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"Sustainable finance: Commission welcomes agreement on a new generation of low-carbon benchmarks", 25 Feb 2019
The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached by the European Parliament and Member States today on a new generation of low-carbon benchmarks needed to help boost investment in sustainable projects and assets. The European Parliament and Council still have to formally approve the rules. This agreement creates two new categories of low-carbon benchmarks: a climate-transition benchmark and a specialised benchmark which brings investment portfolios in line with the Paris Agreement goal to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5˚above pre-industrial levels...Benchmarks have an important impact on investment flows. Many investors rely on them for the creation of investment products, for the measurement of performance of investment products and for asset allocation strategies.The two new categories are voluntary labels designed to orient the choice of investors who wish to adopt a climate-conscious investment strategy. The climate-transition benchmark will offer a low-carbon alternative to the commonly used benchmarks.The Paris-aligned benchmark will only comprise companies that can demonstrate that they are aligned with a 1.5˚ target. The new labels are designed to give additional assurances to avoid “greenwashing”, i.e. that investors are deceived by misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the environmental benefits of a benchmark. A technical expert group will now advise the European Commission on how to select the companies eligible for inclusion in the new benchmarks.
WWF, along with 44 other NGOs, has co-signed a letter recommending the European Commission to take 5 key steps on the EU Taxonomy, towards a more environmentally sustainable financial system
Publication by the Danish Institute for Human Rights: "How do the pieces fit in the puzzle? Making sense of EU regulatory initiatives related to business and human rights"
Host Richard Howitt speaks frankly and personally about what moves policy makers, businesses, and activists to make responsible business the norm and redefine business.
This discussion paper describes the outcomes of a project developed by the Danish Institute for Human Rights which aimed to use algorithm assisted analysis of a large number of company reports maintained in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Disclosure Database against a set of human rights indicators to supplement qualitative analysis of company reporting.
The Platform on Sustainable Finance seeks public feedback on its draft report on minimum safeguards. The minimum safeguards set out in Article 18 of the Taxonomy Regulation require that companies implement procedures to comply with OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises and the UN guiding principles on business and human rights.
The vote paves the way for the European Union proposal to pass into law, unless 20 of the bloc's 27 member states decide to oppose the move, which is seen as very unlikely.
The petition says “the inclusion of nuclear power in the EU Taxonomy and the EU giving its stamp on nuclear power as being green would not only undermine the credibility of the EU Taxonomy, but also leave a significant negative legacy for the future of the EU and the world.”
EFRAG is organising these workshops by webcast during June and July 2022; the application deadline for each workshop is 10 calendar days before the workshop takes place.
A month after the European Commission approved the inclusion of fossil gas and nuclear energy into the EU taxonomy, 92 NGOs and CSOs call on financial institutions to reject this greenwashing attempt by excluding both energies from their “sustainable” or “green” funds and bonds
The Platform on Sustainable Finance ("PSF") published its final report on extending social taxonomy rules. The Commission now needs to decide if and how to take forward the PSF's suggestions.
WWF condemns inclusion of gas and nuclear investments in the recently published EU taxonomy, arguing it will do huge damage to the EU and global environmental action
Japanese CSOs working on environmental and energy issues and groups of people affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster say in the open letter that including nuclear power in the EU taxonomy would "undermine the credibility of the EU Taxonomy" and "leave a significant negative legacy for the future of the EU and the world."
The Commission's decision to include gas and nuclear investments in the European Union's "sustainable finance taxonomy" rules was circulated in a draft proposal late on Dec. 31 and leaked to some media organisations.
Some EU governments had threatened they would block the first ‘taxonomy’ list if nuclear and gas were not included as ‘sustainable’ in the second list, which is expected to be proposed soon. In the end, 13 governments opposed it - 2 Member States short of the blocking threshold - and the proposal went through automatically.
On 12 July 2021 the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance published two reports, including a draft report on a social taxonomy grounded in human rights. The Platform welcomes stakeholder feedback on both reports.
A group of 7 MEPs signed a letter concerning EFRAG’s responsibility to ensure balanced representation of stakeholders in the work to provide technical advice on corporate sustainability standards
The EU Commission’s taxonomy, unveiled on Wednesday, introduces a labelling system for investment that could divert hundreds of billions in funds to 'sustainable' industries and companies. Environmentalists say the taxonomy’s forestry criteria are too weak because they classify industrial logging and the burning of trees and crops for energy as ‘sustainable’ investments.
The recommendations can successfully guide the EU standard-setting process, and significantly advance the quality of corporate sustainability transparency, says the Alliance for Corporate Transparency.
The reports set out recommendations to the European Commission for the elaboration of possible EU sustainability reporting standards and for possible changes to EFRAG's governance and funding if it were to become the EU sustainability reporting standard setter.
In response to a consultation on the draft delegated acts (DA) that provides much of the initial detail for the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Regulation, the 130-strong group said the current text “ignored or weakened the Technical Expert Group’s (TEG) scientific advice for several activities”.
The criteria generally follow the recommendations from the technical expert group (TEG) that advised the Commission on its sustainable finance action plan, but deviate from them in some respects. Civil society has raised concerns that some of the thresholds deviated from scientific evidence as a result of political and industry pressure.
WWF welcomes the exclusion of fossil fuels from the draft rules, but criticises, among others, that the Commission’s proposal would allow the burning of trees to be considered ‘sustainable’.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the first two sets of criteria for determining which economic activities can qualify as environmentally sustainable, under the EU's Taxonomy.