French Court Convicts TotalEnergies of Greenwashing Over Climate Claims

Key Takeaways

• Historic Conviction: A Paris court found TotalEnergies guilty of misleading consumers through greenwashing, marking the first conviction of a major oil and gas company worldwide for climate misinformation.
• Misleading Climate Claims: Judges ruled the company’s ads falsely implied it could achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 while expanding fossil fuel operations.
• Advertising Restrictions: TotalEnergies must remove carbon neutrality and energy transition claims from its marketing within one month and publish the ruling on its French subsidiaries’ websites.
• Legal Precedent: The case, brought by Greenpeace and other NGOs, sets a potential global precedent as regulators tighten scrutiny of corporate climate communications.
• Wider EU Context: The ruling follows similar judgments against KLM and Lufthansa, signaling a growing European clampdown on misleading sustainability advertising.

Deep Dive

A Paris court has convicted TotalEnergies of misleading consumers through “greenwashing,” ruling that the French oil and gas giant overstated its environmental commitments and misrepresented its pathway to carbon neutrality.

The decision, delivered on Thursday, marks the first time a major oil company has been found guilty of climate-related misinformation. Environmental groups say the case sets a global precedent for holding corporations accountable for misleading climate advertising as Europe tightens its regulations on sustainability claims.

A Landmark Ruling Against Climate Misinformation

The court found that TotalEnergies’ marketing campaigns misled consumers into believing the company could achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 while continuing to expand its oil and gas operations. Judges determined that the firm’s portrayal of itself as a leader in the energy transition created a “false impression” of alignment with global climate goals.

While the court dismissed certain complaints related to the company’s fossil gas and biofuels—energy sources activists argued were deceptively marketed as clean—it upheld key accusations surrounding misleading “net-zero” advertising.

The lawsuit focused on roughly 40 advertisements in which TotalEnergies promoted its goal of becoming “net zero by 2050, together with society.” The company also described gas as “the fossil fuel with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions” while highlighting investments in renewable energy following its 2021 rebrand from Total to TotalEnergies.

Environmental campaigners, however, pointed to what they called a “big gap” between the company’s marketing and its continued fossil fuel expansion. Juliette Renaud of Friends of the Earth France said the case revealed “a major contradiction between TotalEnergies’ communication on carbon neutrality and its business model still dominated by oil and gas.”

Orders and Consequences

Under the ruling, TotalEnergies has one month from notification to remove claims related to carbon neutrality and the energy transition, including statements such as “Our ambition is to be a major player in the energy transition while continuing to meet the public’s energy needs” and “Our ambition is to contribute to reaching net zero by 2050, together with society.”

The company’s French consumer energy subsidiaries were also ordered to publish the judgment on their websites.

The ruling follows similar judgments against Dutch airline KLM in 2024 and Germany’s Lufthansa in early 2025 over misleading environmental advertising. However, this marks the first conviction of a fossil fuel giant, a development observers say could reshape corporate communications in Europe’s tightening green regulation landscape.

As companies across industries face mounting scrutiny under EU sustainability rules, the TotalEnergies case underscores a growing expectation that climate commitments must not only sound credible but be demonstrably real.

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