Both the EU Taxonomy and the EU Green Bond Standard are aimed at supporting the low-carbon transition. Portfolio Manager Rosl Veltmeijer discusses the ins and outs of both policies and how they work in practice with Esther Griffioen, Deputy head of Policy and Risk Management at the Dutch State Treasury Agency and Jie Chen, Investment Analyst at Triodos Investment Management - covering both the issuers’ and the investors’ side of green bonds.

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Green bonds play an important role in financing the assets needed for the green transition. With the European Green Bond Standard, the EU wants to set a clear standard for green bonds, based on the detailed criteria of the EU taxonomy to define green economic activities.

As an issuer of green bonds, mapping its activities against the Taxonomy has helped the Dutch State in identifying those expenditures which are truly green, as Griffioen explains. However, she also gives some examples where the criteria of the Taxonomy don’t work in practice.

While the EU Taxonomy is also helpful for investors, Chen emphasises that Triodos Investment Management also still applies its own criteria, for instance by excluding gas and nuclear energy and by looking at environmental activities that are currently not covered by taxonomy like sustainable food and agriculture. 

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