About: sustainable finance
The EU taxonomy can strengthen SMEs in the green transition
Small and medium-sized companies stay exempt from the new disclosure rules on the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy starting in 2022. However corporate leaders would be well-advised to follow its implications, including SMEs, writes Finn Wendland.
The EU’s green finance taxonomy: an Orwellian mechanism
The European Commission’s sustainable finance taxonomy bears all the hallmarks of failed governance: opacity, imprecision, and subjectivity with a punitive approach albeit not assumed, writes Daniel Guéguen. In short, it’s an Orwellian mechanism, he argues.
Finance: becoming green while in the red
Money talks, but it also needs to listen: listen to the demand for change for a financial system that takes account of non-financial issues, from climate change to social inclusion, writes Commissioner Mairead McGuinness.
Commission must issue green bonds to finance the green recovery
The European Commission has a unique opportunity to issue green bonds to finance the EU's coronavirus recovery plan and ensure overall investment coherence with the Green Deal, write Pascal Canfin and Bas Eickhout.
Emission thresholds in EU green finance taxonomy are too high. Here’s why
Carbon dioxide emission limits in the EU taxonomy suggested by the technical expert group are too high and will make it virtually impossible to reach EU climate goals for 2030 and 2050, argues a group of Swedish lawmakers.
Sustainable finance drive can help address EU’s political challenges
Sustainability and inclusivity have correctly been placed as guiding principles for Europe’s finance policy. The next few months – with decisions on the EIB and the start of a new European Commission – will be decisive in order to put those principles into action, write Tom Jess and Sandrine Dixon-Declève.
Practise what you preach: banks should endorse the sustainability practices they publicly support
Paul Tang questions why bank lobbyists are seeking to delay transparency measures that they have publicly endorsed.
Human rights and green finance: friends or foes?
Policymakers currently discussing a 'taxonomy' for sustainable finance products at EU level often argue that the proposal already includes social and human rights safeguards. This is not true in the least, warn Eleni Choidas, Lis Cunha and Rachel Owens.
The beacon of sustainable finance in Europe must not lose its flame
One year after the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance released its final report, the follow up on its recommendations is lagging somewhat behind, writes Catherine Howarth.
EU governments must drive investors’ money where their mouth is
There is a big risk that the European Commission’s proposals on sustainable finance will be watered down when EU member states examine the draft legislation, warn Lis Cunha, Sebastien Godinot and Rachel Owens.
How to ramp up energy efficiency investment for Europe’s net-zero emissions future
Making finance and investments sustainable is essential to achieving a net-zero emissions world by 2050. And energy efficiency has the single biggest role to play, writes Peter Sweatman.
Sustainable finance now tops industry’s agenda
The climate targets of the EU and UN have moved sustainable financing to the top of the agenda of the finance industry. This means banks and investors are called upon to provide green incentives and become more involved in saving the planet, writes Karl Ludwig Brockmann.
A two-speed approach to sustainable finance?
Europe is quickly adopting an imbalanced, two-speed approach to sustainable finance, in which the "green" is moving much faster than the "social". Eleni Choidas look into whether it is even possible to have one without the other.
On finance, ‘Think Sustainability First’
‘Think Sustainability First’ must be a principle that guides financial policymaking through this decade and the next if Europe is to have the means to match its global ambitions, writes Arlene McCarthy.