Legal & Regulatory News

The Green Technical Advisory Group publishes two new reports on the UK Green Taxonomy.

On 1 September 2023, the Green Technical Advisory Group (GTAG), who advise the UK government on the design and development of the UK Green Taxonomy, published two new reports.

The first report, entitled “Developing a UK taxonomy adapted to the UK’s needs in the short and medium term: Scope, coverage and reporting considerations”, sets out the short and medium term steps for developing a UK Taxonomy which is relevant and useful. In this report, GTAG recommend that the development of a usable ‘green’ taxonomy be prioritised in the near term over the development of an extended taxonomy incorporating transition activities.  GTAG recommend the following steps:

• in the near term -  the UK government should outline how policy initiatives can support the transition in order to sense check the case for an extended taxonomy.
• in the medium term - the first taxonomy review should provide the opportunity to reassess whether other policies and tools have effectively addressed the extended taxonomy use case.

The second report from GTAG, entitled “Getting KPIs right: Implementing an effective reporting regime for the UK Green Taxonomy”, covers the sequencing of disclosures and includes recommendations for the design and implementation of an effective reporting regime for non-financial companies, credit institutions and investors. This report considers the EU’s approach to KPI reporting, as described in the 2022 paper from the Platform of Sustainable Finance, and the perceived issues with this approach.

The UK government will consult on the UK Taxonomy in Autumn 2023.

Click here to read “Developing a UK taxonomy adapted to the UK’s needs in the short and medium term: Scope, coverage and reporting considerations”.

Click here to read “Getting KPIs right: Implementing an effective reporting regime for the UK Green Taxonomy”.