In the summer, a German court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by environmentalists against several companies – including the drugstore chain dm – over their use of the term “climate neutral.” Now dm has announced that it will no longer advertise products as “carbon neutral” in the future.
On Monday, the chain, which is also active in Austria, announced that it would not appeal the ruling of the Karlsruhe regional court. The process concerned products such as liquid soap or sunscreen, which are of course not produced entirely without CO₂ emissions, but whose ecological footprint must be offset by compensation (for example financing reforestation projects, etc.).
However, the court did not consider these corporate measures sufficient to continue using the term.
The company now explained that dm had already decided in October 2022 not to use the ‘climate neutral’ label in the future. Legal questions about the use of the label are currently being clarified in other proceedings, so “in our view there is no reason for the judiciary to continue to deal with this in our proceedings.”
But they want to remain “environmentally neutral”.
However, the Karlsruhe District Court had also banned the use of the term “environmentally neutral” because the corresponding products did not have a balanced environmental balance. dm wants to continue to defend itself against this decision.
“We are convinced that our approach, based on scientific findings, is holistic and groundbreaking,” the group said.
Source: Krone
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