Monday 9 November, the United Kingdom announced that it would create a new green investment taxonomy that stays closely connected to present and future EU efforts.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced that the UK will create a green taxonomy which will take the scientific metrics in the EU taxonomy as its basis, and that it will appoint a Green Technical Advisory Group to review these metrics to ensure they are right for the UK market.
The UK also announced that so as to support and benefit from the development of common international standards on taxonomies, it will join the European Commission’s International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF). China will play a leading role in this harmonisation effort.
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Kate Levick, Sustainable Finance Program Leader of E3G said:
“The UK has sent a welcome signal that it wishes to collaborate with the EU, China and other countries to create common international standards on taxonomies. In the year of COP26 we expect the UK as President-Designate to help ensure that international approaches to defining sustainable investments remain based on science and are not subject to political trade-offs.”
Tsvetelina Kuzmanova, Policy Advisor, E3G, said:
“Until now the UK has been missing in action in 2020 while the EU has been building an ambitious new agenda for sustainable finance. We are delighted to now see the UK taking concrete steps towards multilateral collaboration for financial system reform by joining the International Platform on Sustainable Finance.”
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