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Today we’re talking about legal challenges against some of Greenpeace’s recent claims and the long history of blows between climate activists and the corporate world. Let’s get in to it.

Legal Drama

This week, TotalEnergies, one of the largest energy players in Europe sued Greenpeace as well as a climate consulting firm Factor-X over a joint report that alleged that TotalEnergies was systematically underestimating their 2019 greenhouse gas emissions.

The Greenpeace report argues that in 2019 TotalEnergies reported emissions of 455m tonnes of emissions while the real number should be almost four times higher! If the claims are true, TotalEnergies could be liable for millions of dollars of fines.

The focus of this lawsuit however, is on the role that activists can play in calling this out. TotalEnergies claims that Greenpeace’s report is baseless and creates a misleading narrative that impacts its standing as a publicly listed company. On the other hand, Greenpeace responded that the lawsuit was an attempt to silence it before the TotalEnergies general assembly later this month, where activist shareholders will push for stricter climate commitments. Right now, It’s a game of ‘he said she said’ but there’s tens of millions on the table.

A SLAPP in the face

This isn’t the first time Greenpeace has faced legal action. In 2017, Energy Transfer Partners sued Greenpeace as part of a $900m lawsuit that was dismissed two years later. Similarly, a $100m lawsuit from Resolute Forest Products ended up being thrown out after 7 years of court proceedings. Things seem to have a way of working out with these lawsuits.

It’s hard to tell at this point how accurate Greenpeace’s new claims are but it’s likely that the lawsuit is part of a classical corporate defence. Greenpeace argues that lawsuits of this kinds are SLAPPs - Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. In other words, a silencing tactic to prevent organisations from publicly speaking out against corporate actions.

If we’ve learnt one thing, it’s that regulators are making emissions an expensive business. Corporates are responding by switching suppliers and updating their processes but time and time again we find companies playing dirty.

TotalEnergies stand by their numbers, arguing that the report knowingly uses dubious methodologies that double-count emissions. It will take months before the trial comes to a conclusion but we can expect to learn a lot about the standardisation of emissions accounting as well as the role activists can play in calling it out.

We’ll be here to keep you in the loop.

The Strawman