Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main’s decision on climate neutral claims regarding detergents

Summary:

On December 2018, an anonymous party filed a suit against an anonymous defendant who had advertised their detergents as ‘CO2 neutral’ on the packaging, flyers and on the internet. The advertising targeted professional traders.

On November 2019, the Regional Court of Frankfurt stated that such a professional audience understood the advertising in the sense that the defendant produced the detergents (including the packaging) as possible CO2-free. This concerned the whole life cycle from raw material extraction, the transport of the raw materials, the production of the detergents to the packaging, delivery, and disposal. Insofar as these processes could not occur completely without emitting CO2, the emissions could be compensated through CO2 certificates. The Court found the advertising misleading and in violation of § 5 para. 1 of the Act against Unfair Competition because the defendant had not included the disposal of the detergents when calculating the CO2 emissions even though the advertising suggested that. The Court dismissed the defendant’s objection that they had considered the emissions due to disposal with a safety surcharge, because this did not meet the strict requirements regarding environment-related advertising claims.

At Issue: Whether the advertising of detergents as ‘CO2 neutral’ on the packaging, on flyers and on the internet is a misleading commercial practice