EU GREEN TAXONOMY IN PRACTICE

The report analyzes the 2022 reporting practices of 100 large EU companies, finding that while adoption is high, significant issues exist regarding the precision of legislation, the complexity of reporting forms, and the relevance of defined activities for many sectors. It highlights a discrepancy between the eligibility reported by financial and non-financial companies and recommends simplifying reporting requirements and clarifying key legal terms.

• While all analyzed companies refer to the Taxonomy in the correct reports, 9% of non-financial companies failed to meet basic formal requirements, with five providing no quantitative data and ignoring mandatory tabular forms.
• The mandatory tabular forms for non-financial companies are viewed as overcomplicated and redundant; 40% of companies experienced issues using them, including inventing homemade activity codes or incorrectly filling DNSH (Do No Significant Harm) columns.
• There is a significant lack of a clear legal definition for 'economic activity', leading to incomparable reporting practices across the EU; Nordic and German companies tend to use segment-reporting, while others report based on the nature of assets.
• The EU Green Taxonomy lacks relevance for a substantial portion of large listed companies; 40% of the analyzed companies are either not covered at all or only marginally covered by the defined Taxonomy activities.
• A discrepancy exists between the eligibility rates reported by financial and non-financial companies, with financial companies reporting 60% eligible assets compared to 37% eligible turnover for non-financial companies, potentially due to the use of estimates.
• Financial companies face a systemic timing issue where they must report Taxonomy alignment before the non-financial companies they invest in have published their own data, forcing a heavy reliance on estimates.
• There is a growing market for Taxonomy-aligned finance, with 47% of analyzed non-financial companies issuing green or sustainability bonds and 20% specifically issuing Taxonomy-labelled bonds.

APA

Jagd, J. T. (2023). EU GREEN TAXONOMY IN PRACTICE. We Mean Business Coalition. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WMBC_EU_Green_Taxonomy.pdf

Chicago

Jagd, Jane Thostrup. EU GREEN TAXONOMY IN PRACTICE. We Mean Business Coalition, 2023. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WMBC_EU_Green_Taxonomy.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Jagd |first1=Jane Thostrup |title=EU GREEN TAXONOMY IN PRACTICE |publisher=We Mean Business Coalition |date=2023 |url=https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WMBC_EU_Green_Taxonomy.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{jagd2023green, author = {Jagd, Jane Thostrup}, title = {{EU GREEN TAXONOMY IN PRACTICE}}, institution = {We Mean Business Coalition}, year = {2023}, url = {https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WMBC_EU_Green_Taxonomy.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }