Sustainability is assessed in terms of finance capital (nd current)

More sustainable financial products are to be traded on the European stock exchanges in the future.

Photo: dpa / Arne Dedert

In the natural sciences, taxonomy is a standardized procedure with which objects are classified according to certain criteria in an easily understandable manner. Investors also like to keep track of things. And this is especially true of what some experts consider to be the big thing in the financial markets in the near future: green investments. Small and large investors are looking for them, but there are hardly any products or only those that define “sustainability” in very different ways, often according to criteria that not only make environmentalists stand on end. The uncertainty is the reason why the area has so far eked out a shadowy existence despite potentially very high demand.

The EU now wants to bring order to the wild growth of the markets. A taxonomy is intended to define sustainability criteria for a wide range of economic sectors. So Brussels wants to create a classification for everything that can be described as green. As the former Green MEP Sven Giegold explained, “the conditions under which the production of steel, cement and other building materials, forestry, water supply, transport, communication or the generation of energy make a significant contribution to climate protection or adaptation can make climate change «. In addition, red lines are defined for all areas in order to exclude environmental pollution as well as damage to biodiversity and water systems and not to endanger the transition to the circular economy.

The EU taxonomy came into force in the form of a so-called delegated act at the end of December. Proponents like Giegold see it as a “milestone for greener financial markets in Europe”. The EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen takes the matter more pragmatically, because the major Brussels project of the “European Green Deal” wants to be financed. “The EU taxonomy is intended to mobilize private investments and direct them into activities that are necessary to achieve climate neutrality in the next 30 years,” the Commission says.

So far there has hardly been any criticism. Only the armaments industry complained that they were facing massive financing problems. Hardly to be heard were left voices that do not want climate protection to be subjected to the pressure of financial capitalist returns. And so the entire excitement revolved around a question that was initially excluded and which, along with a few other details, will only be decided in a second legal act in a few weeks’ time: Will nuclear and gas power be classified as sustainable? This is a small marginal note in the new regulations, but it may have major consequences.

There are many investors who, for reasons of conscience, want to invest in sustainable investments. And there has long been a hard, material foundation for it. Since the global political course is being set in the direction of climate protection, investments in all sorts of unsustainable economic areas might also turn out to be losing money. This has long been the case in the coal sector. There are hardly any private investors who would be willing to invest money here, so that the coal phase-out is also being forced by the markets in many countries. Investments are only made in new projects where the public sector subsidizes this on a massive scale.

And very large investors have long been pushing for more climate protection in various initiatives. In a world of great climate catastrophe, it will be difficult to find many profitable investment fields. A call to governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels was signed last year by financial groups that collectively manage $ 41 trillion in capital, almost a third of all global wealth. The EU is of course also vying for the big money – the new taxonomy is intended to attract large numbers of it to the European markets.

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