Europe’s biggest plastics project escalated to EU’s highest court, with INEOS still building 

5 November 2026 

The Flemish Council for Permit Disputes today referred three questions on Scope 2 and 3 emissions to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), in ClientEarth’s joint challenge to Europe’s biggest plastics project. The answer could redraw the future of industrial approvals across the bloc. 

The court has been asked to clarify whether INEOS needed to quantify its full climate impact when it applied for a permit to build and operate. The news comes against a backdrop of major international progress on the laws surrounding Scope 3 emissions, and the court’s ruling will be era-defining for industrial permitting. 

The Flemish Council for Permit Disputes referred three questions, regarding Scope 2 and 3 emissions, to the Court of Justice of the EU. They arise in ClientEarth’s challenge, with a coalition of NGOs, against the permits for INEOS’s Project One, a giant ethane cracker in the Port of Antwerp that would turn fracked US gas into the raw material for plastic. 

The answers to these key questions go much further than Antwerp’s Project One. They concern the EU’s Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, which applies to every project in the EU that requires an environmental assessment. It is the first time the question of Scope 3 emissions in Environmental Impact Assessments has been referred to the EU’s highest court. 

The court’s questions cover indirect emissions that sit outside a plant’s own chimney. Scope 2 emissions come from generating the energy a project buys from third parties. Scope 3 emissions are the other indirect emissions along the value chain. For Project One, the court has asked about those from extracting the gas the plant would run on, and those released once the plastic it makes is thrown away. Our case argued that the assessment behind the permits left out a calculation of the emissions from extracting the gas and from the plastic’s waste stage. 

Tatiana Luján, ClientEarth lawyer, said:  
 
“Climate assessments can’t start and stop at the chimney. The bulk of climate impacts are often off site, and not accounting for them is a huge gap in how governments and states are able to tackle climate change. Courts around the world are increasingly asking for the full picture, and now the EU’s highest court will be asked once and for all what European law demands. This could define a new era of how – and if – projects can be approved.”  

While the case is on hold, the permits remain valid and INEOS can carry on building. The company says it aims to start up the cracker in the second half of 2027. That means it is building, and preparing to run, a plant whose permit rests on a legal question the EU’s highest court has yet to answer. The Flemish court itself notes that if these emissions must be counted, the environmental assessment behind the permits can be argued to have a gap. 

Luján added: 
 
“INEOS is entitled to keep building while its permits stand. But it is building ahead of an answer that has not been given, and the risk of that is the company’s to carry.” 

The court has not yet decided the case’s other arguments, including those on nitrogen pollution and the plant’s impact on protected nature on both sides of the Belgian-Dutch border. Whatever the Court of Justice answers on the referrals, these arguments could still call the legal validity of the permits into question. The local impacts of the project also remain central to our case. ClientEarth is currently analysing the full judgment. 

ENDS 

Notes to editors