The Greening of the European Petroleum Industry: Is it for Real and Does it Make Sense? Atle Midttun, in collaboration with Marina Khanieva, Magne Lia and Eivind Wenner Working Paper, Centre for Sustainability and Energy, Department of Law and Governance The AFINO1 Project Contact:
[email protected] 1 INTRODUCTION In 2020 European petroleum companies flocked behind a promise to undertake a fundamental green transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, running parallel with the EU’s politically proclaimed “Green Deal”. But is it too good to be true? The reactions from green circles have been critical. From their point of view, the greening of the petroleum industry can hardly be more than greenwashing, allowing it to continue the petroleum business behind a green facade. The following statement from William Todts, executive director at Transport and Environment (T&E), a green campaign group, is illustrative: The oil industry’s PR game has improved but there’s nothing new about their proposals which in reality are about perpetuating Europe’s addiction to oil imports (Simon 2020). And facts proved their suspicion. Despite the commitment to net zero emissions, the petroleum industry remains solidly petroleum-focused for the foreseeable future. The revenue streams of European petroleum majors are still deeply oil and gas dependent, their organization mostly still tailored to petroleum and they retain massive assets in the petroleum value chain. One can indeed find support for the greens’ sceptical views in well-known perspectives on innovation, such as Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”, or Christensen’s “disruptive innovation”. Both perspectives indicate that the petroleum industry will likely stay on its fossil fuel course as long as there is money to be made, and follow the ‘fossil era’ into history as it is overtaken by novel disruptive green technologies spearheaded by new disruptor firms.