Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139 of 4 June 2021 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council and establishing the technical selection criteria for determining the conditions under which an economic activity is deemed to make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation or adaptation and for determining whether that economic activity does not cause significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives
This Delegated Regulation establishes the technical selection criteria for determining under what conditions an economic activity shall be considered as making a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation and for determining whether such economic activity causes significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives of this Regulation.
Regulation (EU) 2020/852 establishes the general framework for determining whether an economic activity can be considered environmentally sustainable for the purposes of determining the degree of environmental sustainability of an investment. This Regulation applies to measures adopted by the Union or by Member States imposing on financial market participants or issuers any requirements in respect of financial products or corporate bond issues that are offered as environmentally sustainable, on financial market participants offering financial products, and on companies that are subject to the obligation to publish non-financial statements.
In this sense, the technical selection criteria should take into account the nature and magnitude of the economic activity and the sector to which they refer, and whether the economic activity is a transitional economic activity. Accordingly, these technical selection criteria should specify the minimum requirements that the economic activity must meet in order to be considered environmentally sustainable. An independent third party must verify compliance with these technical selection criteria in relation to these activities.
The technical selection criteria should ensure that the widest possible range of critical infrastructures, including, in particular, energy transport or storage infrastructures, or transport infrastructures. In addition, technical selection criteria should be established for educational, health, social services, artistic, recreational and entertainment activities. The sectors analyzed in this standard include the following:
- Forestry
- Environmental protection and restoration activities
- Manufacturing
- Energy
- Water supply, sanitation, waste treatment and decontamination
- Transportation
- Building construction and real estate development activities
- Information and communication
- Professional, scientific and technical activities
For all these sectors, a series of generic criteria are established relating to the principle of not causing significant harm to adaptation to climate change, sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, prevention and control of pollution in relation to the use and presence of chemical products, and protection and recovery of biodiversity and ecosystems.
With a view to ensuring that the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 evolves in line with technological, market and policy developments, this Regulation should be regularly reviewed and, where necessary, amended with regard to activities.
This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the OJEU; it shall be directly applicable in each Member State as from January 1, 2022 and shall be binding in its entirety.
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