CSSF Review on Sustainability Disclosures for Issuers – Guidance for non-financial and financial undertakings

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On 26 October 2022, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (“CSSF”) published a thematic review on “Sustainability Disclosures for Issuers – A first look on information reported under Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation for the transition year” (“CSSF Review”).

I. Scope

The CSSF Review was conducted based on a sample population of 31 non-financial undertakings from various sectors (e.g., Real Estate & Infrastructure, Transportation & Logistics or Consumer Products & Retail), whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market, for which Luxembourg is the home Member State, exceeding 500 employees, total assets of EUR 20 million and/or a net turnover of EUR 40 million (“Issuers”).

Such Issuers are subject to Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups (“NFRD”).

The CSSF Review focused on the information required by Article 8 of the Regulation (EU) 2020/852 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation 2019/2088 (“Taxonomy Regulation”) to be published by Issuers between 1 January 2022 and 30 June 2022, i.e. for Issuers with a financial year ending 31 December 2021.

II. Context

Since 1 January 2022, non-financial undertakings shall, according to Article 10 (2) of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178 (“Disclosures Delegated Act”) disclose:

In contrast, financial undertakings must comply with the provisions of Article 10 (3) of the Disclosures Delegated Act and are accordingly only required to report the proportion of their exposures to activities that are considered as eligible in their total assets as well as to disclose qualitative information.

III. Key findings

The CSSF Review provides a summary of the observations of the CSSF pertaining to the content and quality of the information disclosed by the Issuers in relation to Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation, and also contains a series of helpful reminders of mandatory obligations, practical recommendations as well as references to relevant tools and guidance papers published at EU level.

Whilst the CSSF Review focuses on non-financial undertakings, some of the reminders, recommendations and references are also relevant for financial undertakings.

The key messages included in the CSSF Review are the following:

For the purposes of identifying Taxonomy-eligible activities, the CSSF Review refers to two specific tools:

Looking forward, the EU Taxonomy Compass will be updated to include future delegated acts specifying technical screening criteria for additional economic activities substantially contributing to the climate objectives and the other environmental objectives of the Taxonomy Regulation;

The CSSF specifies that, whilst this mapping is not an official guidance document from the European Commission or from the three European Supervisory Authorities, it can be considered to be a valid source to reconcile the coding with the activity descriptions in the Climate Delegated Act;

IV. Next Steps 

The CSSF Review emphasizes that:

The CSSF Review further specifies that the information published under Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation will be subject to a particular attention of the CSSF in 2023.

 

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Luxembourg Newsflash – CSSF Review on Sustainability Disclosures for Issuers – Guidance for non-financial and financial

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