Challenging Drax’s Greenwashing, UK

Drax power station. Credit: Andrew Whale

Drax, the UK’s largest wood-burning power plant, is fueled in part by wood pellets manufactured from irreplaceable forests of the US and Canada. Logging and burning forests emits more CO₂ than coal and is destroying valuable forest ecosystems. Despite the scientific consensus that burning trees is not climate-friendly, let alone carbon neutral, Drax makes misleading claims that it is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In October 2021 the FLC joined forces with RSPB, Biofuelwatch, Conservation North and Save Estonia’s Forests to file a complaint against Drax under the OECD guidelines for responsible business conduct. The complaint asks Drax to withdraw its misleading statements and issue a full public explanation of the true carbon and forest impacts of burning trees for energy.

In July 2022, the UK National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD issued its Initial Assessment of our complaint, confirming that the complaint merits further consideration. In 2024 our complaint was dismissed by the NCP in its Final Assessment. This Final Assessment was never published because we submitted a request for review to NCP’s Steering Board and the process was paused pending that review. In March 2026, the Steering Board published its report, finding in our favour on many of the issues we raised. Specifically the Board found that in its Final Assessment the NCP:

• Failed to assess Drax’s conduct directly against the OECD Guidelines, instead treating alignment with UK biomass policy as evidence that Drax was compliant with OECD rules;
• Ignored how Drax’s claims to have net zero CO₂ emissions contravene IPCC GHG reporting guidance, although the OECD Guidance explicitly says that international standards should be taken into account (“In the case at hand, we consider that IPCC Guidelines constitute a ‘relevant … international standard’”);
• Violated the OECD’s own transparency rules by sharing a draft with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), and failed to disclose meetings with government departments and agencies during the examination;
• Went beyond the permitted factual corrections in the final editing phase, changing the report in response to instruction by DESNZ.

The UK NCP now needs to reconsider our complaint and prepare a revised report. Further details of the Steering Board’s report are in our press release.