Did TotalEnergies want to pass itself off as a green giant? The oil and gas group, which communicates on its commitments in favor of the environment, is sued by three environmental organizations for misleading commercial practices. Revelations of The eye of 8 p.m., which deciphers the green communication of the biggest French polluter.
Two years ago, the boss of Total did not find it realistic to aim for carbon neutrality in 2050. “We are not going to solve the problem with a wave of a magic wand,” estimated Patrick Pouyanné during a conference on January 14, 2020. “I even find that today, this tendency to want to say ‘in 2050 everything will be neutral’… well that’s nice! None of us will be there in 2050.”
Did Patrick Pouyanné finally find a magic wand? Because since then, the group has changed its discourse. Having become TotalEnergies, it now displays, on the contrary, the ambition of“achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”.
Concretely, the group undertakes to reduce its direct emissions, those of its factories for example, to go from 46 megatons of CO2 to zero in 2050. What TotalEnergies omits are certain indirect emissions, such as those of the vehicles that use its fuels… almost ten times greater. It does not set any overall objective of neutralizing these emissions for 2050.
Greenpeace, which is suing TotalEnergies along with two other environmental associations, considers this communication to be a misleading commercial practice. “It’s the facade image, the one that Total wants to present to its consumers to sell them more products,” analyzes a lawyer from the NGO, Clara Gonzales. “What TotalEnergies is trying to do today is to convince us of the impossible: that we can achieve carbon neutrality, be on the path to energy transition, while producing more fossil energy.”
More generally, Ademe, the public agency for ecological transition, alerts consumers to the use of the argument of “carbon neutrality” in advertisements.
“Very often, we will see that this term carbon neutrality is used as a communication tool, with strong displays or abusive statements, and therefore it is clearly a new form of greenwashing…”
Valérie Martin, head of the citizen mobilization service at Ademeto France 2
the greenwashing, is to give yourself an eco-responsible image far removed from reality. Contacted, the TotalEnergies group assures that its strategy is not greenwashing, and that its indirect emissions depend on the choices of its customers. He intends to defend himself against these charges in court.
TotalEnergies
Greenpeace France
“Use of the ‘carbon neutrality’ argument in communications”, Expert opinion, ADEME, February 2022
Non-exhaustive list.