SOUTH Africa’s advertising regulator has ruled that a TotalEnergies claim it promotes sustainable development was misleading, in what it yesterday said was the body’s first decision on corporate “greenwashing”.

The landmark ruling centres on a TotalEnergies campaign with South Africa’s conservation authority, SANParks, to encourage people to visit the country’s national parks.

In the #FuelYourExperience campaign, TotalEnergies said it is “committed to sustainable development and environmental protection”.

“That's why we have partnered with SANParks for over 60 years, so that South Africans can appreciate our country's natural heritage and pass on a love for the environment to their children,” the campaign continued.

But the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) said the claim was misleading and could lead people to believe that “sustainable development” is practised across all the company's activities, it said.

The board had “no evidence that there is a link between the support of SANParks, and any definition of sustainable development”, it added.

The complaint against the French energy giant's South African marketing section was made by the Fossil Free SA association.

The ARB ruling dated August 14 said that while many TotalEnergies projects are directed at sustainable development, there is “no doubt that the core business of the advertiser is directly opposed to the issue of sustainable development, as the ongoing exploitation of fossil fuel is contra-indicated in this context”.

The claim in the promotion was “made in the context of a fuel company, which it must be accepted has certain inherent environmentally unfriendly aspects to its business”, it said.

TotalEnergies has the option to appeal but has given no indication that it plans to do so, the advertising board's CEO Gail Schimmel told AFP.

Although the ARB does not have a “greenwashing” category in its guiding code of practice, this complaint was the first it has received of this nature, Schimmel said.

While the ruling may open the path for more complaints around environmental issues, this was a particular case and should not be “seen as some sort of blanket indictment of the advertiser by the ARB”, she added.

AFP