Overall company Scope 3 target remains unchanged

TotalEnergies unveiled a series of strengthened and accelerated climate goals today, including a target to reduce Scope 3 oil emissions – which includes emissions from the use of its products by customers – by 40% by 2030, compared to its prior 30% goal.

Despite the new oil emissions goal, however, TotalEnergies did not strengthen its total Scope 3 emissions goal, maintaining the company’s prior ambition to reach 400 Mt CO2e by 2030, representing only a minor reduction from 2015 levels of 410 Mt, and potentially higher from 389 Mt achieved in 2022, as the company looks to drive growth in LNG production. The company also said that around 30% of its investments by 2030 will continue to be dedicated to the development of new oil and gas projects.

The company’s new goals were announced alongside the release of its Sustainability & Climate – 2023 Progress Report, which included highlighted achievements such as a 12% reduction in lifecycle carbon intensity of energy products sold to customers since 2015, compared to a 10% reduction in 2021, and a decline in Scope 3 oil emissions by 27% since 2015, compared to a 19% reduction as of 2021.

As the company’s Scope 3 oil emissions have come down, however, the declines have been at least partly offset by increasing Scope 3 emissions from gas. Since 2020, for example, while Scope 3 oil emissions have come down by 66 Mt (excluding COVID effects) to 254 Mt, Scope 3 emissions from gas have increased by 50 Mt to 130 Mt.

In a statement accompanying the release of the progress report, TotalEnergies said that it is “convinced by the central role of gas in the energy transition,” adding:

“TotalEnergies has estimated, for the first time, the GHG reduction that its LNG sales could account for by displacing coal and fuel oil for electricity generation, depending on customer and destination. As a consequence, TotalEnergies estimates that its LNG sales have helped to avoid about 70 Mt CO2e emissions at the global level.”

Additional new goals announced by the company include a new target to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions to less than 38 Mt in 2025, compared to the prior 40 Mt goal, and lifecycle carbon intensity (including Scope 1, 2 and 3) reductions of 15% by 2025 (prior goal 10%) and 25% by 2030 (prior 20%) on a 2015 basis.

The company also stated that it will increase investments in low carbon energies in 2023 to $5 billion, from $4 billion in 2022.

TotalEnergies’ progress report will be brought to shareholders for a consultative vote at the company’s annual meeting in May 2023.