District Court Refuses To Dismiss Putative Class Action Challenging Meaning Of 'Carbon Neutral' Claim

Advertisers wishing to emphasize their environmental progressiveness often assert that their products or processes are "carbon neutral." This is meant to convey that there are no net emissions of carbon associated with the advertised product or process, which is often achieved by the company's purchase of "carbon offsets" – voluntary carbon emissions reductions or removals that occur somewhere else in the world, such as through planting of forests. As we have previously written, the market for carbon offsets has been under attack in recent months due to occasionally questionable accounting methods used to calculate carbon reductions and removals, and because activists tend to think the entire concept gives advertisers a "free pass" from reducing their own emissions merely by buying cheap credits created somewhere else.