EU Taxonomy
The EU Taxonomy Regulation, aligned with the European Green Deal and its 2050 climate-neutrality goal, serves as a classification tool. Its primary purpose is to offer transparency to companies, capital markets, and policymakers regarding what qualifies as sustainable economic activities.
The EU taxonomy sets out 4 overarching conditions that an economic activity must meet in order to qualify as environmentally sustainable:
Making a substantial contribution to at least one environmental objective
Doing no significant harm to any of the other five environmental objectives;
Complying with minimum safeguards; and,
Complying with the technical screening criteria set out in the Taxonomy delegated acts.
EU Taxonomy released guidelines for each sectors which contain what activities that are covered by EU Taxonomy. For the real estate sector, here is the list of relevant activities.
Activity |
|---|
1. Construction of new buildings. |
2. Renovation of existing buildings. |
3. Installation, maintenance and repair of energy efficiency equipment. |
4. Installation, maintenance and repair of charging stations for electric vehicles in buildings (and parking spaces attached to buildings). |
5. Installation, maintenance and repair of instruments and devices for measuring, regulation and controlling energy performance of buildings. |
6. Installation, maintenance and repair of renewable energy technologies. |
7. Acquisition and ownership of buildings. |
For more information regarding real-estate related activities, see: https://ec.europa.eu/sustainable-finance-taxonomy/sectors/sector/7/view
EU Taxonomy activity covered by BuildingMinds Platform
Activity | Description |
|---|---|
Acquisition and ownership of buildings | Buying real estate and exercising ownership of that real estate.The economic activities in this category could be associated with NACE code L68 in accordance with the statistical classification of economic activities established by Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006. |
Enabling and transitional activities
The EU Taxonomy also classifies two further criteria: enabling and transitional activities. Enabling activities allow other activities to make a substantial contribution to one or more of the Taxonomy’s six objectives. Transitional activities entail the following activity types:
Activity | Description |
|---|---|
Enabling | Enabling activities aim to make a substantial contribution to one or more of the six Taxonomy objectives. |
Transitional | Transitional activities aim to mitigate climate change and ensure that the Paris Agreement's zero-pathway objectives are met. Transitional activities can only be defined as such if they meet the following requirements: There are no technologically or economically feasible low-carbon alternatives. Green House Gas emission levels correspond to the best performance in the sector or industry. The activity does not lead to carbon lock-in or hamper the development and deployment of low-carbon alternatives. |
EU taxonomy compliance
To learn more EU taxonomy classification and better identify "environmentally sustainable" economic activities, see: EU taxonomy navigator .