TotalEnergies has so far failed to convict Greenpeace, which accuses it of underestimating its carbon footprint: the courts ruled in favor on Thursday of the environmental NGO which had requested the annulment of the proceedings brought by the company for “dissemination of false and misleading information”.
This decision coincides with the centenary of Total, which became TotalEnergies, the former French Oil Company, born on March 28, 1924, under the leadership of Raymond Poincaré.
Due to a lack of regulation on how to account for their greenhouse gas emissions, companies have for years been able to claim their carbon neutrality or advertise everywhere that they are greener than they are, which increasingly pushes more climate activists to take legal action against large companies, to try to obtain case law on the greenwashing (greenwashing) or climate disinformation.
TotalEnergies is thus the target of two complaints from associations which accuse it of “deceptive commercial practices” in the presentation of its climate policy, one in civil proceedings in Paris and one in criminal proceedings which led to the opening of an investigation by the public prosecutor’s office. from Nanterre.
This Thursday’s case concerns TotalEnergies’ estimate of its carbon footprint. Greenpeace calculated in a report at the end of 2022 that the group’s annual emissions were four times greater than what it reported, i.e. 1.6 billion tonnes of CO equivalent.2instead of the 455 million declared.
In April 2023, the major attacked the NGO, as well as the analysis firm Factor-X, for disseminating misleading information to the stock markets, and demanded the unpublication of the Greenpeace report as well as 50,000 euros ($73,000 Canadian) legal costs.
As a listed company, “we cannot let anyone say anything […] since this amounts to directly deceiving investors,” argued the company, which denounced “a methodology that is dubious to say the least.”
But Greenpeace affirmed that its figures, “without claiming absolute truth”, constituted a “contribution to the debate”. The report was supposed to show that “the responsibility of the energy company in the climate crisis was much greater than what it wanted to recognize”, in this case of the order of four times more.
The judge, on Thursday, finally canceled the summons from TotalEnergies.
“As the oil and gas major celebrates its 100th anniversary today, the courts ruled in favor of Greenpeace, deeming the summons too imprecise to [lui] allow […] to defend itself usefully on the merits,” declared the NGO.
TotalEnergies told AFP to take “note of the judge’s decision” of the Paris judicial court and examine “the follow-up to be taken” in its first lawsuit filed in France against the environmental association.
“Lack of details”
During a procedural hearing on February 29, the association pleaded for the nullity of the summons, on two grounds:
— On the one hand on the grounds that it was imprecise in its terms;
— On the other hand because in his eyes it constituted a “SLAPP procedure” intended to hinder his freedom of expression by relying on stock market law, instead of taking the usual route of defamation proceedings.
In his order consulted by Agence France-Presse, the judge considered that “the lack of details” in the summons “necessarily causes harm” to the parties summoned, “who, not having a precise and exhaustive list of allegedly false or misleading information” denounced by TotalEnergies, “cannot usefully defend itself on the merits”.
On the other hand, the judge does not consider TotalEnergies’ legal action as an “abusive procedure”.
“In a purely procedural phase”, the judge “considered that the action taken by TotalEnergies against Greenpeace and Factor-X was not abusive without being admissible as it stands since the terms of the summons would not be sufficiently precise,” the group soberly commented in its press release.
The judge ordered TotalEnergies to pay Greenpeace and Factor-X the sum of 15,000 euros (22,000 Canadian dollars) in legal costs. He has 15 days to appeal from the notification of the decision.
The debate on the “real” carbon footprint of TotalEnergies will therefore not open, unless TotalEnergies appeals and wins. In this case, the NGO and the group could find themselves in court in an unprecedented debate on the method of accounting for the group’s greenhouse gas emissions.