There may be problems in the future for companies that claim to help the planet while continuing to produce fossil fuels. A coalition of green groups has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing Chevron of misleading the public in its claims that it is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The complaint, filed jointly by Earthworks, Global Witness and Greenpeace USA, says that Chevron has positioned itself in front of the general public on social media, TV and other types of marketing as working to solve the climate crisis and provide environmentally friendly solutions. . But the company’s real business practices, the groups say, tell a different story.
Research has shown that Chevron is the largest investor source of global carbon emissions since 1965. It is also the largest oil company in the US While the company’s marketing language might paint it as turning a new green leaf, the suit says Chevron is not putting so much effort into it. A complaint filed with the DC District Court in June last year claims that only 0.2% of the company’s spending between 2010 and 2018 was for low-carbon energy sources.
And even though social media and the Chevron website are full of the phrase “cleaner energy” to describe their products, the company has no intention of making any commitment to seriously reduce its production of dirty fuels. As CEO Mike DeWirth he said last yearInstead, Chevron will focus on “higher yields and low carbon” in the production line, while continuing to extract oil and gas. DeWirth, too told Reuters In January, he believes population growth means fossil fuels are here to stay.
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“There is a misleading use of industry jargon and terms to confuse the public,” much of Chevron’s marketing, said Josh Eisenfeld, a corporate responsibility campaign at Earthworks. Eisenfeld pointed to Chevron claims that it reduces the “intensity of carbon emissions” – reducing the amount of emissions needed to produce fossil fuels – as a prime example.
“It’s misleading,” he said. “Reducing emissions intensity does not mean that you will reduce your total emissions, especially for a company like Chevron that has plans to expand its production. If they reduce the intensity of their emissions per barrel of product they create, but increase the amount of product they create, there is still room for them to emit more carbon dioxide than they had in the past. ”
Chevron, in turn, said Bloomberg that the FTC’s complaint is “frivolous” and said it “commits[s] in honest conversations about the energy transition. ”
The FTC is a government agency tasked with protecting consumers from false advertising and regulating business activities and practices. In the early 1990s, the agency launched the first roadmap for marketers who want to advertise organic or “green” products and updated these guidelines sporadically in the decades since (the latest version of these guides was published in 2012). ). In the past, as is well known, green guides have been used to counter companies that claim biodegradable plastic, suppliers of environmental certification seals, and organic products. In a profile case, the agency also took over Volkswagen claiming that his diesel cars were clean. But the green groups filing the complaint say this is the first time a green-based complaint has been filed against a fossil fuel company.
On a web page compiled by Earthworks, the organization lists examples of how some of Chevron’s recent marketing efforts specifically mislead consumers. The website highlights a special hypocrisy in Chevron’s emphasis on methane captured from factory agriculture, which the company calls “renewable natural gas”. Chevron’s statement in support of Black Lives Matter this summer are also compared to the company’s long history of operating factories –in many cases, pollutants“In the Black and Latinx neighborhoods.”
There are some signs that the federal government could start paying more attention to green washing in the wider energy sector. In December, FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra he wrote in a note that “it discourages[ring] green and misleading environmental claims ”in the energy sector could be an opportunity for the agency to take further steps to protect consumers as more and more companies start making claims about energy efficiency or reducing emissions. There is also a growing public interest in holding oil companies accountable for their claims, such as social media users and even creative advertisers increase the pressure on the industry. The time is coming when the world needs to reduce emissions over 7% per year In this decade, in order to meet what is considered a relatively safe level of global warming, something with continuous oil extraction is not compatible.
And there should be plenty of opportunities to examine the claims made by oil and gas companies. Eisenfeld said he noticed that other oil companies were making similar statements to Chevron about “lowering carbon intensity” to be seen as fighting climate change. Companies like Chevron, Eisenfeld said, “are trying to capitalize on more and more consumers who care [the environment]. There is a market for this, and energy companies are engaged in this marketing. ”