Greenpeace Limited, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero & Anor

In strategic environmental assessment, the responsible authority must exercise evaluative judgment when deciding whether effects are likely to be significant and whether an alternative is reasonable. A plan for offshore oil and gas licensing need not assess downstream emissions from later refining, distribution and consumption where the plan does not set the framework for those activities and the causal connection is insufficient.

The plan’s objectives, including domestic energy security, may assist in defining its scope but do not determine the environmental effects requiring assessment. A non-statutory policy checkpoint need not include a proposed emissions test where there is no suitable benchmark or clear decision rule. There is no general common-law duty to give reasons for administrative decisions; the existence of such a duty depends on the specific context.

Greenpeace and Uplift sought judicial review of decisions concerning further offshore oil and gas licensing, including adoption of the Offshore Energy Plan, the scope of its strategic environmental assessment, omission of a proposed scope 3 emissions test from the Climate Compatibility Checkpoint, and the decision to proceed with the 33rd licensing round.

The claims raised five substantive issues concerning the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004, rationality, and reasons. Greenpeace also challenged the Oil and Gas Authority’s decision to invite licence applications. The central questions were whether downstream emissions and the alternative of no further licensing had been lawfully assessed, whether omission of test 5 was irrational, and whether reasons had to be published.

1. Both claims dismissed. The challenges to the Secretary of State’s decisions and, consequentially, to the Oil and Gas Authority’s licensing decision failed.
2. Regulation 12(2) of the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004 requires assessment of likely significant effects and reasonable alternatives, but those questions involve evaluative judgment. Regulation 12(2) must be read with regulation 12(3); it does not impose an absolute or mechanically defined assessment obligation.
3. The Offshore Energy Plan set the framework for offshore licensing and related development consents. It did not set the framework for downstream refining, storage, distribution, electricity generation, vehicle use or other consumption. Applying the reasoning in R (Finch) v Surrey County Council [2022] PTSR 958, the Secretary of State was entitled to conclude that downstream end-use emissions were insufficiently closely causally connected to implementation of the Plan to be likely significant effects. The Plan’s objectives, including domestic energy security, did not compel a different conclusion.
4. The assessment of the reasonable alternative of no further licensing was not internally inconsistent. The Secretary of State could treat downstream emissions as outside the SEA while judging that reduced domestic production would require additional imports, potentially with higher upstream emissions intensity. Those were matters of evaluative judgment and were not irrational.
5. The Checkpoint was a non-statutory, informative document. The Secretary of State was entitled to omit test 5 because there was no agreed target or suitable decision rule for scope 3 emissions, and because producers had limited control over those emissions. The latter consideration was not treated as determinative. The reasons, read with the consultation material and ministerial advice, were legally adequate.
6. There is no general common-law duty to give reasons for administrative decisions. The application of the Checkpoint involved no statutory adjudication, public procedure, consultation requirement, civil-rights determination or open-justice process. The circumstances did not justify imposing such a duty.
7. The Oil and Gas Authority’s challenge necessarily failed because the challenges to the Secretary of State’s decisions failed.