Danish Court Fines KLM €370,000 for SAF "Big Step" Greenwashing Claim

On July 9, 2026, the Copenhagen City Court found KLM Royal Dutch Airlines guilty of misleading commercial practices under Denmark's Marketing Practices Act, imposing a fine of 3 million Danish kroner (approximately €370,000). The ruling concerned a 2023 radio advertisement in which KLM described its use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as a "big step" toward environmental sustainability — when the actual SAF proportion was 1% of total fuel consumption. The ruling is significant for several reasons: it is the first major court greenwashing conviction under Scandinavian marketing law applying a quantitative materiality test to environmental claims, and it arrives weeks before the EU ECGT Directive takes effect, which will impose similar standards across all 27 member states. For corporate counsel advising companies with environmental marketing programs, the KLM precedent establishes that courts will scrutinize the quantitative basis of any claim that implies meaningful environmental benefit — not merely whether the claim is technically defensible.