If you've booked a Lufthansa 'Green Fare' recently, don't be surprised to see the same product show up under a new name: Impact Fares. The rebrand isn't a marketing refresh the airline chose — it follows a court ruling in Germany that found the original fares misled consumers about how green their flight really was.

The backstory: in March 2025, the NGO Environmental Action Germany (DUH) won a lawsuit against Lufthansa over the Green Fares, which the airline launched in 2023. The court agreed that travellers paying extra for these fares were left unclear about how much of their flight's emissions were actually being compensated, and that including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) created the impression passengers were directly offsetting their own flights. The NGO called it a case of one of the world's largest airlines 'pretending air travel is climate-neutral in exchange for additional fees.'

Fast-forward to now, and the airline has renamed the product Impact Fares, citing 'new regulatory requirements for environmental communication.' What you actually get hasn't changed. On European routes, the price of the fare funds SAF equal to 20% of the flight's estimated CO2 emissions, with climate projects covering the remaining 80%. On intercontinental routes, it's a 10% SAF / 90% climate project split. The SAF is deployed across Lufthansa's network within six months of departure — not necessarily on your flight. The fares still come with bonus miles and more flexible rebooking rules.

It's worth noting that a significant chunk of what you're paying for isn't fuel at all. On a long-haul booking, 90% of the emissions calculation goes to outside climate projects — essentially offsets — rather than into the jet tanks. And only a fraction of each flight's emissions is addressed with SAF even on short European hops.

This also isn't Lufthansa's first run-in over green claims. Back in 2022, UK regulators took issue with an ad showing a plane above the Earth with the caption 'Connecting the world. Protecting its future. #MakeChangeFly.'

For travellers, the practical takeaway is simple: the fare perks are unchanged, but the framing is more honest. If you book an Impact Fare, you're buying flexibility, bonus miles, and a contribution to SAF and offset projects — not a carbon-neutral flight. Those who want to reduce the footprint of a specific trip may be better off purchasing verified offsets or SAF contributions separately and reading the fine print on what any airline actually funds. Expect more carriers to reword their sustainability marketing as EU rules tighten on environmental claims.