Riders on the delegated act storm: power struggles and expertise in the evolution of the EU Taxonomy

Presented as a “science-based” voluntary market-transparency tool to define sustainable economic activities, the EU Taxonomy quickly proved controversial. When the European Commission classified gas and nuclear activities as sustainable via a delegated act, it provoked outrage within its own advisory body, the Platform on Sustainable Finance (PSF). This article analyzes the Taxonomy’s contested evolution, explaining how dismantling pressures disrupted the co-production of knowledge – the ideational alignment between science and politics – within the PSF. Two factors are examined: the role of self-undermining feedback effects (whereby interest groups anticipating policy losses shift lobbying strategies) and the Commission’s strategies to stabilize knowledge co-production through the (re)orchestration and calibration of PSF advice. These factors are analyzed across three policy sequences (2016-2024), drawing on fifteen semi-structured interviews and a longitudinal analysis of PSF composition. The article explains why the carbon-intensive industry intensified dismantling pressures during the Taxonomy implementation, how the Commission accommodated them by calibrating PSF advice in delegated acts, and why this calibration led to conflicts between the Commission and the PSF, ultimately prompting the Commission to reorchestrate the Platform.