The REP Wrap: Energy giants hit with greenwashing complaint
Your weekly summary of corporate sustainability news.
Engie, Eni Plentitude, Shell and TotalEnergies have been hit with a greenwashing complaint over environmental claims that NGOs allege are misleading. The civil society coalition filed the complaint with the European Commission and European consumer protection authorities, making a series of allegations – including that the companies don’t provide sufficient context for their ‘green’ claims, and the use of offsets.
KPMG has published a report about greenwashing risks linked to artificial intelligence (AI). “The emergence of AI has added a new dimension to greenwashing risk,” the report noted. “Agentic AI operates autonomously in areas such as drafting documents, data analysis and workflow execution, and is run with little human intervention. Its increasing deployment may therefore increase greenwashing risk in areas such as sustainability data analytics, reporting and marketing content, and this raises significant concerns where base data is incomplete or unreliable, audit trails are not clear or human review is limited or absent.”
Starbucks is axing more than 300 jobs, including its chief sustainability officer and head of green packaging, according to Trellis. In a move that will see its sustainability and impact activities brought under one banner, the remaining corporate sustainability team members will now report to the coffee firm’s chief social impact officer, Kelly Goodejohn.
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen will invest around €62m in emissions reduction measures by the end of the decade, and make nearly €20m in savings. In its latest five-year investment plan, the German firm said the green investments identified up until the 2029/2030 financial year had risen from €45m in the previous year’s plan. “Concrete savings potential has been quantified for measures to the value of €19.7m,” it added, pointing to initiatives like energy efficiency and distributed solar.
More than 15 consumer goods associations have asked EU lawmakers “to adopt a pragmatic approach” to the labelling system under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation”. The law, which seeks to slash packaging waste, boost recyclability, and restrict harmful substances, includes rules about the use of pictograms to encourage waste management. The group said European manufacturers “face increasing challenges from overlapping, sometimes conflicting obligations and divergent national requirements”.
The Transition Pathway Initiative has assessed the climate transition plans of 22 large listed companies in the oil and gas and diversified mining sectors. The investor-backed body concluded that, in the oil and gas sector, “there is little clear evidence that companies plan to transition away from fossil fuels” and only a small number of mining firms disclose plans to scale up key transition materials.