There could be problems for companies claiming to help the planet while continuing to produce fossil fuels. A coalition of green groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Monday, alleging that Chevron is 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 Chevron is positioning itself to 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 actual business practices, the groups say, tell a different story.
Research has shown that Chevron’s largest investor in ownership source of global carbon emissions since 1965. It is also the largest oil company in the US While the company’s marketing language may portray it as turning a green new leaf, the suit says, Chevron doesn’t actually bother that much. A complaint filed with the DC District Court last June alleges that only 0.2% of the company’s spending between 2010 and 2018 went to low-carbon energy sources.
And even with Chevron’s social media and website littered with the phrase “ever cleaner energy” to describe its products, the company has no plans to make any commitments to seriously reduce its production of dirty fuels. As CEO Mike DeWirth said last yearChevron will instead focus on “higher yields and lower carbon” in their production line as they continue to crank up oil and gas. DeWirth too said Reuters in January that he thinks population growth means fossil fuels are here to stay.
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“There is a misleading use of jargon and industry terms to confuse the public” in much of Chevron’s marketing, said Josh Eisenfeld, a responsible business campaigner at Earthworks. Eisenfeld pointed to Chevron’s claims that it is a reduction in “carbon emission intensity” – reducing the amount of emissions required to make fossil fuels – as a good example.
“That’s misleading,” he said. “Reduce your emissions intensity doesn’t mean you are going to reduce your overall emissions, especially for a company like Chevron that has plans to expand their production. If they lower their emissions intensity per barrel of product they make, but they increase the amount of product they make, there is still room for them to actually put out more carbon dioxide than in the past. “
Chevron, for their part, Bloomberg said that the FTC complaint is’ frivolous’ and that the company is’ committed[s] in honest conversations about the energy transition. “
The FTC is a government agency whose role is to protect consumers from false advertising and to regulate business activities and practices. In the early 1990s, the agency released its first roadmap for marketers seeking to promote environmentally friendly or “green” products, and have updated those guidelines sporadically over the decades (the last version of these guides was published in 2012) . In the past, the Green Guides, as they are called, have been used to crack down on companies biodegradable plastic suppliers of environmental certification stamps, and organic productsIn a high-profile case, the agency also called in Volkswagen claim his diesel cars were cleanBut the green groups filing the complaint say this is the first time a complaint has been filed based on the Green Guides against a fossil fuel company.
On a web page curated by Earthworksthe organization lists examples of how some of Chevron’s recent marketing efforts specifically mislead consumers. The webpage points to a particular hypocrisy in Chevron’s focus on methane captured from factory farming, which the company calls “renewable natural gas.” Chevron’s statement in support of Black Lives Matter this summer are also compared with the company’s long history in factories-polluting in many cases—In the neighborhoods of Black and Latinx.
There are some signs that the federal government could pay more attention to greenwashing in the energy sector in general. In December, FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra suggested wrote in a memo that “put off[ring] greenwashing and misleading environmental claims ”in the energy sector could be an opportunity for the agency to take additional measures to protect consumers as more and more companies start making claims about energy efficiency or reducing emissions. There is also growing public interest in holding oil companies to account for their claims social media users and even creative advertising agencies increase the pressure on the industry. The timing is because the world needs to cut emissions more than 7% per year this decade to meet what is considered a relatively safe level of global warming, something that continued oil extraction is not compatible with.
And there should be plenty of opportunity to scrutinize claims made by oil and gas companies. Eisenfeld said he has noted other oil companies are making similar claims to Chevron about “lowering the carbon intensity” to portray themselves as fighting climate change. Companies like Chevron, Eisenfeld said, “are trying to take advantage of the growing number of consumers who care [the environment]There is a market for this, and energy companies are engaged in this marketing. “