How do we classify which investments are the right ones to power the transition to a climate and nature-friendly economy? This is a pretty big question, and one that is crucial to a successful implementation of the European Green Deal. The EU taxonomy – the subject of our latest episode – specifies the various criteria that investments will need to fulfil to be considered sustainable. In practice, the taxonomy is a long list of economic activities with benchmark performance standards.

But how do we guarantee that these investments actually achieve what they are set out to do? How do we ensure that we don’t finance activities that support one goal, such as climate change mitigation, but harm our ability to achieve others (e.g., reversing biodiversity loss)? And how is the EU taxonomy implemented in practice? In the latest "Green Deal – Big Deal?" podcast episode, the hosts Ewa Iwaszuk and Aaron Best from Ecologic Institute discuss these questions, together with their interview guests Ben Allen (Research Director at the Institute for European Environmental Policy) and Nicole Krämer (Sustainability Analyst at Greenomy).

Ben Allen has served as a co-rapporteur for the Technical Working Group of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance, an expert group that was convened by the European Commission to assist in developing the taxonomy. He gives us a look behind the scenes of how the EU taxonomy was designed and explains how the current taxonomy deviates from the expert group’s initial proposal. Looking at the EU taxonomy through a business lens, Nicole Kramer describes the challenges and opportunities businesses face when implementing the EU taxonomy.

Listen now

New episodes will be released every month and can be accessed directly below or streamed on popular podcast platforms, such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Google Podcasts or Amazon Music. Check out the website for more information on the podcast and webinar series.

Relevant links and documents

• European Commission's website about the EU taxonomy

Webinar series

Listening to our podcast is nice, but not enough for you? You are in luck! In addition to the podcast series, we are organizing a series of eight online events, targeting young Europeans aged 18-35. Enter the dialogue with us and our invited experts. We are keen to hear your questions, suggestions and ideas and discuss them together. Are you on board? Sign up for our mailing list, and we'll keep you up to date with upcoming webinars.