While the European Commission has still not adopted the first delegated act establishing the taxonomy for climate change mitigation and adaptation (see EUROPE 12453/25), the second delegated act is already in preparation. The members of the Platform on Sustainable Finance in charge of the preparatory work presented the state of their assessments at an online event on Friday 26 February.
The European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness, has confirmed that the first delegated act will be published in April (see EUROPE 12643/23) with a communication on how the taxonomy fits in with other work on sustainability and sustainable finance.
“We are working hard to make sure that the first delegated act will receive the support of co-legislators and stockholders”, she said.
Further steps will follow, including: the adoption of a second delegated act covering the remaining objectives, namely: - 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.
The Commission has indeed mandated the Platform to make recommendations to it on activities that make a substantial contribution to these environmental objectives while not significantly undermining the other objectives.
The Platform’s technical working group on this subject, which began its work around December, is currently working on 60 activities, said Ben Allen, co-rapporteur.
Sectors covered include agriculture, forestry, fisheries, manufacturing, mining and processing, energy, construction and building, emergency services, catering and sanitation, transport, tourism, water supply and waste management.
Some sectors will focus on only one or two objectives, because that is where they have the greatest potential impact, he said.
The other co-rapporteur, Marzia Traverso, presented the methodology that will be followed by the working group to develop the technical selection criteria.
The methodology was developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and, on the basis of an external study commissioned by the Commission, activities were “pre-prioritised” in order to already have a basis for work, she explained.
Once the activities have been selected, an approach will have to be defined to determine how a substantial contribution can be made to the environmental objectives concerned and technical selection criteria for the ‘do no significant harm’ principle (DNSH) will have to be developed.
The draft technical selection criteria should then be submitted for public consultation in June 2021, after which the Platform will submit its final recommendations to the Commission.
While the drafting of the first delegated act was subject to political divisions and intense lobbying, the two co-rapporteurs wished to stress that their task was purely scientific and not political.
The European Commission is also expecting further recommendations from the Platform in March and September 2021 on how the taxonomy could help companies in their transition as well as on the possibility of setting up a social taxonomy. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)