ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

The Environmental Defenders Office, an environmental litigation NGO, lodged a complaint with the ACCC on 16 October 2024 alleging greenwashing on the part of Qantas Airways Ltd. The complaint is lodged on behalf of Climate Integrity, a not-for-profit advocacy group, and asks the ACCC to investigate whether statements made by Qantas about the sustainability of its business, and its plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, are in breach of Australian consumer law.

The statements, taken from Qantas’ website, include “Acting Sustainably”, “Net zero emissions by 2050”, and “Fly Carbon Neutral” are accompanied by imagery such as a turtle swimming in the Great Barrier Reef, and are said by Climate Integrity to amount to two representations. Firstly, that Qantas’ services are sustainable and do not have significant environmental impact (“the sustainability representation”); and secondly, that Qantas reasonably expects to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 in accordance with the Paris Agreement (“the net zero representation”). Climate Integrity argues that the representations potentially contravene sections 18 and 29 of the Australian Consumer Law, aimed respectively at preventing misleading or deceptive conduct, and false or misleading representations about goods or services.

The sustainability representation

Climate Integrity argues that the term ‘sustainable’ is vague and broad and is incongruous with Qantas’ current emissions, which in 2024 amounted to 17.6 million tonnes of CO2. A ‘Green Tier’ program gives customers the option for “Qantas to offset 3 tonnes of carbon on your behalf”. According to Climate Integrity, measures such as this have the potential to mislead customers into believing that increasing their travel with Qantas will have limited or no impact on the climate. This runs contrary to the International Energy Agency’s indication that the vast majority of emissions reductions in transport need to come from reduced passenger demand.

The net zero representation

Climate Integrity asserts that Qantas has not disclosed a comprehensive plan for reducing its emissions. Qantas’s net zero strategies are said not to align with established decarbonisation pathways, and three ‘pillars’ established to help meet its emissions reduction targets are described as vague and aspirational.

The first pillar, ‘sustainable operations’, refers amongst other things to “reducing emissions by optimising fuel burn through… aircraft performance and flight planning”. Climate Integrity argue that efficiency improvements alone will not result in an overall reduction in emissions, as they lead to cheaper flights and therefore boost demand.

The second pillar relates to Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). These are either synthetic fuels produced using electricity and CO2, or biofuels derived from organic material such as used cooking oil. Whereas Qantas appeared to rely heavily on SAF to substantiate its net zero representation, limitations such as high cost and low availability prevented SAF from being implemented on a commercial scale.

The third pillar relates to carbon credits and offsets, such as a ‘Fly Carbon Neutral’ option made available to customers which supports “accredited projects that offset your carbon footprint”. In relation to this, Climate Integrity notes that a tonne of carbon sequestered into land is not equal to a tonne of fossil fuel carbon emitted into the atmosphere, and that carbon credit projects highlighted in Qantas’ 2023 Sustainability Report have known credibility concerns.