TotalEnergies and the future of fossil fuel sponsors in the Tour de France

“It is Kichwa territory, but our ancestral practices like fishing, hunting, and collecting medicinal plants are being restricted,” the leader of the Kichwa community says.

“Our forest is being used to sell carbon credits to high-polluting corporations. TotalEnergies has made purchases there worth $84.7 million [£62.5 million].”

When TotalEnergies was rebranded in 2021 from Total Oil, its Tour de France cycling team was central. TotalEnergies were Peter Sagan’s last team, and the team of Anthony Turgis, who won the stage in Troyes last year. In May, the legal NGO Client Earth announced it is joining a legal action alongside Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth France and Notre Affaire à Tous in suing TotalEnergies for “greenwashing”.

“TotalEnergies changed their logo to represent the idea that the company was changing. The new logo was used on the cycling team’s new uniform,” said Johnny White, a lawyer representing Client Earth.

“The heart of the message was the claim that this massive oil company was committed to preserving the planet by tackling the climate crisis and getting to Net Zero by 2050.

“The ad campaign used Tour de France team sponsorship to get these claims to a new audience of sports fans.”

This year, the TE logo appears on the team livery of the TotalEnergies team and of Ineos Grenadiers. TotalEnergies has also become the Tour de France’s energy partner. But its green claims have been called out by regulators. In 2023 the Düsseldorf Regional Court in Germany ordered TotalEnergies to desist from advertising heating oil as ‘CO2-Compensated’ on the basis of carbon credit purchases in Peru.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled in April this year that an ad publicising the company’s supposed transition to carbon neutral breached rules on misleading advertising and environmental claims.

More trouble is waiting when the 2027 Tour de France starts in Edinburgh, which has recently introduced a ban on big-polluter publicity.

“The whole city will be celebrating the Tour de France being here, and that's really positive. But the teams that are coming to the city will be emblazoned in sponsorship by these very problematic companies. The council has said no to that in all kinds of other contexts. It should continue,” Scottish Green Party Councillor Ben Parker, who proposed the policy, said.

Alternatively, he says TotalEnergies, Ineos and other teams with high-polluting sponsors will have to cover their names and logos when they are in the city.

“The council will clearly be endorsing or sponsoring any infrastructure associated with the Tour. We need to have this conversation with the Tour up front so that we're prepared for 2027.”

In 2024, Apagüeño took her protest from the Amazon to France, where she took part in demonstrations and gave concerned French senators the message that sport doesn’t have to depend on billionaire budgets.

“To cycling fans sitting at home watching the Tour de France, I say stop supporting sports events financed by polluting companies who are destroying our home. Raise your voices. This planet is everyone's home,” she said.

TotalEnergies denies greenwashing through its sports partnerships and says it is reducing some emissions. It says that, to its knowledge, the carbon offset scheme in Peru complies with Peruvian law and followed consultation with local communities who, it says, can still practise their ancestral traditions in the forest. It adds that the project creates funding for conservation and the communities.

Photograph by Tim de Waele/Getty Images