ALFI responds to ESMA consultation on article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation

On 4 December 2020, ALFI responded to an ESMA consultation on a Draft advice to European Commission under Article 8 of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 (the “Taxonomy Regulation”).

Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation obliges undertakings covered by the Non-Financial  Reporting  Directive to publish information on how and to what extent their activities are associated with economic activities that qualify as environmentally sustainable under  the  Taxonomy  Regulation. For this purpose, Article 8(2) requires non-financial undertakings to use three key performance indicators (‘KPIs’), namely the proportion of their turnover, their capital expenditure (‘CapEx’) and their operating expenditure (‘OpEx’) related to environmentally sustainable activities. Article 8 does not specify any KPIs to be used by financial undertakings.