The EU sustainable taxonomy set to fuel greenwashing

Reclaim Finance asserts that the EU sustainable taxonomy's climate mitigation and adaptation criteria have been watered down due to pressure from Member states and industry lobbies. The author claims the current proposal allows for the burning of all forest biomass and creates pathways for fossil gas and nuclear energy to be labeled as sustainable, thereby undermining the EU Sustainable Finance Strategy and contradicting scientific research.

• The EU Commission is accused of prioritizing political and economic pressures over science-based criteria in the development of the EU Taxonomy, diverging from the stricter recommendations of the Technical Expert Group (TEG) which had excluded fossil gas and nuclear energy.
• The criteria for bioenergy and forestry are described as flawed and weakened, potentially leading to deforestation in Europe because they allow all forest biomass to be burned as feedstock and align with the Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
• While a final decision on fossil gas and nuclear energy was postponed to a complementary delegated act, the document argues that fossil gas is already effectively included through lenient thresholds for hydrogen manufacture and the blending of low carbon gases.
• The document identifies a strong lobbying effort for the inclusion of fossil gas, noting that the gas lobby spends between €68.8 million and €82.9 million annually to influence EU legislation, supported by Member states including Slovakia, Czechia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Malta, Greece, and Hungary.
• The Joint Research Centre (JRC) report found no reason to exclude nuclear energy, a conclusion the author attributes to the JRC's structural links with the Euratom Treaty and the nuclear industry.

APA

admin (2021). The EU sustainable taxonomy set to fuel greenwashing. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/04/22/the-eu-sustainable-taxonomy-set-to-fuel-greenwashing/

Chicago

admin. The EU sustainable taxonomy set to fuel greenwashing. Reclaim Finance, 2021. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/04/22/the-eu-sustainable-taxonomy-set-to-fuel-greenwashing/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=admin |title=The EU sustainable taxonomy set to fuel greenwashing |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=22 April 2021 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/04/22/the-eu-sustainable-taxonomy-set-to-fuel-greenwashing/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{admin2021sustainable, author = {admin}, title = {{The EU sustainable taxonomy set to fuel greenwashing}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2021}, month = apr, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/04/22/the-eu-sustainable-taxonomy-set-to-fuel-greenwashing/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }