The Federal Court has handed down its much-anticipated decision in ACCR v Santos, a case that tested the limits of how far companies can go in describing natural gas and hydrogen as “clean”. At its core, ACCR alleged that Santos downplayed the emissions associated with natural gas and overstated the potential of blue hydrogen.
The court, however, found that when the statements were assessed from the perspective of the relevant target audience, Santos’ representations were not misleading or deceptive, as they were made within the broader context of its “transition to a lower carbon future” and its shift “from natural gas to hydrogen”.
More broadly, the judgment provides rare judicial guidance on the contested language of Australia’s energy transition, underscoring that whether natural gas can be characterised as “clean” is a contextual question shaped by audience, disclosure and the surrounding decarbonisation narrative.
