Company publicly denied allegations that primary forests were being cut down to fuel UK’s biggest power plant
Senior executives at Drax raised concerns internally about the validity of the energy company’s sustainability claims while it publicly denied allegations that it was cutting down environmentally important forests for fuel, court documents have revealed.
Britain’s biggest power plant assured ministers and civil servants of the company’s green credentials as it scrambled to defend itself against claims in a BBC Panorama documentary that it had burned wood sourced from “old-growth” forests in Canada.
The company’s senior leaders, including its chief executive, publicly denied the allegations, but other executives at the North Yorkshire plant privately raised concerns that it did not have sufficient evidence to back up the sustainability claims, according to evidence submitted to an employment tribunal involving its former top lobbyist.
The owners of Drax have received more than £7bn in subsidies levied on household energy bills on the condition that the biomass pellets are made from waste or low-value wood from sustainable forests.
