An environmental campaigner has been chosen as one of six global winners of a distinguished green award.
Sarah Finch secured a historic legal victory in 2024 alongside the Weald Action Group to stop the expansion of an oil facility in Surrey, winning her the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize, which recognises grassroots environmental work across six world regions.
Ms Finch led the group’s fight against fossil fuel extraction for more than a decade, culminating in a Supreme Court ruling that compelled authorities to consider the climate impact of burning extracted fuels before approving developments.
Ms Finch said she felt honoured to receive the prize representing the Weald Action Group and all communities striving to keep fossil fuels in the ground. She noted the evidence was unambiguous: no additional coal, oil or gas extraction and burning could occur if safe climate boundaries were to be maintained. Through years of community organisation, public protests and a landmark legal triumph, the Weald Action Group had changed the future of fossil fuels in Britain, she explained. The group had proven that ordinary people uniting could secure significant victories even against challenges as enormous as the climate crisis.
The so-called Finch ruling has held up other fossil fuel projects, including a coal mine in Cumbria and the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea. It has also influenced planning decisions and legal outcomes in sectors including aviation and intensive livestock farming, while courts in Norway, Guyana and Australia have reached similar conclusions.
Katie de Kauwe, a senior solicitor at Friends of the Earth, said the Finch ruling represented one of the most significant legal developments of this century in addressing the climate emergency. It had completely altered the framework for approving new fossil fuel developments by requiring developers to account for the full climate consequences of their polluting projects. She expressed appreciation for Sarah taking on this role and presenting their arguments, adding that they took considerable pride in their successful campaign at Horse Hill, which had shifted the narrative around proposed British fossil fuel developments.
The 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize also recognised Yuvelis Morales Blanco from Colombia, who organised opposition to commercial fracking in her country, and Borim Kim from South Korea, whose youth-led legal action resulted in mandatory emissions targets.
John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, said that while they continued their fight to protect the environment and implement crucial climate policies in America and globally, it was clear that genuine leadership existed everywhere.