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SFDR/CSRD/Taxonomy sustainability reporting: usability challenges and impacts on the EU financial sector

Day 1 Afternoon

Wednesday 07 September

Room :

CONGRESS HALL 2

Speakers

Chair
Petra Hielkema
Chairperson - European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPublic Authority Speaker)
Public Authorities
Patrick de Cambourg
Chair of the Task Force, EFRAG & President, ANC - European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG)
Montserrat Martinez Parera
Vice Chairman - Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV)
Eva Wimmer
Director General  - Federal Ministry of Finance, Germany 
Industry Representatives
Maud Gaudry
Global Sustainability Partner - Mazars
Stefanie Ott
Head Group Qualitative Risk Management - Swiss Re Management Ltd
Karolin Schriever
Executive Member of the Board - Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV)

Objectives of the session

The European Union has started to develop an extensive regulatory framework to achieve a transparent sustainability reporting. This should support better channelling investment towards a sustainable economy.

The Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), implemented since 2021, lays down sustainability disclosure obligations for financial investors, product manufacturers and advisers.

The Taxonomy regulation, which will in part amends the SFDR, aims to progressively give a list of activities considered as positive for 6 environmental objectives without doing significant harm to other ones. Gas and nuclear energy have been included at some conditions in this climate taxonomy.

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which has been agreed by the European Parliament and the Council, will require large companies to publish regular reports on the environmental and social impact of their activities. Subsequent EU sustainable reporting standards should be shortly adopted by the European Commission based on a proposal from EFRAG.

The EU financial sector has been supportive of this regulatory effort, notably to fight existing sustainability confusion and greenwashing.

But these regulations also raised debates and criticisms notably due to their complexity, their interplay, the lack of data, the administrative burden they entail, the way to involve SMEs, level-playing field challenges with other jurisdictions … The need for an effective coordination between ISSB’s and EFRAG’s was also underlined.

In this context, the roundtable will focus on assessing the implementation of these frameworks which is ongoing, as well as on the possible sources of progress.

Points of discussion

  1. What is the specific role of each of the transparency regulations (SFDR/CSRD/Taxonomy)?
  2. What are the main lessons learned from the beginning phase on their implementation and on horizontal issues? What are the possible regulatory improvements?