A French court’s decision that oil and gas giant TotalÉnergies misled consumers about its climate policies is a win against greenwashing, plaintiffs say, though other claims against the company were dismissed.

The ruling results from a lawsuit filed by several nongovernmental organizations, including Greenpeace France and Friends of the Earth France. This is the first time France has applied the EU greenwashing laws—introduced in February 2024—against a fossil fuel company, the Guardian reports.

The court ordered Total to remove three paragraphs from its French affiliate’s website that described the company’s plans for carbon neutrality. ClientEarth said  the specific issue was the company’s claim that it put “climate at the heart of its strategy, with the aim of providing cleaner, safer, and more affordable energy to as many people as possible,” with an ambition to achieve net zero by 2050. The plaintiffs took issue with this in light of the company’s plans to continue expanding oil and gas production, with new projects in Iraq, Denmark, Tanzania, and Uganda.

A machine-translated ruling states [pdf] that the plaintiffs accused TotalÉnergies of using “misleading claims in this campaign for the attention of French consumers about its ambition to achieve carbon neutrality and its position as a major player in the energy transition, and the environmental performance of fossil gas and biofuel.”

TotalÉnergies was found liable for its claim of carbon neutrality ambitions. In its reasoning, the court found that the company’s statements about carbon neutrality and net zero were likely to be interpreted by consumers within the context of third-party benchmarks—such as the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C pathway—rather than according to the company’s own definitions of those terms, as Total argued in its defence.

The claims regarding fossil gas and biofuels were dismissed.

TotalÉnergies has been given a month to make the change, and must also post the court’s ruling on its website, or face a non-compliance penalty of €10,000 (C$16,300) per day. The company was also ordered to pay €8,000 (C$13,000) to each of the three NGOs and €15,000 (C$24,400) for their legal costs.

Total has said it will not appeal the ruling.

While the NGOs framed the ruling as a win, TotalÉnergies issued a media release emphasizing the claims that were dismissed, stating that “ the claims relating to the communication campaign associated with its name change in 2021, as well as those targeting its institutional communication on the role of natural gas and biofuels in the energy transition, were all rejected.”

The court did find the communication campaign relating to the name change was misleading, but the text no longer appeared on the website.