EU Taxonomy Compass_https://ec.europa.eu/sustainable-finance-taxonomy/
SECTORS_https://ec.europa.eu/sustainable-finance-taxonomy/activities/sectors_en.htm
UNPrinciples for Responsible Investments_https://www.unpri.org/policy/eu-sustainable-finance-taxonomy
EU taxonomy for sustainable activities_https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/sustainable-finance/eu-taxonomy-sustainable-activities_en
Taxonomy Regulation and delegated acts
The Taxonomy Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 22 June 2020 and entered into force on 12 July 2020. It establishes the basis for the EU taxonomy by setting out 4 overarching conditions that an economic activity has to meet in order to qualify as environmentally sustainable.
The Taxonomy Regulation establishes six environmental objectives
Climate change mitigation
Climate change adaptation
The sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources
The transition to a circular economy
Pollution prevention and control
The protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems
Different means can be required for an activity to make a substantial contribution to each objective
Climate change mitigation
Climate change adaptation
The sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources
The transition to a circular economy
Pollution prevention and control
The protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems
Different means can be required for an activity to make a substantial contribution to each objective
Under the Taxonomy Regulation, the Commission had to come up with the actual list of environmentally sustainable activities by defining technical screening criteria for each environmental objective through delegated acts.
A first delegated act on sustainable activities for climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives was approved in principle on 21 April 2021, and formally adopted on 4 June 2021 for scrutiny by the co-legislators. A second delegated act for the remaining objectives will be published in 2022.
The publication of the first delegated act was accompanied by the adoption of a Commission Communication on ‘EU taxonomy, corporate sustainability reporting, sustainability preferences and fiduciary duties: Directing finance towards the European green deal’ that aimed at delivering key messages on how the sustainable finance toolbox facilitates access to finance for the transition. This Communication builds on the transition finance report adopted by the Platform on Sustainable Finance in March 2021.
On 6 July 2021, the Delegated Act supplementing Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation was adopted by the Commission for scrutiny by the co-legislators. This delegated act specifies the content, methodology and presentation of information to be disclosed by financial and non-financial undertakings concerning the proportion of environmentally sustainable economic activities in their business, investments or lending activities.
A first delegated act on sustainable activities for climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives was approved in principle on 21 April 2021, and formally adopted on 4 June 2021 for scrutiny by the co-legislators. A second delegated act for the remaining objectives will be published in 2022.
The publication of the first delegated act was accompanied by the adoption of a Commission Communication on ‘EU taxonomy, corporate sustainability reporting, sustainability preferences and fiduciary duties: Directing finance towards the European green deal’ that aimed at delivering key messages on how the sustainable finance toolbox facilitates access to finance for the transition. This Communication builds on the transition finance report adopted by the Platform on Sustainable Finance in March 2021.
On 6 July 2021, the Delegated Act supplementing Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation was adopted by the Commission for scrutiny by the co-legislators. This delegated act specifies the content, methodology and presentation of information to be disclosed by financial and non-financial undertakings concerning the proportion of environmentally sustainable economic activities in their business, investments or lending activities.
Find links to implementing and delegated acts for Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (Taxonomy) on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment
However, that Delegated Act does not cover nuclear energy or natural gas. Instead, the Commission announced that these would be covered in a complementary Delegated Act, with potential additional legislation for gas activities that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions but which do not meet the Taxonomy’s technical screening criteria.
Nuclear power
The Commission’s complementary Delegated Act will be informed, in part, by the technical report published by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) on the “do no significant harm” aspects of nuclear energy, and the advisory reports by the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) and the Group of Experts on radiation protection and waste management under Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty who reviewed the JRC report and published their commentary on 29 June and 30 June respectively.
These reports broadly agree (albeit using bespoke language) that nuclear energy does not represent significant harm to human health or to the environment, or any of the Taxonomy objectives - provided that the associated industrial activities satisfy appropriate technical screening criteria and provided that sufficiently robust regulatory controls are in place.
The JRC went so far as to say that protection of the environment and human health are achieved if a licence has been issued by a regulatory authority. The language used by SCHEER was that nuclear energy “does less harm” in many respects than other energy technology and “does not represent unavertable harm”.
However, on a political level, ministers from Germany, Spain, Denmark, Austria and Luxembourg wrote a letter to the Commission citing concerns about the methodology of the JRC report and emphasising that “nuclear power is incompatible with the Taxonomy Regulation’s ‘do no significant harm” principle’.
Natural gas
In the case of natural gas power generation, the complementary Delegated Act is expected to cover only activities that make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation under strict technical screening criteria.
The Commission is considering one of two options for natural gas activities that do not meet those requirements:
specific legislation to ensure that activities contributing to emissions reductions would not be deprived of appropriate financing; or
widening the scope of the Taxonomy Regulation to introduce a Brown Taxonomy with “moderate contributions and intermediate performance” economic activities.
Next steps
The Commission will now assess the input from the expert groups before publishing a draft complementary Delegated Act for public consultation in late summer.
The final complementary Delegated Act is expected in Q4 2021, with a potential further report dealing with non-Taxonomy compliant natural gas expected at the end of 2021.
22/10/2021_ESAS PROPOSE NEW RULES FOR TAXONOMY-RELATED PRODUCT DISCLOSURES_https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/esas-propose-new-rules-taxonomy-related-product-disclosures
https://www.fairr.org/article/investor-letter-eu-taxonomy/
https://www.wwf.eu/what_we_do/sustainable_economies/?uNewsID=5255391
https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/exclusive-investors-warn-eu-against-badging-intensive-farming-sustainable-2021-11-24/
No comments:
Post a Comment