European Commission publishes Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy

The European Commission has published its updated Strategy for Financing the Transition to a Sustainable Economy (“Renewed SF Strategy”) with over 50 significant and wide-ranging proposals aimed at greening the financial services sector – ranging from updates to current rules under the SFDR and Taxonomy Regulation to proposals for green retail loans and mortgages. See also the Annex to the Strategy, and accompanying Factsheet and press release.

The Renewed SF Strategy was published alongside a legislative proposal for an EU green bond framework (see our briefing here) and the final Delegated Act on Article 8 Taxonomy disclosures by NFRD undertakings (see our briefing here).

There had been speculation that the revised SFDR RTS (along with the Commission’s guidance on the SFDR) might also be published at the same time but that has not yet materialised and the timing of that is still uncertain.

The Renewed SF Strategy builds on the lessons learned during the last three years. As expected, financing the transition to a net zero economy plays a major role in the new strategy, which notes that efforts to incentivise all economic sectors to transition towards more sustainable economic activities have made it clear that a step-by-step approach and a greater differentiation between companies’ respective starting points in the transition process are needed.

For more information see our briefing, which includes a table summarising the content of the Renewed SF Strategy and its Annex.