“A watershed moment”: Belgian court rules Ineos’ Project One illegal

25 Jul 2023 --- A Belgian court has ruled that Ineos’ €3 billion (US$3.3 billion) plastics project in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, is illegal. The project is now suspended. ClientEarth’s lawyer Tatiana Luján tells us that this outcome is what the environmental law charity aimed to achieve with its actions against the project over the past year.

The Court of the Council of Permit Disputes ruled that Ineos failed to tell authorities the full extent of the project’s predicted impact on the surrounding environment. According to the court, these “crucial omissions” mean the Flemish authorities should not have granted the project’s approval, and now cannot go forward.

The ruling is a culmination of a long legal battle by Zeeland and Noord Brabant authorities, two neighboring provinces in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, ClientEarth and partners had already made a sustained legal effort to block the project. 

“This ruling is a watershed moment in the fight against unnecessary plastics. We are at a saturation point with plastic pollution – it is now about stopping it at source. This ruling could spell the end of the project. And it comes at a moment of major uncertainty for petrochemical and plastics production,” Luján tells Packaging Insights. 

A Belgian court ruled that nitrogen pollution created by the plant would breach the EU Habitats Directive.Breaching EU directives
The group’s blockage resulted in an injunction, and Ineos decided to come up with a new permit that was supposed to reflect the comprehensive environmental impacts of the project, but the NGOs argued it still failed to do so.

The new permit application did not satisfy the court. It ruled that the nitrogen pollution created by the plant would breach the EU Habitats Directive.

The Habitats Directive aims to protect over a thousand species, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish invertebrates, plants and 230 characteristic habitat types. The objective is to ensure that these species and habitat types are maintained, or restored, to a favorable conservation status within the EU, according to the European Commission’s website. 

Friday’s ruling in the Dutch authorities’ case renders ClientEarth, and its partners’ case concluded, as the permit is now void. 

Firing up fossil dependence
Together with its 13 partners, ClientEarth has been taking legal action to block the project for years. 

“We’ve argued that the Flemish authorities should not have approved Ineos’ project as the company failed to adequately show how the project would impact the climate, nature and surrounding air quality – all of which are likely to suffer significantly if the project goes ahead. Our case states that the Flemish authorities’ approval of the project breaches national and EU laws,” says Luján.

“However, the Flemish authorities went ahead anyway, and in June 2022, gave the green light to Ineos’ fresh permit for ‘Project One’. That was our green light to prepare for court action, which we launched in July 2022.”

ClientEarth’s lawyer asserts that extracting fossil fuels and converting them into plastic is highly carbon-intensive, generating huge amounts of climate-harming emissions along each stage of plastics’ life cycle. ClientEarth has been taking legal action to block the project for years. 

“Add that to the fact that we are already producing more plastic than we need. Project One would only further fuel more unnecessary plastic entering a saturated market and further increase demand for fossil fuels.”

Ineos’ ethane cracker 
Researchers said that investing in the ethane cracker presents a huge financial risk for the European economy.

Financial investments by several of the world’s largest banks went to Ineos’ “Project One” ethane facility and Borealis’ “Kallo Project.” At the time, leaders of these companies said the developments would bring needed employment and capital to the region. 

However, a report by financial research nonprofit FairFin, commissioned by legal firm ClientEarth and NGO Break Free From Plastics, said rapidly growing anti-plastic legislation could mean the loss of billions of euros and a huge economic hit for taxpayers and banks alike. 

Luján told us: “A myriad of policies and new laws are being adopted following the EU Green Deal, which creates an economic and regulatory ecosystem less favorable to linear business models based on the extraction of fossil fuels, such as Ineos’ Project One.”

Ineos has 30 days from the official notification of the ruling to appeal it.

By Natalie Schwertheim