View our report summary 

View our report summary 

View our report summary 

ShareAction strongly supports the European Commission’s intention to present a legislative proposal to build a European single access point for corporate data. We see four key priorities for the single access points which will be essential for its success: 1) The single access point’s database must include small companies, non-listed companies, and the data provided must include sustainability data; 2) The public access point should put sustainability data on an equal footing with financial data and give non-financial information the same visibility; 3) The access point must be publicly accessible and free of charge for all citizens; 4) The platform should allow for sector-specific information.

Please find our full response in the document attached.

The EU Taxonomy has been hailed globally as a milestone in creating the much-needed tools for financing the transition to a low-carbon economy. For this tool to effectively facilitate reaching the EU emission reduction targets and commitments under the European Climate Law to meet climate-neutrality by 2050, it needs to fully endorse the ambition of the Technical Expert Group’s (TEG) recommendations, if not going even further.

Our key recommendations concern the following areas:
– Maintain the proposed climate change mitigation criteria for electricity generation of 100g CO2/kWh to effectively exclude natural gas without abatement (CCSU)
– Exclude the burning of all forest biomass for energy as well as reverse the inclusion of all bioenergy feedstocks with higher lifecycle emissions compared to fossil-fuels
– Explicitly exclude hydrogen produced with non-renewable power
– Reconsider the inclusion of activities such as short-term forestry rotation, livestock and small hydropower
– The inclusion of sea and coastal water transport should be conditional on the examination by the Platform on Sustainable Finance
– Exclude the burning of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in cement plants, as recommended by the TEG

We have also supported a civil society joint-statement on the draft Delegated Acts, which is available here.

Following the release of the European Commission’s draft Delegated Act (hereafter identified as ‘draft DA’) on the EU Sustainable Taxonomy, we, a coalition of NGOs, think-tanks, experts, scientists, shareholder associations, and sustainable investment associations representing millions of citizens in Europe and the global South, are writing to stress our strong support for an EU sustainable taxonomy rooted in climate and environmental science.

The global climate strikes have consistently made a simple demand: listen to the science. We agree. Just as experts and evidence have been key assets in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, so too must they, and not sectoral interests, determine our policies to fight the climate crisis. While we recognise that the draft DA has taken into account the recommendations of the Commission’s Technical Expert Group (TEG) on the climate taxonomy to a large extent, we would like to voice substantial concerns that the draft DA has ignored or weakened the TEG’s scientific advice for several activities. We outline the ten most important areas that need to be revised to produce a taxonomy that is based on scientific evidence, supports fully sustainable economic activities, accelerates the shift from unsustainable to sustainable activities, and truly reduces the risk of greenwashing. In addition to these ten priorities, we strongly support the development of an unsustainable taxonomy, which is crucial to reliably identify risky sectors and accelerate their transition.