The EU Taxonomy24 was introduced by the European Commission as a common dictionary for defining and identifying sustainable economic activities. This system defines which economic activities are considered environmentally sustainable. It is intended to enable investors and companies to make the transition to a climate-neutral economy.
If a professional/institutional investor wishes to advertise a building with elements of the circular economy with these characteristics (circular economy, sustainable, etc.), it must transparently identify these characteristics or their impact as part of the risk analysis and document them in an auditable manner.
Incentives via the financial market play an important role in promoting sustainable construction. Today, there are already green bonds, ESG (environmental, social and governance) investments, green bonds and, more recently, SDG investments in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These are sought after by institutional investors because more and more of them want to invest a certain proportion of their assets sustainably. However, there are still no binding definitions of the minimum requirements for green economic activity. For example, green bonds in the buildings sector are usually only concerned with efficiency in the life cycle phase of use, see also Module B, Chapter 8.3. Labels such as GRESB25 offer benchmark figures on operating efficiency, which are often referred to in the financial sector. The EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities is now attempting to implement such rules for the European financial market.
There are already green bonds worth 500 billion US dollars worldwide – and demand continues to rise. Controlling the flow of money via the financial market would be an effective and business-oriented solution.
25 GRESB
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