What is the greenwashing TotalEnergies is being judged for?

Can an oil company sincerely claim that it is helping to "preserve the planet"? That it is aiming for "carbon neutrality"? At an unprecedented hearing in France on Thursday, judges must decide whether TotalEnergies misled consumers by claiming this in its communications. In a packed courtroom, the leading French oil and gas group, the world's fourth-largest, defended itself in the Paris court against any insincerity in its communications, in the face of three associations—Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth France, and Notre Affaire à Tous—which accused it of deceptive marketing practices.

Greenwashing, or eco-laundering, or presenting oneself as more virtuous than in reality, does not exist specifically in law, and it is through this legal avenue that the activists have attacked. Unprecedented for an energy giant in France, this trial could establish a precedent on the limits of corporate environmental communication, long left unchecked, but which is beginning to be more strictly regulated in the European Union.

At the heart of the case: the group's communications campaign on its websites, television, as well as on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, starting in May 2021, shortly after its name change from Total to TotalEnergies. The multinational then announced its goal of "carbon neutrality by 2050," often adding "together with society," and touted its objectives "in line with the Paris Agreement" on climate change. The group also touted gas, which it sells directly to consumers, as "the fossil fuel that emits the least greenhouse gases." In total, around forty messages were identified, which NGOs described as "false advertising."

These messages make it "impossible for an average consumer to understand that TotalEnergies is expanding its fossil fuel production," argued Clémentine Baldon, the associations' lawyer, at the hearing on Thursday. The strategy of the group led by Patrick Pouyanné "will not facilitate the energy transition; it is delaying it, or even preventing it, and is contributing to jeopardizing the objectives of the Paris Agreement" to reduce climate change, she said.

The lawyer cited the IPCC, the UN, and the International Energy Agency, which have written that extracting more and more oil or gas is not compatible with saving the climate.

TotalEnergies, on the other hand, disputes the "advertising" or "commercial" nature of these messages, which it claims fall under "its institutional communication," governed by stock market law and not consumer law. The associations dispute this. Their lawyers believe that the messages, whether published on a commercial or institutional website, were always intended to encourage people to purchase TotalEnergies products.

The court is also being asked to rule on whether it is legal to promote gas as an essential energy source for the energy transition, despite its disputed climate impact due to methane leaks, which have a very warming effect on the atmosphere. For years, lacking a clear framework, companies have communicated extensively about their environmental policies, claiming carbon neutrality or using vague terms like "green," "sustainable," or "eco-responsible."

But the rules are emerging. In Europe, courts have condemned airlines KLM in 2024 and Lufthansa in March for greenwashing. Outside France, oil giants have had to cancel or correct advertising campaigns that touted climate benefits such as carbon neutrality.