our members, we lodged a complaint to the network of consumer authorities in the EU.

To further explore the (lack of) evidence behind the aviation industry’s claims, last week we hosted together with NGO ClientEarth an online event with experts from academia and civil society. The main points experts shared included:

• Offsetting carbon emissions can have unintended consequences. It’s better to act on climate change than do nothing. But if consumers are falsely reassured that flying has no impact on the environment, they will not change their behaviour.
• We need more honest communication from airlines. If a company presents a product as environmentally friendly, they need to substantiate the claims.
• Aviation is 99,9% fossil fuels and this will not change any time soon. ‘Sustainable aviation fuels’ emit less CO2 than fossil fuels but are nowhere near zero emission. Clean fuels will not be ready at scale before 2030. 
• The best way to cut aviation emissions is to stop the sector’s growth and cut demand, starting with business flying. There is a need to moderate flying now if we still want to be able to fly in the future. A frequent flying levy could be an option.
• Restricting the advertising of fossil fuels could help curb greenwashing. Airlines are not going to stop this marketing because they need it for their growth. Regulators must step up an impose fines.
• Greenwashing is a distraction. The average person lacks budget to decarbonise their polluting activities, such as heating. 

Policymakers are not implementing meaningful policies because they are distracted by greenwashing.

For more information, watch the event recording, check out our X thread with the speakers’ main points, and read our briefing detailing the science behind the claims.