The EU Taxonomy Reporting Obligations
Since January 2022, the EU Taxonomy has made it compulsory for corporates to carry out mandatory annual reporting on their economic activities’ contribution to both climate change mitigation and adaptation. The required report must adhere to a standardised reporting framework that can be immediately shared with regulators, as well as credit institutions, and asset managers.
The sustainability report will shine a spotlight on entities’ sustainability practices. This will attract private investment towards corporates with sustainable activities, particularly from asset managers and credit institutions that want to make their investment portfolios and loan books greener. Therefore, corporates who carry out their sustainable finance screening will attract more investment, lower their finance costs, and support their own business development.
Euroclear
Euroclear, a global provider of Financial Market Infrastructure services headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, has over 4,000 employees, and offices throughout the World.
It specialises in settling domestic and cross-border securities transactions, safekeeping investments, and managing the risks and exposures arising from transactions. Euroclear has chosen to use the Greenomy solution to screen its economic activities against the EU Taxonomy and reach its annual sustainable finance reporting goals.
We conducted an interview with Anne Biot, Director of Accounting Policies and Reporting, to find out how using the Greenomy solution is helping Euroclear to fulfil its sustainability reporting obligations.
Greenomy: What was the reporting process like before you started using the Greenomy solution?
Euroclear: Prior to using Greenomy, we started our EU Taxonomy journey with external advisors. We found this to be complex and it involved navigating regulations with broad room for interpretation, leaving us uncertain as to whether we'd understood the regulations correctly.
It took us a long time to reach a final analysis. But then, we started to work with Greenomy, which empowered us to reach a similar analysis in a much quicker time frame.
Greenomy: What does the Greenomy solution help you with?
Euroclear: We feed the solution with key financial information. The Greenomy solution links our economic activities with their respective EU Taxonomy eligibility levels and checks our activities’ eligibility and alignment to ESG objectives.
Greenomy: What are the main benefits you have experienced through working with Greenomy?
Euroclear: Since we started to use the Greenomy solution, Euroclear has found the solution to be easy to use and well-structured. The Greenomy solution really helps to guide us through the regulation, screen our eligible activities, and generate new disclosures.
The solution clearly references the regulation, which helps us to navigate our way through the dense and complex text, since it identifies the relevant part of the regulation and provides comprehensive definitions at every step.
Above and beyond assisting us to align with the EU Taxonomy, it is also an educational solution that helps us to understand the EU Taxonomy, empowering us with a clear definition of what is expected and what it aims to achieve, thereby helping us to improve our overall sustainability approach.
Greenomy: What is the main reason you would recommend our solution?
Euroclear: Greenomy is the most mature solution on the market. We are using quite a few reporting solutions, and this one is really well-designed. Greenomy is playing the role of a regulatory consultant and is helping us to save time and money by guiding us through the regulation in a clear way.
We appreciated the step-by-step guide to the final disclosure notes, and the solution really helped to assess the company’s eligibility and alignment vis-à-vis the new rules, which really saved time. Moreover, we are also sure that we are correctly aligning ourselves with the latest version of the regulation thanks to Greenomy’s internal regulatory watch.
Greenomy: If there is one word that would describe your experience with us, what would it be and why?
Euroclear: User-friendly and always up to date with the latest regulations and legislation. This makes it easy for users not to miss anything because you trust the specialists who are monitoring this on a daily basis.
How Greenomy can help your company
If you are a corporate with over 500 employees, you are obligated under EU law to carry out mandatory sustainable finance screening since January 2022. Furthermore, since January 2023, this has expanded to listed and non-listed companies with more than 250 employees (over 50,000 mid-sized listed and private companies) who will need to report on eligibility and alignment with the EU Taxonomy.
The Greenomy portal is simple, cost-effective, and efficient, and reduces the need to hire external ESG consultants. The solution offers direct access to EU Taxonomy definitions, requirements, and thresholds throughout each step of the technical screening and reporting process. Plus, we have built-in resources & human expertise on our chat feature, meaning that any queries you may have can be resolved instantly.
So what are you waiting for? Fulfil your sustainable finance reporting requirements today by booking a demo with one of our dedicated experts and take your first step towards improving your sustainability.