Top African environmental campaigners have raised concerns over TotalEnergies’ continued sponsorship of the continent’s biggest football events, dismissing the oil company’s financial backing as “greenwashing.”
TotalEnergies entered into an eight-year partnership with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in 2016, becoming a partner and title sponsor of CAF’s 10 main competitions, including the prestigious Africa Cup of Nations, which was renamed TotalEnergies AFCON.
The one-month long tournament, which ended Sunday with Ivory Coast emerging the winner after defeating Nigeria 2-1, is rated by many as the world’s third-largest football tournament after the World Cup and the European Championship.
TotalEnergies says its objective has been to “share the passion and celebration of football, provide a friendly and emotional spectacle, and promote the values of the sport.” The value of its partnership is not public.
But environmentalists accuse Total of using the sponsorship as a ploy to clean up its image as a climate change-causing fossil fuel company. The groups, including Greenpeace, Nigeria-based HOMEF and 350Africa, released a statement on Friday saying the deal amounts to “modern-day deception and an insult to Africans.”
“Instead of spending its billions to pay just compensation to victims of its destructive activities in Africa, clean up its mess and invest in clean and sustainable forms of energy, Total has been engaging in greenwashing over the last month, by sponsoring the Africa Cup of Nations,” they said.
The French oil and gas giant, which operates in Nigeria and other African nations, recorded a $23.2 billion profit in 2023, four percent increase from 2022, the highest return in the firm’s history.
Displacing communities
The groups accused Total and other companies of continuing to profit from the leading causes of climate change as the world teeters on the point of 1.5 degrees limit of global warming. They also criticised the company’s operations in Africa.
In Uganda and Tanzania, Total is constructing the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), touted as the world’s longest heated crude oil pipeline. However, the ambitious project comes at a significant cost as more than 100,000 people may be displaced by it. The handling of this displacement has been marred by reports of unjust compensation and human rights abuses, creating controversy surrounding the venture.
Total’s compensation efforts have come under scrutiny. Despite the EACOP carrying a price tag of $5 billion, Total disbursed just $28.9 million to ‘Project Affected Persons’ (PAP) in 2022, the groups said.
The amount was distributed among 13,168 displaced individuals, many of them predominantly impoverished farmers, who struggle to secure alternative land for their livelihoods. The project threatens to destroy vital habitats, endanger wildlife, and exacerbate climate change by contributing 379 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions across the project’s full value chain.
In Mozambique, TotalEnergies has been accused of stirring up conflict in the already volatile region of Cabo Delgado with its $20 billion gas development project. More than 500 households were displaced from Total’s Afungi project site, denying them access to fishing grounds and cutting them out of their livelihoods.
In South Africa, Total has received the green light from the government for offshore drilling for oil and gas, despite valid concerns about the impact on marine life and the environment.
Pluboard has reached out to TotalEnergies for reaction.
What activists are saying:
Mohamed Adow, Founder and Director of Power Shift Africa said, “The sponsorship of the Africa Cup of Nations by TotalEnergies is a textbook case of taking away someone’s land and, in return, giving them food rations every harvest season. This is thuggery of the most abhorrent order and for CAF to take money from the French multinational is to validate thievery of the continent’s resources by Western companies. Wherever it has been on the continent, Total has left a horrid imprint of population displacements, human rights violations, and climate change. If anyone has ever needed a reminder of the damage to climate by the oil and gas industry, they need to look no further than Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, the AFCON finalists and poster child of climate change in Africa. To invite Total to our football extravaganza is, therefore, to invite a stranger to our party to mock us.”
Landry Ninteretse, Regional Director, 350Africa.org said, “Total’s record-breaking profits from exploitative and polluting fossil fuel projects across Africa are further proof of its colonial and predatory plans that underscore its prioritisation of profit over people and the planet. Meanwhile, it has attempted to mask its environmental irresponsibility by sponsoring Africa’s biggest sporting event. As Africans, we must reject the exploitation of the continental resources by greedy corporations seeking to lock us further into fossil fuel reliance and demand accountability. The severity of the climate crisis calls for a halt of harmful and obsolete fossil fuel projects and an accelerated transition to safe alternatives. Corporations that neglect sustainability and accountability have no place in our continent.”
