EC Platform Seeks Views on Screening Criteria for EU Green Taxonomy
The European Commission's Platform on Sustainable Finance published a draft report on the preliminary recommendations for technical screening criteria for the EU taxonomy. The purpose of this call for feedback is to gather further evidence and feedback on the proposed draft recommendations for technical screening criteria, with the feedback period ending on September 24, 2021. This call for feedback is part of ongoing work by the Platform on Sustainable Finance, which was set up by the European Commission to provide advice on the further development of the EU taxonomy.
The draft report prepared by the dedicated Platform subgroup, the Technical Working Group (TWG), is an important step in the Platform’s main mandate under the Taxonomy Regulation (2020/8521) to advise the European Commission on the development of the EU taxonomy and, in particular, on the development of technical screening criteria for the six environmental objectives, as set out in the Taxonomy Regulation. The draft report focuses primarily on presenting a first set of priority economic activities and draft recommendations for associated substantial contribution and do no significant harm (DNSH) technical screening criteria in relation to the four non-climate environmental objectives covering water, circular economy, pollution prevention, and biodiversity and ecosystems. However, a small number of economic activities and corresponding draft recommendations for technical screening criteria related to the climate mitigation and adaptation objectives have also been included. The Platform TWG addressed a first set of economic activities per environmental objective in its first phase of the work. The report explains in detail the proposed methodology for the selection and prioritization of the activities.
An activity that is not included in this first batch of activities for the remaining four environmental objectives, for which the Platform will develop recommendations for technical screening criteria, may still be addressed as part of a second batch (Platform work starting after submission of the current batch of criteria). It is likely that the recommendations for additional activities and criteria included in that second batch would be addressed in a later update of the delegated act by the European Commission. Thus, non-inclusion by the Platform in the first batch of priority activities does not imply that the activity will not be considered for inclusion in the EU taxonomy. The draft criteria presented in the report are working documents of the Platform and do not represent a final view of the Platform. They are presented to gather feedback and evidence from a wider set of stakeholders, to improve the draft criteria and make them more robust and usable in view of the final report to be presented to the European Commission in November 2021.
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Comment Due Date: September 24, 2021
Keywords: Europe, EU, Banking, Insurance, Securities, Taxonomy Regulation, Technical Screening Criteria, ESG, Climate Change Risk, Sustainable Finance, Platform on Sustainable Finance, EC
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