Oil giant totally guilty of faking its greenwashing

A French court yesterday ruled oil and gas giant TotalEnergies had engaged in “misleading commercial practices” by overstating its climate pledges and ordered it to remove some claims, in what activists said was the first such ruling worldwide against a major oil company for climate misinformation.

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The case could help set a legal precedent for the kind of environmental claims corporations, which are starting to face tighter regulations in the European Union, can make.

In Europe, courts ruled against Dutch airline KLM last year and Germany's Lufthansa in March for misleading consumers about their efforts to reduce the environmental impact of flying.

But ClientEarth, an organisation that monitors case law against the oil and gas industry, welcomed the ruling as a “historic win against greenwashing”.