A French oil company engaged in “misleading commercial practices” about the scope of its environmental commitments, a court has ruled.
TotalEnergies, which this month said it aimed to “ramp up production of gas”, was found on Thursday to have probably misled consumers with claims about its climate policies. The civil court in Paris ordered the company to remove messages from its website that said it wanted to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and be a big player in the energy transition.
The case, brought by NGOs including Greenpeace France and Friends of the Earth France, is the first time the country’s “greenwashing” laws have been applied to a fossil fuel company. Courts in the Netherlands and Germany have already found that airlines misled consumers with vague environmental claims.
The French court gave TotalEnergies a month to take down the misleading statements or face a fine of €10,000 (£8,700) a day. It was also ordered to post the court’s ruling on its website, with the same penalty for noncompliance, as well as to pay €8,000 to each of the three NGOs and €15,000 for their legal costs.
“The French justice system is finally tackling the impunity of fossil fuel greenwashing that Total has enjoyed until now,” said Justine Ripoll, campaigns manager at Notre Affaire à Tous, one of the NGOs that brought the case. “It sends a clear message: climate disinformation is not an acceptable business strategy.”
TotalEnergies has been approached for comment.
The company, which aims to achieve 100 gigawatts of renewable power generation by 2030 but has made fossil gas a “cornerstone” of its strategy, has said it was a multi-energy company aiming to “responsibly, cost-effectively and sustainably produce the energy that we all need in our daily lives”.
The ruling is the result of a legal action brought by NGOs in 2022 in response to a campaign when the company changed its name from Total.
The court ordered TotalEnergies to remove statements that said it placed sustainable development at the heart of its strategy and that it “contributed to the wellbeing of populations” in line with the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Judges dismissed a further accusation of greenwashing over the company’s claims about fossil gas and biofuels. The court found that although the statements contained some disputed claims, they were for informational rather than commercial purposes.
Climate activists and green groups have increasingly taken fossil fuel companies to court for environmental claims that do not align with published climate science.
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In a landmark report in 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the world had enough existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure to blow past the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency found that “no new oil and gas” exploration was compatible with its key scenario for keeping planetary heating to that level.
Jonathan White, a lawyer for ClientEarth, which supported the NGOs, said TotalEnergies appeared to be continuing with oil and gas projects despite warnings from climate experts.
“This landmark judgment sends a clear warning shot to other oil and gas majors in Europe and beyond,” he said. “Claiming to be part of the transition while backing new fossil fuel projects comes at a tried-and-tested legal price.”
