Advice on Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation

Advice on Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has published its Final Report on advice under Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation, which covers the information to be provided by non-financial undertakings and asset managers to comply with their disclosure obligations under the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD).

The recommendations define the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) disclosing how, and to what extent, the activities of businesses that fall within the scope of the NFRD qualify as environmentally sustainable under the Taxonomy Regulation. The key recommendations relate to the definitions to be used by non-financial undertakings for the calculation of the turnover KPI, the CapEx KPI and the OpEx KPI, and the KPI that asset managers should disclose.

Steven Maijoor, Chair, said: “Today’s recommendations on the KPIs for non-financial undertakings and for asset managers provide a solid basis for the European Commission to adopt an important element of the EU Taxonomy framework. ESMA’s advice sets out in concrete terms how to comply with the disclosure obligations under the Taxonomy framework, balancing investors’ demand for high quality information and avoiding undue burdens on market participants.

“These disclosures are essential to provide investors with the information needed to direct investments towards environmentally sustainable activities. They will also be a key building block for the reporting of other financial market participants under the EU Taxonomy.”

Recommendations

ESMA’s proposals focus on how to further specify the three KPIs set out in Article 8(2) of the Taxonomy Regulation for non-financial undertakings and those provided by asset management companies that fall within scope of the NFRD:

  • Non-financial undertakings – the proposals set out the definitions that should be used for the calculation of the turnover KPI, the CapEx KPI and the OpEx KPI. These are complemented with the minimum information that should accompany these disclosures and the methodology, including the level of granularity, for the reporting of the three metrics; and
  • Asset managers – the proposals set out the KPI that asset managers should disclose, the methodology to be applied to that KPI and recommendations for the development of a coefficient methodology to assess Taxonomy-alignment of investments in investee companies that do not report under the NFRD.

ESMA also proposes that non-financial undertakings and asset managers use standardised templates for their reporting under Article 8 in order to facilitate comparability of these disclosures and enhance their accessibility to investors that will reuse this information.

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