A court in Denmark found KLM guilty of "misleading trade practices," saying the company presented itself as being more sustainable and environmentally friendly than it actually is. The court fined the Dutch airline a total of 3 million Danish kroner, the equivalent of just over 401,000 euros, on the greenwashing allegations.
The ruling was in response to a complaint from the Danish Consumer Ombudsman, which said KLM ran a misleading ad campaign about the contribution that Sustainable Aviation Fuel has made to improvements at the airline. In 2023, KLM broadcast a commercial on radio, and ran the advert on Spotify, in which the company claimed "a big step forward towards slightly more sustainable travel."
Additionally, KLM claimed it would be using "a larger share of sustainable aviation fuel for all tickets from now on." In reality, Sustainable Aviation Fuel made up 1 percent of the fuel composition.
The advertisement "gave consumers the impression that traveling with KLM would be better for the climate than it actually was," the Copenhagen court ruled. KLM lost a similar lawsuit in the District Court of Amsterdam about two years ago.