UK Government abandons plan to greenwash nuclear in a new taxonomy

28th July 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/government-abandons-plan-to-greenwash-nuclear-in-a-new-taxonomy/

Much to the delight of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities, the UK Government has abandoned the latest plan to introduce a new taxonomy for ‘green’ energy technologies. Why? Because, in the small print, Ministers wanted to include nuclear so the plan would have amounted to ‘greenwashing’ the industry.

The government recently published its response to a consultation conducted earlier this year by the Treasury. In the consultation, a taxonomy was described as ‘a classification tool which provides its users with a common framework to define which economic activities support climate, environmental or wider sustainability objectives.’

It should have been a mechanism to facilitate further investment in ‘green’ energy projects, but the proposal was in the NFLA’s view fatally flawed as in the small print the consultation document obliquely included nuclear.

28th July 2025

Government abandons plan to greenwash nuclear in a new taxonomy

The NFLAs opposed this plan and Dr Paul Dorfman, who kindly drafted our response, explained why: ‘The ‘UK Green Consultation’ document stated that, ‘Subject to stakeholder feedback on the value and use cases of a UK Green Taxonomy, the government proposes that nuclear energy will be classified as green in any future UK Green Taxonomy’ – a ‘horse and cart’ situation that brought into question the role, process and purpose of consultation, with all that has implications for trust in government.

Now Emma Reynolds MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, has stated that Ministers have abandoned the plan: ‘the government has concluded that a UK Taxonomy would not be the most effective tool to deliver the green transition and should not be part of our sustainable finance framework.’ Ms Reynolds claimed that ‘other policies were of higher priority to accelerate investment into the transition to Net Zero and limit greenwashing.’

The NFLAs support the aspiration to achieve Net Zero, but nuclear, as a technology associated with resource intensive activities, environmental damage and contamination, and a deadly legacy of radioactive waste, is in the NFLA’s view most certainly not ‘green’ and its inclusion would have amounted to ‘greenwashing’.

Dr Paul Dorfman succinctly expressed our relief at the government’s U-turn: ‘In this contest, it seems fair that Government has taken a considered step back and has made the right decision not to pursue this Taxonomy.’

The decision appeared to have a near immediate impact with Schroders Greencoat, which describes itself as ‘a specialist renewables infrastructure investor’, widely reported to have decided to withdraw as a prospective investor in Sizewell C. Stop Sizewell C executive director Alison Downes said: “It’s welcome news that Schroders Greencoat won’t be investing in Sizewell C. Based on our dialogue with Schroders, we attribute this to the government deciding not to adopt a green taxonomy, which thankfully has the outcome that nuclear energy cannot be erroneously labelled ‘green’”.