Case T‑579/22
ClientEarth AISBL
v
European Commission
Judgment of the General Court (Sixth Chamber, Extended Composition) of 10 September 2025
( Environment – Aarhus Convention – Rejection of a request for internal review – Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 – Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139 – Bioenergy activities – Forest biomass – Manufacture of organic basic chemicals – Manufacture of plastics in primary form – Taxonomy – Requirements for technical screening criteria – Article 19 of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 – Substantial contribution to climate change mitigation – Article 10 of Regulation 2020/852 – Transitional activities – Quantitative threshold – Conclusive scientific evidence – Life cycle – Precautionary principle – Principle of ‘do no significant harm’ to environmental objectives – Article 17 of Regulation 2020/852 – Circular economy – Water and marine resources – Pollution )
1.      Environment – Aarhus Convention – Application to EU institutions – Ability of non-governmental organisations to request internal review of administrative acts in environmental matters – Statement of the grounds for re-examination – Need to indicate factors likely to raise doubts as to whether the measure in question is well founded
(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1367/2006, Art. 10(1))
(see paragraphs 27, 28)
2.      Environment – Aarhus Convention – Application to EU institutions – Ability of non-governmental organisations to request internal review of administrative acts in environmental matters – Rejection of an application for internal review as unfounded – Judicial review – Limits – Manifest error of assessment – No such error
(European Parliament and Council Regulations No 1367/2006, Art. 10, and 2020/852, Art. 19(1))
(see paragraphs 29-33, 87, 104-108, 122, 143-147, 151, 152)
3.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Balancing by the Commission of the various requirements applicable – Whether permissible
(European Parliament and Council Regulation 2020/852, Arts 10(3) and (5), 11(3) and (5) and 19(1)(f))
(see paragraphs 52-57, 94)
4.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Taking into account of relevant existing EU legislation – Whether permissible
(European Parliament and Council Regulations 2018/841 and 2020/852, Arts 10(1)(a) and 19(1)(d); European Parliament and Council Directive 2018/2001)
(see paragraphs 61-71, 95-100)
5.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Obligation to take into account the life cycle of products or services – Scope
(European Parliament and Council Regulation 2020/852, recitals 34, 40 and 47 and Art. 19(1)(g) and (5); European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/87)
(see paragraphs 75-86, 139-142)
6.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Technical screening criteria – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Establishment by the Commission – Criteria established for bioenergy activities – Non-inclusion of a criterion relating to the principle of cascading forest biomass use – Insufficient scientific evidence – Use of a step-by-step approach – Whether permissible
(European Parliament and Council Regulation 2020/852, Art. 19(1) and (5); European Parliament and Council Directive 2018/2001)
(see paragraphs 114-128)
7.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Criteria established for the manufacture of organic base chemicals – Taking into account of economic activities downstream – Precluded
(European Parliament and Council Regulation 2020/852, Arts 3(b), 9(c), 10(3)(b), 17(1)(c)(i) and (ii) and (2) and 19(1)(g); European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/60)
(see paragraphs 156-172)
8.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Criteria established for the manufacture of organic base chemicals – Classification as a transitional activity – Manifest error of assessment – No such error
(European Parliament and Council Regulations No 1907/2006, No 1272/2008 and 2020/852, Arts 9(e), 10(3)(b) and 17(1)(e))
(see paragraphs 177-191)
9.      Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Criteria established for the manufacture of plastics in primary form – Absence of quantitative threshold for the use of renewable materials – Whether permissible
(European Parliament and Council Regulation 2020/852, Art. 19(1)(c) and (k))
(see paragraphs 201-207)
10.    Approximation of laws – Framework to facilitate sustainable investment – Establishment of the environmental sustainability of economic activities – Technical screening criteria – Establishment by the Commission – Criteria established for the manufacture of plastics in primary form – Classification as a transitional activity – Whether permissible – Non-inclusion of a criterion enabling determination of the absence of significant harm caused by the economic activity concerned to the objective of transition to a circular economy – Insufficient scientific evidence – Manifest error of assessment – No such error
(European Parliament and Council Regulation 2020/852, Arts 9(d), 10(3)(b), 17(1)(d) and 19(1)(g) and (k) and (5))
(see paragraphs 220-231)
Résumé
The General Court upholds the decision of the European Commission to reject a request for internal review of Delegated Regulation 2021/2139 (1) supplementing Regulation 2020/852 on the establishment of a framework to promote sustainable investment (2) (‘the Taxonomy Regulation’). In so doing, it rules for the first time on certain provisions of the Taxonomy Regulation relating to economic activities related to bioenergy, the manufacture of organic base chemicals and the manufacture of plastics in primary form.
