GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Paris Tzoumas, Vivian Efthymiou and Dimitrios Mekakas, Zepos & Yannopoulos
a European green investment plan that aims to establish a framework to facilitate the public and private investments needed for the transition to a climate-neutral, green, competitive and inclu - sive economy. A series of legislation and other initiatives in relation to sustainable finance and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors have also been published at EU level. ESG has evolved and moved from the side - lines to the forefront of decision-making for an increasing number of credit institutions and investors when making investment decisions in the financial sector, which leads to increased longer-term investments into sustainable eco - nomic activities and projects. In the banking sector, the main regulatory and legislative initiatives are the following at EU and local level. EU Level After setting sustainable development as a key pillar of its strategy, the EU is aiming to become the first climate-neutral continent. It is already developing a strategy to achieve this goal, while aligning its funding framework with the global SDGs. The EU has developed a targeted frame - work of actions to finance sustainable growth (EU Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth) structured around three main pillars (with ten sub-actions), namely: reorienting capital flows towards a more sustainable economy; main - streaming sustainability into risk management; and fostering transparency and “long-termism”. In the framework of the European Green Deal, the EU urges businesses, and public authorities to orient themselves towards economic activi - ties that have a lasting positive impact on the environment and that are either environmentally
sustainable or contribute to the transformation of activities to become environmentally sustain - able. In this respect, companies (including credit institutions) are already subject to extensive non-financial disclosure requirements and need (or will need) to comply with additional disclo - sure and organisational requirements in light of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (“Taxonomy Regula - tion”) and include in their non-financial disclo - sures information on how and to what extent their activities are associated with economic activities that qualify as environmentally sustain - able. The Taxonomy Regulation has been sup - plemented, inter alia, by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139, which established, inter alia, the technical screening criteria for determining the conditions under which an economic activity qualifies as contributing to climate change miti - gation. In addition, Regulation (EU) 2019/2088, as amended by the Taxonomy Regulation (“Sus - tainable Finance Disclosures Regulation”), Reg - ulation (EU) 2019/2089 on sustainability bench - marks, Regulation (EU) 2023/2631 on European Green Bonds (EUGBS) (expected to become applicable on 21 December 2024), Directive (EU) 2022/2464 on corporate sustainability reporting (CSRD), and the recently adopted Directive (EU) 2024/1760 on corporate sustainability due dili - gence (CSDDD), should be taken into account in the ESG framework. EU credit institutions must disclose information on ESG issues in accord - ance with the aforementioned legislation (includ - ing the EBA technical standards). The EU launched numerous initiatives for financ - ing the green and sustainable economy and for support of the EU goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, eg, EIB group climate credit institution roadmap 2021–2025 and EBRD’s Green Econ - omy transition approach.
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