The EU Taxonomy, Europe’s classification system for green activities, is in danger of being weakened, following the Commission’s new criteria review proposal. Several proposed changes miss the target of making the criteria easier and instead open the door to watering some of them down.
“Making the EU Taxonomy clearer and easier to use would help companies and financial institutions step up their sustainability efforts, and in turn would bring the EU closer to its climate and environmental objectives. Regrettably, this is not really what the review proposal seems to do. Instead, it exposes several worrying issues of safeguard removals, weakened ambition, and lowered thresholds to the detriment of the environment,” said Vedran Kordic, EU Taxonomy coordinator at WWF European Policy Office.
To achieve the goal of a simpler but effective EU Taxonomy, it is essential that the review process maintains science-based criteria but improves practicality by turning existing tools into user-friendly online compliance guides, where requirements are gathered in one single place, directly linked to all the relevant data, thresholds and verification sources¹. This would remove the need for users to navigate a wide range of regulatory texts in order to identify relevant requirements.
WWF’s response to the Commission’s public consultation emphasised these priorities and centred the value of the EU Taxonomy as a cornerstone of the broader sustainable finance framework. Since its introduction, the EU Taxonomy has served as a reference for many other jurisdictions developing similar initiatives globally.
Improving the framework’s usability while maintaining strong, science-based standards for what activities qualify as green will ensure that the EU continues to lead by example and prioritises what truly matters for the climate and environmental transition.
WWF recommends that the Commission transform the EU Taxonomy Compass and the EU Taxonomy Calculator into a genuine compliance tool.
