Six environmental associations, including Greenpeace, won a partial victory in court on Thursday against the Total group, forcing it to review its impact study of the use of palm oil imported from Asia in its La Mède refinery , close to Marseille.
Read also: Palm oil: request for further ecological study for a Total refinery
However, the applicants did not obtain the cancellation of the operating authorization received by the French oil company, by prefectural decree, on May 16, 2018. The Marseille administrative court, noting that the La Mède biorefinery has been operating since July 2019, “
did not consider it necessary
” to suspend the authorization issued to Total.
Impact study to be completed
On the merits of the request, the administrative court has "a
stay of proceedings
", giving nine months to the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône to "
have the impact study completed
" by Total.
The court in fact considered Thursday that the authorization to operate was "
tainted with an inadequacy of the impact study of the project
", but "
only
" concerning "
its effects on the climate, taking into account the use very substantial quantities of palm oil and its derivatives
”.
He underlines that "
the use of this raw material is particularly harmful for the environment
".
In their appeal, in July 2018, environmental associations denounced Total's use of palm oil imported from Malaysia and Indonesia, on the grounds in particular that this extensive cultivation fuels deforestation.
The company claims that the oils purchased “
meet the sustainability criteria set by the European Union
”.
Commitment of 300,000 tonnes per year
Beyond this request for a new impact study, the administrative court partially annulled the prefectural decree authorizing the operation, requiring it to set a "
sufficiently precise
"
limit
to the quantities of oil from palm usable in La Mède.
If Total has undertaken to limit its use of this raw material to 300,000 tonnes per year, "
the contested decree potentially allows the use of 450,000 tonnes of palm oil per year
", reproaches the Marseille court.
In a press release, the Total group took note of this judgment, noting that it "
allows the La Mède biorefinery to continue operating
".