TotalEnergies accused of “greenwashing”: the appeal of three NGOs deemed admissible
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For them, it is a “first victory”. The appeal of three associations against TotalEnergies for “misleading commercial practices”, was deemed admissible on Wednesday by the Paris Court of Justice, announced Greenpeace France, Our affair with all and Friends of the earth.
“The contradictory debates on the merits can now begin before the court”, welcomed Greenpeace France in a press release, hailing a “first procedural victory”. “TotalEnergies will be able to explain how its communications on the energy transition are reliable and based on objective and verifiable data”, reacted the oil group to Le Parisien, assuring that “no misleading commercial practice can be reproached to him”.
The three NGOs had assigned the group led by Patrick Pouyanné in March 2022, accusing it of “misleading consumers” with its advertisements. They targeted in particular the stated objective of the oil giant to achieve “carbon neutrality by 2050” (or “net zero 2050”), which they consider misleading, “TotalEnergies having no plans to significantly reduce its emissions and to get rid of fossil fuels”. “The purpose of this lawsuit is to protect the public from its greenwashing and to prevent the fossil industry as a whole from spreading false climate information,” they said. in an explanatory note.
A call to “block” the next AG of TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies had filed several requests for inadmissibility with the court, which partially heard it, rejecting the “voluntary intervention” of the British NGO ClientEarth, which had supported the three French associations in this procedure. “The four associations have jointly decided not to appeal in order to allow the progress of the substantive debates on the responsibility of TotalEnergies”, they announced.
May’s beginning, a German environmental protection association had won a legal battle against TotalEnergies in a similar case, the Düsseldorf court finding that TotalEnergies was misleading consumers by presenting a type of fuel oil as “carbon neutral” in advertisements. This decision also comes ten days before the next general meeting of TotalEnergies, on May 26, which several associations, including Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace France, are calling for to “block”.
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