ClientEarth declared that the Commission had failed to ensure that applying biomass to produce bioplastics “did not ‘significantly harm’ the transition to a circular economy,” which is a requirement under the “do no significant harm” principle. The principle — which is enshrined in several EU laws — dictates that policies and funds must not have a negative impact on the EU’s environmental objectives.
But the court dismissed all of ClientEarth’s arguments and rejected the appeal in its entirety.
The legal charity declared the Commission wrongly treated all types of forest-based raw materials the same, instead of following expert recommfinishations to distinguish between them. The Court found that the Commission gave reasons for not following those recommfinishations and ClientEarth did not prove that those reasons were flawed.
ClientEarth also argued that the Commission wrongly claimed there wasn’t enough science to establish criteria for the “cascading apply” of forest biomass (i.e. first for long-lasting products, then recycling and only last as fuel) within the context of not caapplying significant harm to the objective of transitioning to a circular economy.
The Commission declared the cascading principle is extremely complex and that more science is requireded before it can set appropriate criteria, the Court replied, concluding that ClientEarth didn’t prove the Commission was wrong here either.
Taxonomy day
On the same day, the Court of Justice of the EU settled a second lawsuit related to Taxonomy — filed in 2022 by the Austrian government — which challenged the Commission’s decision to consider nuclear and fossil gas-fired power “green.” The court ruled that nuclear power, and in some cases fossil gas, could continued to be classed as environmentally sustainable.
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