Aussie energy company apologises to 400,000 customers over now deleted website claims
A major Australian energy company has made an apology to over 400,000 retail gas and electricity customers over key claims advertised on its website. In a statement, EnergyAustralia confirmed it was terminating Go Neutral, which it had spruiked as an environmentally friendly option.
The statement was published on Monday, after EnergyAustralia reached a settlement with conservation group Parents for Climate, which had accused it of "greenwashing" the harm done by fossil fuels. Federal Court action launched in 2023 accused the company of misleading or deceptive conduct contrary to the Australian Consumer Law in relation to its carbon offset claims.
'Today, EnergyAustralia acknowledges that carbon offsetting is not the most effective way to assist customers to reduce their emissions and apologises to any customer who felt that the way it marketed its Go Neutral products was unclear,' the energy retailer said.
'EnergyAustralia has now shifted its focus to direct emissions reductions.'
The Go Neutral project began in 2016, with EnergyAustralia advertising that customers could offset their emissions at no cost to them. After households opted in, the company claimed it would calculate emissions used and make the home's energy "carbon neutral" by buying carbon offset units to support projects in countries including India, Brazil and Australia.
EnergyAustralia was ranked as the nation's third-highest emitter for the 2023-24 year, producing 16.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions. In NSW, Victoria and South Australia it operates two coal-fired and four gas-fired power plants.
In Monday's statement, the company explained that customers who opted into Go Neutral were still using energy 'sourced predominantly from fossil fuels' and that "greenhouse gases are harmful to the environment and contribute to climate change".
'Burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gas emissions that are not prevented or undone by carbon offsets. This could have been made clearer to customers,' it admitted.
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Equity Generation Lawyers, which represented Parents for Climate said the settlement highlights a need for companies to ensure their environmental claims 'stack up'.
'As part of the settlement, EnergyAustralia has acknowledged our client's key factual argument: that carbon offsets do not undo the climate harms of burning fossil fuels. That means that, even with carbon offsetting, Go Neutral customer's energy usage still contributed to climate change,' principal lawyer David Hertzberg said.
Parents for Climate described the outcome as a 'groundbreaking resolution'.
'Parents have spent too long trying to make careful, considered decisions about where their money goes, especially in a cost-of-living crisis, but corporate greenwashing has pushed them off track,' its CEO Nic Seton said.
'We launched this case as it's deeply frustrating and emotionally exhausting to navigate a maze of vague claims and false promises. Greenwashing undermines trust and gives the dangerous illusion that coal and gas pollution is being addressed when they're not.'
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