TotalEnergies to appeal landmark greenwashing ruling in South Africa

Good day and welcome again to Vitality Supply, coming to you from New York, the place titans of trade, policymakers and inexperienced campaigners are gathering for Local weather Week.

My Monetary Occasions colleagues and I’ve a packed agenda of interviews and occasions and can do our greatest to report the highlights of what has turn out to be one of many largest annual local weather occasions on the calendar.

We start as we speak with a scoop: an interview with Jennifer Granholm, the US power secretary, who advised me Donald Trump’s plan to intestine the Biden administration’s sweeping local weather regulation would hand China the benefit in a world cleantech race.

“We’d be stabbing ourselves as a result of it could be so silly,” mentioned the previous governor of Michigan, who additionally talks in regards to the LNG pause and Trump’s accusation that President Joe Biden has undermined “US power independence”.

Our foremost merchandise as we speak takes us to South Africa, the place our correspondent Rob Rose experiences on TotalEnergies, which has come below hearth for an promoting marketing campaign.

Thanks for studying,

Jamie

TotalEnergies appeals South African greenwashing ruling

TotalEnergies this week will enchantment the South African promoting regulator’s ruling that it was “deceptive” for the French oil firm to tout its dedication to “sustainable growth” in a marketing campaign with the nation’s nationwide parks.

This case, the primary greenwashing dispute heard by South Africa’s Promoting Regulatory Board, a non-public, self-regulatory physique set as much as defend customers, underscores how promoting represents a brand new entrance within the conflict between activists and oil firms over local weather change. 

Complete, nevertheless, has confronted comparable claims earlier than throughout the globe, together with a 2022 case in France introduced by Greenpeace and different environmental teams, which accused it of breaching European shopper safety regulation. The corporate on the time mentioned the allegations of greenwashing had been false.

And it’s not simply oil firms dealing with the warmth: in August, the UK’s Promoting Requirements Authority banned a Virgin Atlantic advert for making “deceptive” claims about its first transatlantic flight, which the airline mentioned used “100 per cent sustainable aviation gas”.

At situation in South Africa is a marketing campaign that Complete ran in partnership with the nation’s state-run nationwide parks physique, SANParks, during which it supplied prizes for individuals who uploaded images at these parks whereas tagging Complete. It claimed within the advert that “we’re dedicated to sustainable growth and environmental safety”. 

Fossil Free South Africa, the non-profit advocacy group that introduced the greenwashing criticism to the ARB, argues this was a “fully false and deceptive declare” since Complete is the Nineteenth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, in line with think-tank InfluenceMap’s Carbon Majors database, and is growing oil and gasoline initiatives in Africa. 

In its preliminary argument on the tribunal, Complete rejected the declare, saying that “limiting the implications of world warming and offering power is a world emergency round which TotalEnergies has outlined its technique”.

It added that this was not an “commercial”, however fairly a “company communication” about its social duty programme.

However in mid-August, the promoting physique dominated that Complete’s declare was “deceptive”, including that this did certainly quantity to “promoting claims”.

“[Total] has proven that lots of its initiatives are certainly directed at sustainable growth. There is no such thing as a doubt that this is a matter excessive on [its] precedence listing. Nevertheless, additionally it is little question that the core enterprise of [Total] is instantly against the problem of sustainable growth,” the discovering mentioned.

On Thursday, Complete will enchantment the discovering, during which the regulator mentioned South African promoting businesses and entrepreneurs mustn’t settle for any promoting from the corporate during which it claimed it was dedicated to “sustainable growth” when it got here to the nationwide parks.

“This discovering is the primary of its sort in South Africa, however solely the most recent in a collection of findings all over the world that verify that fossil gas firms shouldn’t be in a position to burnish their pictures by falsely claiming ‘inexperienced’ credentials and hiding the actual and devastating influence of their companies,” mentioned Tracey Davies, the chief director of Simply Share, a South African shareholder activist non-profit.

However in response to questions from Vitality Supply this week, Complete spokesperson Marion Viry denied that the corporate was concerned in greenwashing its credentials.

“The problem is to construct the power system of tomorrow, whereas persevering with to produce the power the world wants as we speak,” she mentioned. “TotalEnergies invested $5bn in renewable and low-carbon energies in 2023 and in 2024.”

That is the second consecutive yr during which Complete invested extra in low-carbon power than in new oil and gasoline initiatives, Viry mentioned, including that by 2030, the corporate could be among the many prime 5 renewable power producers.

It’s a declare the French firm has made repeatedly. After its annual common assembly in Might of final yr, Complete’s chief govt Patrick Pouyanné hit out on the “grumps” who accused the corporate of greenwashing, saying “we’re satisfied of the credibility of our local weather transition plan.”

What’s at stake

In South Africa, whereas Complete’s marketing campaign with SANParks is not operating, the ruling from the promoting authority will nonetheless have ramifications for a way oil and gasoline firms market their clear power efforts sooner or later.

“What occurs within the enchantment will probably be intently watched as it can set a precedent for a way firms discuss their environmental commitments,” mentioned Thameena Dhansay, a marketing campaign supervisor for Fossil Free South Africa.

Dhansay advised Vitality Supply that globally, fossil gas firms akin to Complete have shifted their communications technique because the political temperature over local weather change has risen globally.

“From the Seventies, many oil firms selected a method of local weather denialism. However this has advanced to local weather delay — that’s, promising to satisfy a internet zero goal by 2050. What they’re saying is ‘we’ll take motion, however we will’t do it proper now’,” she mentioned.

Fossil Free South Africa mentioned it supposed to lodge complaints in opposition to different oil and gasoline firms on the promoting physique to make sure they’re held to account for deceptive customers. 

“In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be as much as a small trade regulator to take care of a weighty situation like fossil gas trade greenwashing,” mentioned David Le Web page, director of the group. “Relatively, governments ought to be taking this extra critically, given the chance it presents to mislead customers and society.”

The South African case illustrates how excessive the stakes have turn out to be for oil and gasoline firms, which have poured thousands and thousands into advertising their local weather change mitigation efforts. 

Gail Schimmel, chief govt of South Africa’s advert board, advised Vitality Supply that her entity was growing a code particularly to take care of greenwashing disputes, which have gotten extra widespread globally. 

Schimmel mentioned battles all over the world between activists and firms over their inexperienced practices had led to “greenhushing” — firms opting to not talk their local weather objectives in any respect for worry of being dragged into authorized disputes. “This might clearly be an issue if it led to firms selecting to not put money into inexperienced initiatives consequently,” she mentioned. (Rob Rose)

Energy Factors

• California sued ExxonMobil, alleging the oil supermajor deceived the general public for half a century in regards to the sustainability of its plastic merchandise.

• The US proposed banning Chinese language software program and parts in autos over fears that Beijing might acquire knowledge on American drivers and hack internet-connected automobiles.

• Western nations have joined forces to interrupt China’s grip on important minerals, asserting a financing community for initiatives to supply uncooked supplies.

Vitality Supply is written and edited by Jamie Smyth, Myles McCormick, Amanda Chu, Tom Wilson and Malcolm Moore, with help from the FT’s world crew of reporters. Attain us at power.supply@ft.com and comply with us on X at @FTEnergy. Make amends for previous editions of the publication here.