EU Taxonomy Objectives

EU Taxonomy objectives refer to 6 environmental objectives under which activities and their corresponding technical screening criteria will be defined. The EU Taxonomy aims to align future investments with EU’s climate and energy targets for 2030 and reach the objectives defined in the European Green Deal by redirecting investments into more sustainable projects and activities.

EU Taxonomy environmental objectives

🌿 The EU Taxonomy 6 environmental objectives are:

1.         climate change mitigation (CCM);

2.         climate change adaptation (CCA);

3.         sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources (WTR);

4.         transition to circular economy (CE);

5.         pollution prevention and control (PPC);

6.         protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems (BIO).

These EU taxonomy objectives are aligned with the EU’s public policy goals for climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, water resource management and conservation – or more specifically water efficiency and sustainable management and withdrawals, circular economy and waste management, pollution prevention and control – including pollutants to and in air, land, water and sea – and reduction of noise impact, and healthy natural habitats – which includes protecting and enhancing land and marine habitats and biodiversity.

EU taxonomy objectives and activities under key sectors

Under each environmental objective, the EU taxonomy defines activities under key sectors that have the highest impact on the environment, and that give the highest potential gain from switching to more sustainable activities. Relevant sectors and activities were defined based on the NACE industrial classification system.

The sectors originally covered by the climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives, are responsible for 93.5% of direct greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions) in the EU and have the highest needs to mitigate climate change and the highest potential to do so. In addition to sectors with high GHG emissions, also sectors with high potential to enable climate change mitigation were added.

The sectors covered by the remaining 4 environmental objectives, were determined based on analysing several impact or pressure indicators for each objective to assess the environmental impact and improvement potential, following a similar approach as used to determine sectors under CCM and CCA.

💡 To read more about EU Taxonomy, we recommend reading the following article:

EU Taxonomy – Everything you need to know

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