Wednesday 18th of March, today, the experts of the European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB) working group on Green and Sustainable Finance met virtually to respect the meeting restrictions linked to COVID-19.
On the agenda: the Technical Expert Group’s report on taxonomy and the new Taxonomy Regulation, the EU Consultation on EU Ecolabel, the revision of the Non-financial reporting directive (NFRD).
The final TEG report on EU Taxonomy was presented during the stakeholder dialogue on sustainable finance last Thursday. The EACB is represented by Mr Tanguy Claquin, Head of Sustainable Banking, Credit Agricole CIB, who holds the important role to bring the voice of co-operative banks to this expert group that has a crucial role in shaping the sustainable finance framework in EU. The report contains recommendations relating to the overarching design of the Taxonomy, as well as guidance on how companies and financial institutions can make disclosures using the taxonomy.
Given the high importance of the legislative proposal to review the NFRD, the EACB has answered to the roadmap on the Non-financial Reporting Directive Consultation. In particular, the EACB launched to the Commission the proposal for the creation of an EU register for ESG data already available in the market and reported by corporates in the EU in an electronic form, based on both aggregate and individual basis, under one of the main statistics centres in the EU (i.e. EUROSTAT).
Co-operative banks are key players in financing the green transition, they have been contributing to the different initiative activites of the Action Plan and look forward to bring further contributions to the new Commission’s sustainability initiatives, being the Green Deal one of its new pillars.