Rete Legalità per il clima on behalf of 10 CSOs vs. ENI S.p.A.

Date filed

14 February 2022

Keywords

Current status

Agreement

Sector

Oil & Gas

NCP

NCP Italy

Allegations

On 14 February 2022, Rete Legalità per il clima on behalf of 10 CSOs (4 NGOs, 2 political parties, and 4 movements) filed a specific instance against ENI S.p.A. at NCP Italy. The complaint concerns the worldwide climatic impacts of the industrial plan of ENI, related to the extraction and marketing of fossil fuels.

The complainants allege that ENI has adopted an industrial plan for the next few years that is incompatible with the climate emergency. ENI has not publicly provided any information on the risk analyses of the strategies pursued and the methods used to carry out the analyses, thus rendering the efficiency and effectiveness of its climate strategy, which is supposed to lead to the claimed carbon neutrality by 2050, substantially unreliable.

The Complainants are seeking mediation from the NCP to achieve the following:

Formally and explicitly declare the climate emergency
Answer questions and queries concerning the climate effectiveness and sustainability of its industrial strategy
Recognise its identity as a company generating ‘intrinsic’ and ‘systemic’ climate risk, as well as the one-sided nature of its hazardous activity in the current climate emergency situation
To assume the period 2021-2040 as the only useful time period to act responsibly and contribute to averting ‘imaginable climate risks’
To redefine climate risk, considering its ubiquitous and incremental nature, including the incumbency of ‘tipping points’
To assume Articles 2 and 3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the normative constraint of its actions
To take the right to life of the present and future generations as the basis for the prioritisation of its actions and strategies
Identify and qualify the social costs of its actions and strategies
Prioritise human rights and the climate emergency, in accordance with the OECD Guidelines
Redraft its Industrial Plan within the ‘crucial time’ window of 2021-2040

Relevant OECD Guidelines

Outcome

The complainant’s initial complaint cannot be published due to the Italian NCP’s confidentiality requirements for complaints.

The NCP did not publish an initial assessment of the complaint. The NCP’s final statement stated that it accepted for further examination only one of the complainant’s allegations: the adequacy of the information shared by ENI to account for its due diligence processes in relation to potentially climate-altering activities. Both parties accepted the NCP’s good offices, which began in November 2023.

On 7 July 2024, the parties came to an agreement, the contents of which are confidential. A press release stated:

“With the help of the Conciliator appointed by the Italian National Contact Point (NCP) of the OECD, ENI Spa and Rete Legalità per il Clima have agreed on a path regarding the topic of sharing the information necessary to reconstruct the methods and type of due diligence ensured by the Company in its potentially climate-altering activities in light of the OECD Guidelines… In this context, ENI SpA has confirmed its commitment to communicate which information will be used for its analyses as well as which risks and negative impacts will be taken into account, also preparing a glossary of the words and meanings used in the information to the public, relaying to its decarbonisation path, accompanied by an index for disclosure in this area pursuant to the aforementioned Guidelines. The provisions of the agreement defined in this sense before the NCP will be implemented within one year, with an opportunity for annual dialogue (for two consecutive years) on the disclosure carried out by ENI in this area”.

The NCP concluded the complaint on 16 October 2024.