The concept of greenwashing in light of the Paris Judicial Court’s judgment of October 23, 2025

In a judgment dated October 23, 2025, the Paris Judicial Court partially granted the NGOs’ claims. The Court ruled that the publication of communications on the Group’s website affirming its “ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050” and presenting itself as “a major player in the energy transition” constituted misleading commercial practices likely to deceive consumers on the scope of Total Group’s environmental commitments.

The Court thus ordered the Total companies to pay each of the NGOs €8,000 as damages for their moral prejudice and ordered them to stop the publication of some of these disputed communications within one month. The Court also ordered the Total companies to publish the judgment on the main page of their website.

This judgment represents a significant milestone in the growing field of environmental litigation and sheds new light on the concept of misleading commercial practices in environmental matters, also known as “greenwashing”.

It should be first noted that, in this judgment, the Court refers to the applicable provisions of the French Consumer Code (Articles L. 121-2 and following) and to Directive (EU) 2024/825 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 February 2024 amending Directives 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/EU (the “Directive”), which clarifies the conditions to consider commercial practice related to future environmental performance to be misleading.

Although this Directive has not yet been transposed into domestic law, the Court referred to it with respect to the obligation of sincere cooperation set out in Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, requiring national courts to interpret domestic law without jeopardizing achievement of the goals pursued by the new Directive. Nevertheless, the judgment ultimately marginally relies on its provisions.

The qualification of “commercial practices” for communications relating to the company’s global environmental ambitions and strategy

The judgment clarifies the conditions for communications, which are not focused on the characteristics of a product but rather on the overall ambitions and strategy of a company in environmental matters, to be classified as commercial practices.

The Court notably dismissed most of the identified communications as being “commercial practices”. It considered that such communications “[were] part of informational communication about the group’s institutional news, without a direct connection to the promotion, sale, or provision of a product to consumers,” or were published “for informational purposes, without any direct relationship to the promotion, sale, or provision of a product to consumers.” They notably included specific communications related to the corporate name change, the company’s “Climate Reports,” or excerpts from Shareholders’ meetings resolutions.

The Court yet identified three communications appearing on the Total companies’ websites as constituting “commercial practices”, as they displayed general messages relating to environmental ambitions and strategies as sales arguments. The judgment noted for one of them that “these elements are used (...) to target consumers, to promote offerings, which subsequently appear in the screenshots”; for others, it noted that they appeared on pages titled “Five good reasons to choose us” or “Why you should choose us”.

Do not use “carbon neutrality” in commercial communications!

The Court’s analysis of the misleading nature of the disputed communications focused on the claims “ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050” and “major player in the energy transition” used by the Total companies.

According to the NGOs, the misleading nature of these claims lied in the fact that achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 would require drastic and rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and, based on scientific consensus, immediately stopping the exploration and exploitation of new oil deposits, to meet the goal set by the Paris Agreement.

In this context, the plaintiffs emphasized that Total Group’s statements on carbon neutrality and its role in the energy transition were conflicting with its global strategy, which notably includes developing its fossil fuel projects and increasing its fossil fuel production.

On the basis of classic criteria used in cases of misleading commercial practices, the Court sought to determine:

• whether the communications included false claims or were likely to deceive consumers regarding “the scope of the advertiser’s commitments, particularly regarding environmental matters,” as provided in Article L. 121-2 (e) of the French Consumer Code; and
• whether such communications were likely to substantially alter consumers’ economic behavior, leading them to make purchasing decisions they would have not made otherwise.

With respect to the first criterion, the Court carried out a concrete analysis of the Total companies’ communications and the context surrounding the concept of “carbon neutrality”. In light of the Group’s communications, the Court determined that this claim unambiguously referred to the scientific concept of planetary carbon neutrality, understood in the context of global goals endorsed by the Paris Agreement, which was itself grounded on research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), aimed at limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

The Court relied on several scientific studies and reports (IPCC, International Energy Agency, United Nations Environment Programme, recommendations from international expert groups under the UN Secretary-General) and noted a consensus that, to limit global warming to 1.5°C, a reduction in global fossil fuel consumption was necessary and that achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 required halting all investments in fossil fuel.

The Court concluded that Total Group’s ongoing investments in fossil energy conflicted with recommendations from these scientific studies and, consequently, with its ambition to achieve “carbon neutrality” as defined by the Paris Agreement.

The defendants argued that, as private legal entities, they were not bound by the Paris Agreement. However, this argument was not upheld.

Furthermore, the defendants pointed out that there is no mandatory trajectory requiring companies to contribute to the 2050 carbon neutrality goal and maintained that growth in fossil energy production could potentially align, in the long run, with the carbon neutrality ambition. They claimed to have adopted scenarios specific to their field of activity and to have established a realistic path to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, validated by independent third parties.

These arguments were dismissed by the Court as it considered that the fault of the Total companies lied in the fact that their communications referred to the dual ambition of achieving carbon neutrality, within the meaning of the Paris Agreement, and of being a major player in the energy transition, without specifying to consumers that Total Group had its own scenario, “at odds” with scientific recommendations aligned with the Paris Agreement. It is this lack of precision that, according to the Court, characterized an environmental claim likely to mislead consumers.

In this respect, while referring to the Directive, the Court did not actually apply its newly condemned practices, namely environmental claims regarding future performance “without clear, objective, publicly accessible, and verifiable commitments embedded in a detailed and realistic implementation plan that includes measurable objectives (...) regularly verified by an independent expert whose conclusions are made available to consumers”.

The issue was not the absence of plan as required by the Directive but the lack of reference to the group’s own scenario, combined with the concepts of “carbon neutrality” and “energy transition”. According to the Court, this lack of precision was likely to mislead consumers on Total Group’s environmental commitments.

Accordingly, the judgment may serve as a warning to companies to use with caution terms such as “carbon neutrality” and “energy transition”, possibly exceeding the requirements set out by the new Directive.

As for the second criterion, i.e. assessing the substantial alteration of economic behavior, the Court fails to detail its reasoning.

The Total companies argued that the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence that the disputed communications were likely to alter consumers’ economic behavior, referring to survey results indicating that, to French consumers, the decisive criterion for energy choice remained the price.

However, the Court seems to have decided not to delve into this argument, merely stating that “these claims have clearly substantially altered the economic behavior of a normally attentive and informed consumer whose decisions, while still guided by price, increasingly take into account the environmental qualities of the product or service”.

The judgment thus implicitly acknowledges that price remained the determining factor for consumers, environmental criteria being secondary. This makes the reasoning concerning the alteration of economic behavior less convincing, as the judgment alone does not establish how consumers’ behavior had “clearly” been altered.

By referring to the goals set out by the Directive, one may question whether the Court has attributed preferences to consumers that, while being environmentally desirable, may not be “clearly” observable given the current economic context.

Authored by Jean-Pierre Picca, Hélène Luciani, and Gabrielle Imbert.