EnergyAustralia drops Go Neutral home energy product for new customers ahead of landmark court case

A home energy product used by about 400,000 Australian households - that has now been dropped - will be the focus of a landmark “greenwashing” court case over claims it helps offset emissions.

EnergyAustralia has quietly dropped its “Go Neutral” home energy product for new customers, just as its experts are due to defend the product claims in a landmark “greenwashing” court case.

Some 400,000 Australian households were signed up to Go Neutral, and were told that the emissions from their home energy use were being offset.

The energy giant stopped offering the product in August, although a note on its website states that for existing customers, “your arrangement remains unchanged”.

Doubts about Go Neutral and its carbon offsets prompted the group Parents for Climate to launch legal action against EnergyAustralia in the Federal Court last year.

EnergyAustralia is due to present its expert evidence in Federal Court on Friday, ahead of a formal hearing in May next year.

Nic Seton, CEO of the group Parents for Climate. Picture: Supplied

Parents for Climate CEO Nic Seton said EnergyAustralia was misleading its customers by marketing its Go Neutral product as “carbon neutral” and having “a positive impact on the environment”.

“We simply cannot solve the climate crisis while the world’s biggest polluters rely on buying ‘offsets’,” he said. “‘Offsets’ are a form of marketing spin based on creative accounting, allowing fossil-fuel burners to maintain climate destroying practices and delay decarbonisation.”

EnergyAustralia declined the opportunity to provide a comment but Mr Seton said the decision to stop offering Go Neutral was “an indication that they’re reading the winds of change”.

A swath of companies were moving away from making carbon neutral claims, Mr Seton said, including Australia Post, Telstra and PwC, who have all this year abandoned certification with the government’s Climate Active agency in favour of focusing on lowering emissions themselves.

EnergyAustralia customer Gautam Raju. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Melbourne-based charity sector worker Gautam Raju signed up to Energy Australia last year, enticed by its competitive price as well as its claims of carbon neutrality, but he said he was “incredibly disappointed” to hear the claims didn’t stack up.

“As a dad of two I’m incredibly concerned about what our kids are going to inherit. When you take things like this at face value you assume they are being regulated,” he said.

“When companies are deploying dirty tactics like this, they need to be held accountable,” Mr Raju said.