EIA Working Group 1 held a Meeting on March 1st

Introduction by Francesco Dubini, form the Think Tank Ambrosetti house :

in the past weeks we have been discussing the opportunity to prepare a Position Paper in order to advocate for a better representation of the irrigation industry within the European Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance (Regulation EU 2020/852). In particular, the EU Taxonomy is the common classification system at the international level that defines which economic activities can be defined as sustainable with the aim of helping investors clearly identify where to direct sustainable investments.

With the support of The European House-Ambrosetti – a Think Tank and major management consulting firm in Italy – we are also evaluating the opportunity of applying the EU Taxonomy to some member companies who advance the interest in measuring themselves with the Regulation, so to gather technical insights on the applicability of the Regulation, prepare companies to respond to regulatory and disclosure requirements, and allow members to leverage on the result of the application to access sustainable investments.

Attached you can find the presentation of the Project we have thought of until now and on which we have already started working through preliminary activities. The presentation includes an overview of the EU Taxonomy together with a detailed design of the work plan. We are sharing this document in order to gather eventual feedback on this opportunity that can benefits us, both at the Association level and at the company level, by raising the case for a better representation of our industry in the Taxonomy, representing our sustainability impact, and attracting towards our activities the capital already made available by Sustainable Finance.

Ambrosetti House : Sustainability practices support to Cies, Strategic analysis on S, reporting on SH engagement. 

Background on Taxonomy: COP 21 from the Paris agreement, financial sector is responsible for guiding the transition at EU level.  Exponential regulatory activity on sustainability, 32T$ to invest by 2030 to stick to COP.  Not easy because of difficulty to measure, need harmonization of S profile evaluation. EU strategy to support the transition (Taxonomy=classification system, Disclosure obligations to enlarge Cie publication of S performance, Instruments=for financial sector (Green Bonds). 

Disclosure is raising the bar from 2024 for more than 55kCie (>250 employees, >20M€ Balance, >40M€ net revenues).  EU-T entered into force il 2022, list of eco activities that can give potential contribution to impacts under 6 objectives, with measurable technical criteria.  Conditions: Contribution to one objective, DNSH, minimum safeguards. 

Eligibility of one of my activity? If yes what Revenue, CapEx and OpEx? Technical criteria are defined for 13 sectors, 103 activities, agriculture under definition.  Other 4 objectives are drafted and will impact irrigation industry as well as irrigated ag.  Working is in progress (grey boxes p.18).  T is guiding the evaluation work in a single classification. 

Questions: What about international Cie, economic activity in Europe or further?  All Cie that generate Revenue in Europe.  Does it concern public funds?  Ex of recovery plan in Italia after Covid, now that it is published ir is following the same guidance as T. 

Irrigation and Taxonomy, what are the challenges?  Central role in supporting transition and saving resources.  Today partially concerned, may pose problem in the investment decisions.  How to promote a greater representation?  Develop a future set of guidelines for the members, need communication and advocacy to get a good representation in the EU T.  Preliminary analysis:  today no indication on the timing of T extension adoption… but will occur sooner or later (by the end of the year). 

Leveraging the EU Taxonomy: Technical analysis of eligibility of members, position paper and advocacy to serve the EIA internally (legal basis), and externally for opportunities of financing.  Application to several members Cies (economy of scales).  Phase 1: technical group with access to figures (survey to map Cie concerned today and tomorrow).  Phase 2: Synthetizing key elements, piloted by an advisory board, coming out with recommendations for the EU-T 

What is a sector in the sense of EU T?  Ag and Turf relying on the business share in the different sub-sectors.  EIA is working on free from competition, how to deal with this kind of sharing limitation?  An NDA is signed at each project beginning.  At least the first phase will require private data, otherwise we could create a virtual CY… 

Advocacy set-up: position paper and first interaction with institutions. 

Phase 3: not mandatory from the 2 first phase, but greatly help on the application constraints, verifying the technical criterion, resulting in a report. 

Timing: constrained by the adoption of the delegated act for our sector, a paper before summer would be the right time. 

Pricing will depend on the Cies investmemnts

The question of Sustainability is a key, need to advance, interesting for the association and Cies, difficulties to manage the budget.  Governance: a WG from the association and members to share the preliminary analysis resulting in a plenary restitution. 

End of the meeting : we decided to organize the extraordinary board, circulate the analysis table to understand the involvement already invested.  Need to insist on the adequacy of T to our activity.  The stake is to have irrigation industry falling or not in the green industry. 

The commission is covering the Cies that can give significant contribution, some part are covered, the present report can make a huge place to Irrigation industry, as for some other sectors.  A huge fight is occurring between Ag and Env directions. 

Need to involve universities to contribute the position paper as external members.