Large corporations like to tout their environmental initiatives. The problem is that their claims are often exaggerated, misleading or completely unfounded. And rarely are they called to account for their deception.
Recently, there have been two exceptions to the rule, involving the petroleum industry, which has long been one of the most brazen practitioners of greenwashing. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the filing of a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, alleging that it engaged in what the AG called “a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis.”
Bonta accused Exxon Mobil, a leading producer of the polymers used to produce single-use plastics, of employing “misleading public statements and slick marketing” to promote the idea that recycling is an adequate way to deal with the plastics pollution crisis.
The lawsuit, which seeks to get Exxon Mobil to cease making misleading statements and pay damages, bears a resemblance to previous actions against the corporation for its long history of denying the reality of the climate crisis and the major role the oil industry has played in exacerbating global warming.
Over in South Africa, another oil giant, France’s TotalEnergies, was recently found to have made misleading statements about its commitment to sustainable development. The Advertising Regulatory Board, acting on a complaint brought by the environmental group Fossil Free South Africa, based its ruling on the simple fact that the petroleum company’s core business is antithetical to sustainability.
The advertising board could also have looked at the environmental record of TotalEnergies. As shown in Violation Tracker, the company has paid more than $60 million in environmental penalties in the United States. It also paid $15 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly underpaying royalties owed on natural gas produced from federal and Indian leases. And it paid nearly $400 million to settle foreign bribery allegations.
As will soon be shown in Violation Tracker Global, TotalEnergies has also had regulatory challenges in other countries. For example, in 2010 a French appeals court upheld a 200 million euro judgment against the company in connection with a large oil spill by the tanker Erika off the coast of Brittany.
Of course, Exxon Mobil also has a checkered compliance record. Violation Tracker records more than $2 billion in environmental penalties in the U.S since 2000. That total would have been considerably larger if the Supreme Court had not slashed a multi-billion-dollar damage award stemming from the giant oil spill by the company’s Valdez supertanker off the coast of Alaska. Violation Tracker Global will contain $3 million in environmental penalties in other countries, especially Canada.
Supreme Court rulings such as the Citizens United case emboldened corporations to assert their free speech rights. Yet when that speech denies scientific reality and contributes to environmental devastation, society needs to respond. California’s lawsuit will not solve the plastics crisis, but it will help to make the case that Exxon Mobil is part of the problem rather than the solution.
Note: Violation Tracker Global will be launched in October