Delegated Regulations to the EU Taxonomy Regulation

The European Commission launched a public consultation process on 5 April 2023 on a number of draft new and amendments to existing Delegated Regulations to the EU Taxonomy Regulation. This increases the potential for companies to be able to classify more economic activities as environmentally sustainable in the sense of the EU taxonomy in the future.

The draft of the so-called "Environmental Delegated Regulation" expands the catalogue of potentially sustainable economic activities to include those which, if the technical assessment criteria are met, can make a significant contribution to one or more of the non-climate-related environmental objectives:

• Sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources (6 activities),
• transition to a circular economy (21 activities),
• pollution prevention and control (6 activities), and
• protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems (2 activities).

In addition, the Commission proposes amendments to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178 concerning the content and presentation of the reporting requirements under Article 8 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation.

The Commission is also consulting on the proposed amendments to the Delegated Regulation on the technical assessment criteria for climate-related environmental targets (EU) 2021/2139 (so-called "Climate Delegated Regulation"). In addition to the inclusion of further economic activities in the catalogue, changes to individual already existing assessment criteria are also proposed.

It is envisaged that companies in the period from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024 will initially report on taxonomy compliance and only from 1 January 2025 onwards on the taxonomy compliance of the newly added economic activities.

An overview of the newly included activities as well as the changes to the assessment criteria per environmental objective and sector can be downloaded here. The drafts of the new and amended Delegated Regulations with their annexes can be found here.

Comments are to be submitted by 3 May 2023 at the latest.