Appeal challenges lower court decision that allows climate-damaging forestry and bioenergy projects to be labelled as green

A group of NGOs has escalated their fight against the EU’s “green investment” rules under the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy to Europe’s highest court, arguing that the current rules permit the greenwashing of forestry and bioenergy projects that make climate change worse.

The appeal, filed May 28, seeks to overturn a negative judgment by the EU’s General Court that was handed down March 18, 2026. The case was initially filed in February 2022.

The NGO claimants are ROBIN WOOD (Germany), Save Estonia’s Forests (Estonia), Clean Air Committee (Netherlands), Workshop for All Beings (Poland), ZERO (Portugal), 2Celsius (Romania), and Protect the Forest (Sweden).

The Taxonomy is intended to be a gold standard classification system used to direct billions of euros in investment toward activities that should support the EU achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

The decision by the General Court allows intensive forestry and forest biomass projects to continue being classified under the Taxonomy as activities that reduce carbon emissions and/or increase carbon uptake by forests, even as the European Commission itself acknowledges that over-logging of the EU’s forests is harming climate mitigation. The appeal argues that the General Court’s decision is incompatible with the EU’s obligations under the Paris Agreement and that it undermines the credibility of Europe’s green finance framework.

The NGOs are represented by Clémentine Baldon of Baldon Avocats and Peter Lockley and Ben Mitchell of 11KBW.  The Lifescape Project and the Partnership for Policy Integrity, operating jointly as the Forest Litigation Collaborative (FLC), have provided legal and scientific support.

The Taxonomy has been controversial, drawing challenges by Austria to the inclusion of nuclear and gas-fired energy, and by ClientEarth to the criteria for biomass energy and bioplastics. Both of these challenges were unsuccessful before the General Court and both have been appealed.

###

More background on the case

The Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Regulation was adopted by the European Parliament in June 2020. It aims to establish environmental sustainability criteria for certain activities to ensure they are in line with the 2050 net zero goal and the EU’s broader environmental goals. The Taxonomy Regulation provides overarching principles, while Delegated Regulations provide the specific criteria for various activities to qualify under the Taxonomy.

The NGOs initiated a challenge in February 2022 when they requested that the European Commission revise the criteria for forestry and biomass projects, arguing the criteria for such projects do not ensure they deliver climate mitigation as required under the Taxonomy Regulation. When the Commission declined to review the criteria, the NGOs filed a case at the European General Court in Luxembourg in September 2022. The Court’s judgment was issued 18 March 2026 (Robin Wood and Others v Commission).

The appeal filed on May 28 argues the General Court did not properly review the Commission’s technical choices and contained significant errors of law.