Information required by the European taxonomy - Overview

As noted in Disclosing sustainability: methodological note, to which reference should be made, 2023 marked the second year of application, in the context of non-financial reporting for 2022, of the provisions introduced by the “European Taxonomy” approved with Regulation 2020/852²⁴ and included in the the Sustainable Finance Action Plan (SFAP) launched by the European Commission²⁵ in 2018. The purpose of the Taxonomy is to identify the “degree of environmental sustainability” of an investment²⁶, increasing the transparency of the market to the benefit of consumers and investors.
The Taxonomy is centred on six environmental objectives — climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, transition to a circular economy, including waste reduction and recycling, pollution prevention and control, and protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems — and introduces an international classification system to identify environmentally sustainable economic activities.

In 2021, the European Commission adopted the Climate Delegated Act²⁷ which defines the first two climate objectives (mitigation and adaptation), establishing technical screening criteria for economic activities that can substantially contribute to their achievement while causing no significant harm to the other environmental objectives. In 2022 the Commission published the ComplementaryDelegated Act, modifying the Climate Delegated Act²⁸ by introducing activities and the relative technical screening criteria for natural gas and nuclear energy. As a result of that integration, the Taxonomy now identifies 13 sectors that include a total of 109 economic activities, of which 86 are able to substantially contribute to both the climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives, 8 contribute to mitigation only and 15 contribute to adaptation only.
For financial year 2022, non-financial undertakings subject to the Regulation, such as Acea, are required to publish information²⁹ on the percentage proportion of certain quantitative economic performance indicators (KPIs) - turnover, capital expenditure (CapEx) and operating expenditure (OpEx) - attributable to the economic activities managed that are eligible and aligned³⁰ or not aligned to the Taxonomy, with reference to the first two climate objectives³¹.

24 Offcial Journal of the European Union, Regulation(EU)2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088. The Regulation is implemented through the gradual adoption of Delegated Acts.
25 See the Sustainable Growth Action Plan, European Commission, COM (2018) 97 final and the Strategy for financing the transition to a circular economy, European Commission, COM (2021), 390 final.
26 See article 1 of EU Regulation 852/2020 and Assonime Circular no. 1 of 19 January 2022, the European Regulation on the taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities: disclosure requirements for companies.
27 In particular, the Climate Delegated Act, European Commission, C (2021) 2800 final, adopted on 4 June 2021 and entering into force on 1 January 2022.
28 The Climate Delegated Act, European Commission, C (2022) 631, adopted on 15 June 2022 and entered into force on 1 January 2023.
29 The Disclosure Delegated Act, European Commission, C (2021) 4987 final, 2021, adopted in July 2021 and entering into force on 30 December 2021, defined the reporting methods that must be adopted by parties falling within the scope of application of the Regulation.
30 Including partial alignment.
31 The full application of the Regulation, presumably from 2024 for the 2023 reporting year, will provide for the assessment of the eligibility and alignment of the economic activities identified by the Taxonomy for the remaining four environmental objectives which have not yet been regulated.