Regulatory Basics

The EU ventures its own definition of sustainable finance or sustainable investment. For the EU, environmentally sustainable economic activity means that the economic activities contribute to at least one of the six EU environmental goals defined in the Green Taxonomy and do not compromise any other EU environmental goal (so-called do no significant harm (DNSH) rule), as well as complying with the OECD Guidelines for Responsible Business Practice. These are implemented, for example, in an industry-specific manner in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (so-called OECD MNE Guidelines 2011) and for export credit agencies in the OECD Common Approaches (OECD 2016) as well according to their Green Transition Framework (OECD 2022). This results in the following triad illustrated in Fig. 2.1 which, taken together, gives the new EU definition of sustainability and forms the basis for sustainable finance.