ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

Following a court ruling in a greenwashing lawsuit filed by the environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), the German footwear company Deichmann SE has been ordered to remove misleading sustainability product labels. The ruling was delivered by the Regional Court (Landgericht) of Bochum on 7 October 2025, and Deichmann has since complied by withdrawing the disputed sustainability claims from its online store.

Deichmann is one of Europe’s largest footwear retailers, operating thousands of stores worldwide. DUH alleged that the company had advertised more than a thousand products as “sustainable” or bearing sustainability labels without providing verifiable evidence of actual environmental benefits, like reduced emissions or use of recycled materials. On the website, certain shoes had the text “Sustainability: Yes” without further qualification.

The NGO argued that such claims, without substantiation, could lead consumers to believe that the products were demonstrably more environmentally friendly than alternatives. This is pertinent in context as, according to the NGO, “in European economies, this type of advertisements is ‘decisive for the purchase decision’”.

The Bochum Regional Court upheld DUH’s claims, granting an injunction that prohibits Deichmann from using the challenged sustainability labelling unless it can substantiate the claims with transparent, product-specific evidence. Deichmann has acknowledged the ruling and removed the labels from the relevant products to ensure its marketing practice was now in compliance.