The boss of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, announced that the French energy giant would stop using palm oil in 2023, in an interview to be published Monday in the regional daily La Provence.
"From 2023 there will be no more palm oil in La Mède (editor's note: its La Mède biorefinery in Chateauneuf-les-Martigues in the Bouches-du-Rhône), nor anywhere in the company"
, decided the CEO.
Total having renamed itself at the end of May TotalEnergies, a multi-energy company, "which is committed to sustainable development", "we wanted to rethink a certain number of subjects which may have created controversy, including the famous palm oil" , he explained. In March, six associations, including Greenpeace, challenged the prefectural authorization to operate the La Mède refinery in court, accusing the group of importing palm oil, synonymous with deforestation according to NGOs.
"We have learned a lesson from this controversy,
" said the boss, saying to himself "convinced that making biofuel based on vegetable oil now has less of a future because we come up against the question of the allocation of agricultural land. ".
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And
"the economic model of La Mède, taking into account the alternative sectors that have developed, will be preserved"
, he assured, considering "no doubt investing in a biogas plant to enhance the land which we use to filter the oils, and thus produce biogas ”on the site.
In addition, at the end of 2020, the Council of State had rejected an appeal by the group which challenged a 2019 decree on the abolition of the tax advantage for palm oil-based fuels.
