In order to meet the EU’s climate and energy targets for 2030, the European Union published the ‘Taxonomy Regulation’ on June 22, 2020. The regulation paved the way for the EU taxonomy which is the “EU’s gold standard for sustainable investment guiding private investment towards environmental sustainability”. The EU taxonomy plays a very important role in future investment in sustainability and environmental projects. Essentially, the EU taxonomy is a classification system on a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities. It provides companies, investors and policymakers with a clear picture of what economic activities are considered environmentally sustainable. The aim of the EU taxonomy is to protect investors from fraudulent Green projects and “greenwashing”. This then guides companies to be sustainable and helps to shift the economic market towards a more environmental direction.
It has been highly discussed by the European Commission, on whether to include nuclear energy and fossil gas in the new EU taxonomy or not. For nuclear energy, on January 2021, the commission gathered a group of experts and conducted the ‘Joint Research Centre’s Report’. (The JRC report) is intended to examine the technical, social and environmental impacts of nuclear energy. The JRC report suggested that “the standards of environmental control needed to protect the general public are likely to be sufficient to ensure that other species are not put at risk”. In other words, science communities are supportive of including nuclear energy in the EU taxonomy. The protection of water and marine resources, as well as biodiversity however have still not thoroughly been examined under the JRC report. Little serious consideration has been done on whether to include fossil gas investments as a sustainable investment.
The European Green Party issued a joint statement on 9th December 2021, pushing the European Commission to keep fossil gas and nuclear activities outside of the EU Taxonomy.
The green party in Italy (Europa Verde) also voiced its concern on the new EU taxonomy.