The Taxonomy Regulation establishes a unified classification system in order to harmonise, at EU level, the criteria for determining whether an economic activity qualifies as environmentally sustainable in the light of various environmental objectives, such as climate change mitigation. (3)
In that context, the Commission adopted the Delegated Regulation to supplement the Taxonomy Regulation. Technical screening criteria are defined therein for determining the conditions under which certain economic activities related to bioenergy, the manufacture of organic base chemicals and the manufacture of plastics in primary form may qualify as contributing substantially to the climate change mitigation objective and for determining whether those economic activities cause no significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives established by that same regulation.
ClientEarth, a non-profit organisation governed by Belgian law and whose objective is, in particular, the protection of the environment, submitted to the Commission, under the Aarhus Regulation, (4) a request for internal review of the Delegated Regulation, which, in its view, infringed the Taxonomy Regulation.
The Commission rejected the request for internal review by decision of 6 July 2022 (‘the contested decision’), which is the subject of the present action.
Findings of the Court
The Court examines, in the first place, ClientEarth’s plea according to which, in essence, the Commission committed errors of law in relation to the requirements applicable to the technical screening criteria under Article 19 of the Taxonomy Regulation.
In accordance with paragraph 1(f) of that provision, the technical screening criteria are to be based on conclusive scientific evidence and the precautionary principle enshrined in Article 191 TFEU.
In that context, the Court rejects, first, the complaint that the Commission interpreted the concept of ‘conclusive scientific evidence’ too restrictively as corresponding to ‘scientific evidence that allows … conclusions [to be reached]’.
First of all, the Court notes that ClientEarth does not explain how the Commission’s interpretation would render the contested decision unlawful, or why it does not correspond to the ‘best available evidence’ or to the ‘most up-to-date and reliable scientific evidence’.
Next, it rejects ClientEarth’s argument that the Commission considered that it could ignore the best and most up-to-date scientific evidence on the ground that the Delegated Regulation was updated on an ongoing basis. That argument is based on a misreading of the contested decision, which states only that an overly strict interpretation of the requirement to take such evidence into consideration would undermine the objectives of the Taxonomy Regulation and deprive of all effectiveness its obligation to review regularly the technical screening criteria in line with scientific and technological developments.
Last, ClientEarth has also failed to demonstrate a breach of the precautionary principle, in so far as it does not explain how the interpretation of Article 19(1)(f) of the Taxonomy Regulation adopted in the contested decision infringes that principle. In the present case, it merely maintains that, in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence, the Commission is prevented from classifying a given activity under that regulation.
Second, the General Court rejects the argument that the Commission erred in its interpretation of Article 19(1) of the Taxonomy Regulation by considering that the various requirements laid down therein had to be balanced against one another. In that regard, it notes that that provision sets out a series of requirements which concern both the substance and the form of the technical screening criteria. The latter must also take into account a number of factors, pursuing different objectives, including environmental, scientific, economic, financial and feasibility objectives. Thus, when establishing those criteria, the Commission must take into account all of the requirements provided for in Article 19(1) of the Taxonomy Regulation, striking, where appropriate, the appropriate balance or a practical concordance between them.
Third, the Court considers the error of law allegedly committed by the Commission by relying solely on the EU legislation in force, in particular the RED II Directive (5) and the LULUCF Regulation. (6) According to ClientEarth, those legislative acts, which the Commission took into consideration in order to establish the technical screening criteria for bioenergy activities, perform functions different from those of the Taxonomy Regulation and are based on outdated scientific evidence which does not meet the requirements of Article 19(1) of that regulation.
The Court begins by noting that, in accordance with the said regulation, the Commission must take into account ‘any relevant existing Union legislation’ during the establishment of the technical screening criteria, with the result that it cannot be criticised for having taken into account existing EU legislation.
