EU Green Taxonomy Data – A First Vendor Survey

This paper aims to explain key concepts of the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities, a commonclassification system established to clarify which investments are environmentally sustainable.Additionally, it provides insight on the compliance of corporate activities with the EU Taxonomy’scriteria based on a first survey on market data.The survey issued to corporate data providers covered both Eligibility and Alignment of firms’economic activities as per EU Taxonomy. Eligibility provides the percentage share of activities ofa company which can be assessed against the EU Taxonomy. Alignment gives the percentage share of a firm’s activities that is substantially contributing to at least one of the environmental objectives set by the European Commission as well as fully passing Do No Significant Harm Criteria on all other environmental objectives and passing Minimum Social Safeguards.Preliminary data from this first data vendor survey suggests that mean Alignment of companyrevenue currently ranges in the low single digits. Mean Eligibility in the same context, was at leastabove 20 per cent. The results raise important questions on whether mid cap firms may haveadvantages over large cap firms and if the business model of the assessor influences the assessment outcome.Recommendations for further improvement of the policy and suggestions for future research areprovided