Taxonomy Regulation: EU Commission simplifies reporting obligations for sustainable economic activities

On 4 July 2025, the European Commission adopted a new delegated act on the Taxonomy Regulation (EU) 2020/852. The aim is to simplify the reporting obligations for companies - especially for non-financial and financial companies - in a targeted manner without jeopardising the transparency of sustainable economic activities.

With this package of measures, the Commission is responding to feedback from practitioners and creating new simplifications in the application of the disclosure requirements under Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation. The changes are part of a more comprehensive regulatory programme to promote sustainable financial flows while at the same time reducing bureaucracy:

• Introduction of the materiality principle: Companies no longer have to review all activities in accordance with the taxonomy, but may exclude activities below 10 % of the relevant KPIs (sales, CapEx, OpEx) from the detailed assessment.
• Simplification of report templates: The number of required data points has been significantly reduced - by up to 64% for non-financial companies and by up to 89% for financial companies. The new templates are shorter, more focussed and better tailored to practical use.
• Facilitation for financial companies: For banks and other financial service providers, transitional regulations apply until the end of 2027, during which time they may dispense with detailed templates and instead declare that they do not claim any sustainable activities within the meaning of the taxonomy.
• DNSH criteria (Do No Significant Harm) defused: The particularly complex and difficult-to-implement requirements from Annex C for the prevention of environmental pollution have been revised. This concerns, among other things, the evaluation of chemical substances in accordance with REACH and CLP.
• Clarifications for counterparties not subject to reporting requirements: Financial institutions do not have to collect taxonomy data on counterparties that are not subject to EU reporting requirements - unless they report voluntarily or the funding is earmarked for a specific purpose.
• Cancellation of special templates for fossil gas and nuclear energy: The separate reporting obligations for these activities no longer apply. The relevant information is integrated into the general templates.