As regards, more specifically, the alleged obsolete nature of the criteria established in the RED II Directive and the LULUCF Regulation, the Court notes that the date of adoption of the legislation is not capable in itself of demonstrating non-compliance with the requirements established by the Taxonomy Regulation. Moreover, in view of their purpose, that directive and that regulation cannot be deemed irrelevant for the purpose of the establishment of the technical screening criteria for bioenergy activities. To that effect, the Court adds that the Taxonomy Regulation refers expressly to the RED II Directive and indirectly to the LULUCF Regulation, and that the criteria established by those two acts are intrinsically linked as regards biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels produced from forest biomass.
Fourth, the Court holds that, contrary to what ClientEarth contends, the Commission did not disregard the obligation, laid down in Article 19(1)(g) of the Taxonomy Regulation, to take the life cycle into account as regards the activities of manufacture of organic base chemicals and the manufacture of plastics in primary form.
In that regard, it observes that, in the contested decision, the Commission did indeed maintain that the integration of life-cycle considerations universally into the technical screening criteria proved difficult for the lack of usable and comparable data. However, as regards the manufacture of organic base chemicals, it took into account, inter alia, direct greenhouse gas emissions and, as regards the manufacture of plastics in primary form, the technical screening criteria were based on expert opinions and on a life-cycle assessment.
Furthermore, the Court points out that Article 19(1)(g) of the Taxonomy Regulation does not require the provision of technical screening criteria relating specifically to the life cycle or the carrying out of a life-cycle assessment in all cases. On the contrary, the Commission is required to take into account the life cycle, and in particular the already existing assessments of that cycle, when adopting the technical screening criteria.
In the second place, the Court addresses ClientEarth’s plea alleging manifest errors of assessment as regards bioenergy activities.
First, the applicant alleged a manifest error of assessment in that the Commission had concluded that the combustion of forest biomass contributes substantially to climate change mitigation and causes no significant harm to the environmental objectives. More specifically, it criticised the Commission for having treated all forest feedstocks in a uniform manner without following the recommendations of the technical expert group on sustainable finance. On that point, the Court finds that the applicant has not demonstrated that the reasons given by the Commission for not following those recommendations were vitiated by a manifest error of assessment capable of calling into question their plausibility. The Court adds that, contrary to ClientEarth’s claims, imported timber was also considered for the purposes of establishing the technical screening criteria for economic activities linked to bioenergy, having regard to Article 29(6) and (7) of the RED II Directive.
Second, according to the applicant, the Commission was wrong to consider that there was insufficient scientific evidence to define technical screening criteria relating to the principle of ‘do no significant harm’ to the objective of transition to a circular economy as regards the use of forest biomass in bioenergy activities, in order to take account of the principle of cascading forest biomass use.
In that regard, the Court observes that, in the contested decision, the Commission contended that that principle was highly complex and that sufficient scientific evidence was paramount in order to define appropriate criteria. In that context, it considered that it could use a step-by-step approach, in accordance with Article 19(5) of the Taxonomy Regulation. In particular, the Commission considered that the RED II Directive already imposed obligations on operators on waste hierarchy and on the circular economy, and that the proposal for a directive amending the RED II Directive provided that Member States were to ensure that energy from biomass was produced in a way that took into account the waste hierarchy and the principle of cascading use.
The applicant, however, has not put forward any specific arguments capable of contradicting the Commission’s conclusion that there was insufficient scientific evidence and has not demonstrated that the assessment which led to the adoption of the step-by-step approach referred to above is vitiated by a manifest error of assessment.
In the third place, the General Court addresses the plea alleging manifest errors of assessment as regards the manufacture of organic base chemicals, which the Commission wrongly classified as a transitional activity within the meaning of Article 10(2) of the Taxonomy Regulation. (7)
In that context, ClientEarth claimed, inter alia, that the Commission had failed to take into account the impact of the life cycle of the products. The Court, however, recalls that the Commission was not required to provide technical screening criteria relating specifically to the life cycle or the carrying out of a life-cycle assessment in all cases.
The applicant further submitted that, in classifying the activity of manufacturing organic base chemicals as a transitional activity, where it is intended exclusively for uses which are essential for society, the Commission had committed a manifest error of assessment as regards the criteria for applying the principle of ‘do no significant harm’ to the objective of pollution prevention and control.
