EU Taxonomy Regulation

The Taxonomy Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 22 June 2020 and entered into force on 12 July 2020.

The Taxonomy Regulation establishes environmental objectives, amongst them: Pollution prevention and control.

The EU taxonomy is a classification system, establishing a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities. It could play an important role helping the EU scale up sustainable investment and implement the European green deal. The EU taxonomy would provide companies, investors and policymakers with appropriate definitions for which economic activities can be considered environmentally sustainable. In this way, it should create security for investors, protect private investors from greenwashing, help companies to become more climate-friendly, mitigate market fragmentation and help shift investments where they are most need

Position ISRA
Investments in ships qualify in accordance with this regulation if the ships concerned are being recycled at a ship recycling a EU list facility. ISRA supports and promotes this regulation.

Ship Recycling
Annex 1 to the EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act  which covers, among others, maritime transport activities  points 6.10 and 6.11*. The DNSH (Do No Significant Harm) criteria prescribed for these activities refer to the EU Ship Recycling Regulation and in particular to the need to ensure that scrap ships are recycled in facilities included on the European List of ship recycling facilities – otherwise the activities in question cannot be considered environmentally sustainable activity for the purposes of the EU Taxonomy.

*For existing ships above 500 gross tonnage and the new-built ones replacing them, the activity complies with the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 1257/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (249) relating to the inventory of hazardous materials. The scrap ships are recycled in facilities included on the European List of ship recycling facilities as laid down in Commission Decision 2016/2323 (250).