13 EU countries (France, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Malta, Cyprus, Croatia and Greece) opposed the criteria, but this was not enough to block the proposal.
Forestry is one of the nine sectors in the climate mitigation objective. From a forest owner´s point of view, there will be new reporting requirements in order to be climate taxonomy compliant.
Among others, forest owners will have to have a forest management plan and a climate benefit analysis (for 30 years) for over 13 ha forest holdings. Such climate benefit analysis should be monitored regularly by a third party. Forest owners have expressed concerns about the increased administrative burden and the risk of reduced profitability that these new requirements may mean. At the same time, questions remain on the real impacts of these new forest-related criteria on climate change mitigation.
The taxonomy work continues in the Sustainable Finance Platform since the next set of Delegated Acts focused on biodiversity is expected to be out in spring. The first draft by the Platform published in August was deemed unacceptable for forest owners as it consists of too detailed, and one-size-fits all criteria for sustainable forest management practices.
For more information, contact CEPF Policy Advisor Maria Pohjala at maria.pohjala@cepf-eu.org
