A Paris court has condemned French multinational TotalEnergies for “misleading” consumers by claiming to be committed to the energy transition, while following practices that contradict this policy, writes CleanTechnica.

The lawsuit was filed by three environmental organizations: Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth and Notre Affaire à Tous, and the court decision was announced at the end of October.

The judges considered that, through advertising, press releases and public claims, TotalEnergies had misled consumers, calling itself a “leading player in the energy transition” and placing itself “on the road to carbon neutrality by 2050”.

These claims are misleading under French consumer protection legislation, writes the US portal on “clean technology”.

As a result, TotalEnergies was ordered to publish the ruling on its website for 180 days and to pay symbolic fines to the three organizations that brought the action.

This decision was not about oil spills, gas emissions or tax evasion, but purely about the language TotalEnergies uses in its energy transition policy.

“It was the first time that a fossil fuel giant had been held legally responsible in France for greenwashing practices,” the source noted.

The organizations based their complaint on the French Consumer Protection Code and not on environmental legislation.

“The argument was simple: by presenting itself as the leader of the energy transition, while continuing to expand oil and gas production, TotalEnergies created a misleading impression with the public,” emphasizes CleanTechnica.

According to the portal, the oil company's communications were aimed at consumers, not regulators or investors. It also points out that when Total reconfigured itself as TotalEnergies in 2021, it presented this change as the beginning of a broad-spectrum transformation.

“The new logo, with its bright colors, evoked solar and wind power. The press materials proclaimed that the company was ‘reinventing energy’,” he recalls.

However, the French oil company's financial reports show another reality. In 2023, more than 90% of the 240 billion dollars in revenues came from hydrocarbons.