However, the Court notes that it follows from the contested decision that classification as a transitional activity can be accepted only if the manufacture of organic base chemicals is carried out using a less-carbon-intensive process. In addition, that classification does not apply to the manufacture of organic base chemicals, provided that it concerns the manufacture of substances which may be classified for certain hazards and hazard categories, ‘except where their use has been proven to be essential for the society’. Consequently, the applicant could not criticise the Commission for not having put forward sufficient evidence on the downstream use of hazardous substances and on their uses which are essential for society.
The Court adds that, contrary to ClientEarth’s claims, the REACH (8) and CLP Regulations, (9) to which the contested decision refers, are relevant in that regard. It follows from the legal requirements relating to chemical safety, provided for inter alia in the said regulations, that downstream uses of organic base chemicals are regulated and that the manufacturers of those products, as well as other actors in the supply chain, are subject to a range of obligations as regards, inter alia, registration, information and data sharing.
In the fourth and last place, the Court analyses ClientEarth’s plea relating to the manufacture of plastics in primary form.
According to the applicant, for that activity, the Commission should have set a quantitative criterion establishing a minimum proportion of renewable raw materials necessary for that manufacture to be classified as an activity contributing substantially to climate change mitigation. The Court nevertheless points out that, in the Delegated Regulation, the Commission established, on the one hand, a qualitative criterion which requires the use of renewable raw materials in undetermined quantities and, on the other hand, a quantitative criterion which requires greenhouse gas emissions not to exceed established thresholds. That decision is consistent with Article 19 of the Taxonomy Regulation, which does not make it mandatory to include quantitative criteria or thresholds in the technical screening criteria in all situations.
Likewise, the Commission cannot be criticised for having referred, in the contested decision, to future revisions of the technical screening criteria. Under the first and last subparagraphs of Article 19(5) of the Taxonomy Regulation, such a review is mandatory at least every three years for activities classified as transitional, which include the manufacture of plastics in primary form.
Furthermore, ClientEarth complained that the Commission had failed to establish technical screening criteria for determining whether the activity of manufacturing plastics in primary form causes significant harm to the objective of transition to a circular economy. It also did not follow a recommendation of the expert group on sustainable finance on that subject.
In that regard, the Court points out, first of all, that the recommendations of the expert group are not binding on the Commission. In addition, under Article 19(1)(g) and (k) of the Taxonomy Regulation, the technical screening criteria must take into account the life cycle of the activity in question, but must also be easy to use and to verify. The Commission found, in the contested decision, that the integration of life-cycle elements universally into the criteria had proved difficult for the lack of usable and comparable data and the multiplicity of applications of bio-based plastics. The Court, however, cannot substitute itself for the Commission in its assessment of the operational nature or the sufficiency of scientific and complex evidence for the purposes of determining whether it was possible to set such a technical screening criterion.
The Court, having rejected all of ClientEarth’s arguments, dismisses the action in its entirety.
1      Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139 of 4 June 2021 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council by establishing the technical screening criteria for determining the conditions under which an economic activity qualifies as contributing substantially to climate change mitigation or climate change adaptation and for determining whether that economic activity causes no significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives (OJ 2021 L 442, p. 1; ‘the Delegated Regulation’).
2      Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 (OJ 2020 L 198, p. 13).
3      Articles 9 and 10 of the Taxonomy Regulation.
4      Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies (OJ 2006 L 264, p. 13), as amended by Regulation (EU) 2021/1767 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 October 2021 (OJ 2021 L 356, p. 1; ‘the Aarhus Regulation’).
5      Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (OJ 2018 L 328, p. 82; ‘the RED II Directive’).
6      Regulation (EU) 2018/841 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry in the 2030 climate and energy framework, and amending Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 and Decision No 529/2013/EU (OJ 2018 L 156, p. 1; ‘the LULUCF Regulation’).
7      Transitional activities are those for which there is no low-carbon alternative which is technologically and economically feasible, but which promote the transition to a climate-neutral economy, subject to compliance with certain criteria.
8      Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), establishing a European Chemicals Agency, amending Directive 1999/45/EC and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 793/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1488/94 as well as Council Directive 76/769/EEC and Commission Directives 91/155/EEC, 93/67/EEC, 93/105/EC and 2000/21/EC (OJ 2006 L 396, p. 1).
9      Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, amending and repealing Directives 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (OJ 2008 L 353, p. 1).