Loraine Chiponda, Africa Movement of Movements Building Space said, “On Sunday, two teams will take to the pitch to represent their countries in the final of what is Africa’s most popular sports tournament. Those two countries – Nigeria and the Ivory Coast – are perfect examples of the harm oil and gas has done to Africa. In 2016, Total started to put up an LNG plant in the Ivorian region of Grand Lahou which now faces an imminent threat from rising waters and increased storms. We all know what fossil fuel extraction has done to the Niger Delta. Yet, Total has no qualms in sponsoring a tournament meant to bring the African people together. We hope that when the final whistle blows on Sunday, it will mark the end of Total’s greenwashing agenda in Africa, and a beginning of the company’s exit from the continent.”
Dean Bhekumuzi Bhebhe, Don’t Gas Africa Campaigns Lead said, “Total Energies’ declaration of ‘obscene profits’ stands as a mockery to the very essence of justice and sustainability. With a record-breaking profit of $23.2 billion in 2023, amidst the climate calamity we’re enduring, their actions should be considered criminal. By masking its environmental depredations with superficial acts of goodwill, such as sponsoring the Africa Cup of Nations, Total is not just diverting attention from its destructive activities but actively eroding the continent’s capacity for self-determined growth. Total’s actions deepen inequalities, restrict access to essential resources, and perpetuate a cycle of dependency on external private interests. The corporation’s facade of corporate responsibility is a stark betrayal of the comprehensive development the African continent urgently needs, side-lining critical social safety nets in favour of profit. The time for action is now; the stakes are too high, and the cost of inaction is a price we refuse to pay. A future riddled with neo-colonialism, corporate capture and energy apartheid is not the future we deserve.”
Zaki Mamdoo, StopEACOP Campaign Coordinator said, “Total’s sponsorship of AFCON is nothing short of an attempt to scrub itself of the real impact it has on the continent and our communities. In the case of EACOP we have seen how their extractive projects are designed to rob Africa of its mineral wealth and service the energy needs of countries abroad. All the while lining the pockets of a national and multinational elite and leaving communities to shoulder the entirety of the environmental and social costs. We must move not just to kick Total out of AFCON, but to kick them out of the continent for good.”
Samm Farai Monro, Kick Polluters Out Co-Founder said, “Total Energies is guilty of foul play. They like to portray a clean, green image of themselves with their sponsorship of AFCON. But the reality is very different. At a time when scientists are telling us to stop any new fossil fuels projects, Total is developing more oil and gas resources in Africa than any other company, For example, their EACOP pipeline in East Africa will involve the release of global heating gases more than 25 times the current annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania combined. How can Total say they are aiming to be net zero when they are setting our continent on fire? It’s time to show Total Energies the red card. Because there can be no football on a dead continent”.
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), said, “It is a shame that AfCON accepted sponsorship from TotalEnergies in total disregard of the horrors unleashed on Ugandan communities by EACOP and its related projects. The peoples’ patience has stretched into injury time and it is time for the ultimate penalty: Kick out this dangerous polluter. TotalEnergies must not be allowed to play with the future of our peoples and the planet.”
Cynthia Moyo, Greenpeace Africa’s Climate and Energy Campaigner said, “Fossil fuels – the lifeblood of climate-wrecking companies like TotalEnergies – are poisoning the lungs of African athletes and soccer fans. But Total continues to displace communities for new oil drilling and spew toxins before shipping massive profits back to Europe. And yet they have been allowed to be title sponsors of AFCON. This is unacceptable. Total is turning AFCON from a celebration of African unity into a grotesque greenwashing stunt. It’s time to kick TotalEnergies out of our stadiums. Our passion for football runs deep, but so does our love for a clean, healthy Africa.”
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