{"id":858,"date":"2024-10-10T13:23:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T13:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farmstand.chee.studio\/northwest-natural-gas-customers-sue-over-greenwashing-in-smart-energy-program\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T21:35:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T21:35:00","slug":"northwest-natural-gas-customers-sue-over-greenwashing-in-smart-energy-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farmstand.org\/es\/northwest-natural-gas-customers-sue-over-greenwashing-in-smart-energy-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Northwest Natural Gas Customers Sue Over \u2018Greenwashing\u2019 in Smart Energy Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><em>Smart Energy Program funds support the rise of polluting megadairies in Oregon, nationwide<\/em><br><strong><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"><br><\/span><\/strong>Oregon Northwest Natural Gas customers late yesterday <a href=\"http:\/\/farmstand.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Blumm-v.-Northwest-Natural-File-Copy.pdf\">sued the company<\/a> over misleading claims at the heart of its Smart Energy program, which it advertises as a way for customers to \u201coffset\u201d their natural gas emissions by funding projects that the company says \u201creduce, or prevent the release of, greenhouse gases.\u201d According to the complaint, the company in fact sends customers\u2019 Smart Energy funds to methane digesters that actually promote increased pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Northwest Natural\u2019s Smart Energy program \u2014 advertised in flyers, commercials, mailers, and account sign-in popups \u2014 requires customers who opt in to pay a monthly fee. It claims in that marketing that offsets paid for through the program are equivalent to taking hundreds of thousands of gasoline-powered cars off the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the fee consumers pay goes to support manure digesters at factory dairies like Boardman, Oregon\u2019s Threemile Canyon Farms, where over 61,000 cows produce between 9 and 16 million pounds of methane per year. These methane emissions are not affected by how the manure of these tens of thousands of cows is managed via digesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The plaintiffs in this class action claim that this \u2018greenwashing\u2019 is a breach of contract under Oregon law and violates the state\u2019s prohibition on unfair and deceptive marketing claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I signed up for Smart Energy because I&#8217;m concerned about the climate crisis. I was willing to pay a bit more to make a green choice,\u201d said Nicolas Blumm, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. \u201cHad I known what the program really was, I would never have signed up.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nationwide, the commodification and government subsidization of this \u201cmanure methane\u201d or \u201cfactory farm gas\u201d has \u201ccreated perverse incentives that even cause some large dairies to increase their already-large greenhouse gas emissions,\u201d according to <a href=\"http:\/\/farmstand.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Blumm-v.-Northwest-Natural-File-Copy.pdf\">the complaint.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe factory farm gas system that Northwest Natural enticed Oregonians concerned about climate change to buy into is entrenching both industrial agriculture and fossil fuel infrastructure,\u201d said <a href=\"http:\/\/farmstand.org\/es\/\">FarmSTAND<\/a> Senior Staff Attorney Kelsey Eberly, who, together with David Sugerman and Nadia Dahab of <a href=\"https:\/\/sugermandahab.com\/\">Sugerman Dahab<\/a>, represents the Northwest Natural customers in this case. \u201cThese factory dairies also pollute their neighbors\u2019 air and water, are driving small dairy producers out of business at an alarming rate, and are the perfect environment for the spread of diseases like bird flu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Northwest Natural exploited public concern about the climate impact of natural gas use, and acute interest in mitigating it. As detailed in yesterday\u2019s complaint: the company knew from its own research that most of its customers were very or extremely concerned about climate change, but were not familiar with the details of what \u201crenewable natural gas\u201d schemes entailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNorthwest Natural Gas took advantage of its customers. It knew that climate-conscious customers would pay extra to offset their carbon emissions. Northwest Natural Gas wildly misrepresented what it was providing Smart Energy customers,\u201d said David Sugerman. \u201cGreenwashing has got to stop.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oregon Northwest Natural Gas customers late yesterday sued the company over misleading claims at the heart of its Smart Energy program, which it advertises as a way for customers to \u201coffset\u201d their natural gas emissions by funding projects that the company says \u201creduce, or prevent the release of, greenhouse gases.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[45,24,63,78,48,79],"issue":[20,19],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-climate-change","tag-consumer-rights","tag-consumers","tag-environment","tag-factory-farm-gas","tag-greenwashing","issue-climate-environmental-protection","issue-consumer-rights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - 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