TotalEnergies sustainability score: 18/100

Scope 1+2 from operated facilities: 34.3 Mt CO₂e (2024), down 36% vs 2015. Follows GHG Protocol and IPIECA methodologies with third-party limited assurance. Scope 1 rose 3.13% year-on-year in 2024. Granular, publicly disclosed data supports score of 6.

Reports Scope 3 category 11 (use of sold products) at ~418 Mt CO₂e (2024), but only one of 15 GHG Protocol Scope 3 categories. Upstream categories—purchased goods, transportation, capital goods—are not quantified. Supply chain complexity and incomplete reporting limit score to 4.

Scope 1+2 from operated facilities declined 36–38% since 2015. Total Scope 3 remains ~400+ Mt CO₂e with negligible 2030 target (maintaining below 400 Mt from 410 Mt in 2015). Company plans 3% annual production growth through 2030. Absolute total emissions flat or rising when production growth factored in.

32+ GW installed renewable capacity built; ~10% of energy sales mix from renewables. Core operations remain fossil-fuel powered: refining, gas processing, petrochemicals. Limited electrification at select assets (Marsa LNG, US refineries receiving 1.5 TWh/yr renewable). Fundamentally a fossil fuel consumer and producer at massive scale.

Formal biodiversity policy, zero net deforestation from 2022, IUCN partnerships, TNFD alignment initiated. However, operates in sensitive ecosystems globally: EACOP pipeline displaces 118,000+ people in Uganda/Tanzania; Vaca Muerta shale extraction on Indigenous lands; ongoing fossil fuel exploration in biodiversity-rich regions.

Circular economy initiatives include plastic recycling, waste-to-biofuel, biogas production. Documented waste reduction approach reported in URD and SDG reporting. However, core business model remains fundamentally extractive and linear: producing, refining, and selling fossil fuels for combustion. Circular efforts marginal relative to extraction scale.

Water withdrawal: 1,396 million m³ (2023). Target to reduce freshwater withdrawals by 20% in water-stressed zones by 2030. Discharge quality target <1 mg/L hydrocarbon by 2030; 86% compliance (2023). CDP Water A- score and UN CEO Water Mandate member. Documented pollution at Djeno terminal (Republic of Congo) and historical contamination in Yemen indicate practice-policy gaps.

Not validated by SBTi. Primary metric is lifecycle carbon intensity (intensity-based, not absolute reduction). Scope 3 target: maintain below 400 Mt by 2030 (barely reduced from 410 Mt in 2015). Scope 1+2 absolute target –40% by 2030 applies only to operated facilities. Production growth of 3% annually planned simultaneously. Intensity-first approach undermines net-zero-by-2050 ambition.

Annual Sustainability & Climate Progress Reports submitted to shareholder vote since 2020. CSRD-compliant from 2024. TCFD, GRI, SASB frameworks; TNFD alignment initiated. CEO variable pay 39% linked to sustainability; 15% of ~300 senior executives' pay linked to GHG reduction. October 2025 Paris court ruled company engaged in misleading environmental advertising (greenwashing), ordering removal of claims.

October 2025: Paris court ruled TotalEnergies engaged in misleading environmental advertising (greenwashing), ordering claim removal and judgment publication. InfluenceMap rates C− on climate policy; involved in pro-fossil gas advocacy; retains memberships in negatively engaged trade groups (FuelsEurope D, BusinessEurope). Greenpeace documents environmental contamination and 118,000+ EACOP displacements. Designated world's second-largest 'carbon bombs' developer by Le Monde.