Giant oil company TotalEnergies is suing Greenpeace France over the NGO's claims that the energy conglomerate grossly misreports its carbon footprint.
The lawsuit could set the stage for an unprecedented debate on carbon accounting methods.
On Wednesday, Greenpeace announced that the oil company is accusing them of "spreading false and misleading information," particularly in relation to the NGO's November 2022 report where it said that TotalEnergies' carbon footprint is nearly four times larger than what the company is claiming.
The oil giant wants Greenpeace to remove the report from all platforms and is requesting a penalty of €2,000 per day. TotalEnergies also claims a symbolic €1 in damages.
Intimidating 'the entire climate movement'?
“The biggest French polluter is suing Greenpeace, but it is clear that beyond our organisation, TotalEnergies seeks to intimidate the entire climate movement,” Jean-François Julliard, Director of Greenpeace France, said in response to the allegations. The NGO notes that it is the first time TotalEnergies files a lawsuit against them.
“The determination that the company deploys to silence us could be put to much better use by finally carrying out its energy transition.”
The environmental organisation sees the lawsuit as an attempt to silence them through strategic litigation, qualifying the proceedings as a “state-of-the-art SLAPP suit” from an oil company with ever-increasing profits.
“We accept criticism and we accept that our strategy is criticised,” a TotalEnergies spokesperson told AFP, denying any “gag order.” According to the company, Greenpeace France used “methodologies that they necessarily knew were flawed and which led to inconsistent results.”
Julliard expressed concern over the civil proceedings. The lawsuit is far from harmless, and expects to be tied up into a years-long legal battle.
"The procedure has an advantage, at a time when thousands of companies are promising carbon neutrality, a concept that is not standardised and is poorly verified: it will “at least allow for substantive debates on the issue of Total’s carbon accounting”, added Jean-François Julliard to AFP.
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The same Paris court is overseeing civil proceedings brought by Greenpeace against TotalEnergies for misleading commercial practices around its climate targets.
In Belgium, TotalEnergies is a major energy supplier and the biggest oil refiner in the country. It operates offshore windfarms, hydropower plants, a regasification capacity at the Zeebrugge gas terminal and the largest oil refinery in the port of Antwerp.
