Simplify the rules: the best way to seize extra sustainable funding | Future Forum | EUROtoday

Europe has opted in recent times for an bold agenda that locations the ecological transition as a spearhead to consolidate the financial management of the block. This effort to realize climatic goals retains a capital problem: to realize it with out compromising within the course of the competitiveness, productiveness and innovation for the European enterprise cloth, as warned by the Draghi report printed in 2024. To obtain this process it takes to mobilize massive quantities of capital. This is the main target of debate of the most recent version of the long run discussion board, the Observatory of Economic Trends organized by Santander and 5 days, by which 4 consultants have participated: Esther Moya, director of Public Affairs and Regulatory Coordination of Repsol in Spain; Lara de Mesa, Global Sustainability Director of Banco Santander; Andrea González, normal director of the Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Investment SPAINSIF; and Laura Fernández, Sustainable Finance Manager in Telefónica. All level in a transparent route: it’s essential to simplify European rules to speed up non-public funding.

The regulatory structure with which Europe tries to deal with local weather change features a structural transformation into financial fashions. This contains frames such because the taxonomy of sustainable finance or the duty to report climatic dangers by monetary entities search to channel capital to actions with low environmental influence. However, consultants allude to the chance of excessively advanced regulation, to hinder the method. From Mesa means that it will be significant that “the regulations do not drown” and notes that the extreme load within the report “has generated that, in many cases, there are more reporting obligations than real material activity.” “It is not what the centered companies should be,” he says.

For its half, Esther Moya celebrates the simplification initiatives of the European Union and believes that favorable advances are being given such because the so -called Busnibus regulation, which Brussels prepares. It additionally clarifies that “It is not about relaxing standards from the point of view of sustainability, but about making a little more agile, which has to do with report preparationS ”. From Mesa, the great interest of the sector also points to being able to measure and report its advances, but that must be done in a pragmatic way:” If not, in the long run, the necklace is price greater than the canine, and we’re complicating in extra and producing pointless masses, “he says.

Andrea González also alludes to concern and uncertainty as a result of complex regulations: “It is important to prioritize that there’s extra related info quantity for the financier, as an alternative of many information from a couple of actors; To be capable of climb, with a purpose to generalize, that they’re very comparable and that they’re verified. ”In addition, he argues that the regulatory framework has been utilized“ with a certain arrhythmia of the heart in the calendar, when some things came into force, others not. ” Coronary, ”he describes.

Excessive info and calm attraction

To dimension the quantity of knowledge required to these liable for sustainability, Lara de Mesa feedback that the 2024 state of sustainability of the Santander Bank has twice as a lot pages that the monetary assertion or 4 occasions the content material reported in danger points. “Sustainability requires transparency, this information to market, without a doubt, but in relevant material variables that really allow an investor to discriminate the activity,” he says.

Fernández, additionally contributes, on this regard, that in Telefónica they’ve reached transmar information that embrace till the third decimal determine. “We have come to report numbers of 0.001% of capex —Inversion that a company performs to acquire, improve or keep active in the long term – because there was no financial materiality in Taxonomy And no activity could be excluded, “he says.” Well, of course, we are in favor of simplification, yes, but all with a balance, “he says.

Telefónica’s sustainable finance manager also calls for a pause that allows you to reduce the vertiginous rhythm in which companies have been immersed in sustainability. “What would be fine is a bit of peace of mind to understand what we have to do well and give us time to implement it with a little more time; it is true that the last years has been quite frantic,” he says. He points out that since his company the financing framework has been updated as part of the strategy and in response to the demands of capital markets. It informs that the context of constant modifications forces to do an extra update job: “There is no activity that I do not have to explain and justify, every two years,” he details. That is why he hopes that, after simplification, a period of calm arrives to implement all the changes.

Modification deadlines

Lara de Mesa applauds the efforts of the block to advance in an direction in which the regulations do not affect competitiveness and do not represent an obstacle. “Europe is doing something very exceptional that had not done so far: consider a simplification exercise of recently approved regulations and reopen negotiation processes“In a projection exercise, predicts that are missing a few months until you can see” how all the pieces fit “:” Hopefully in the first half of next year we will have more or less certainty, “he says.

González joins the forecast and predicts that “if everything goes well”, the minimum time to get a modification of that caliber is a couple of years. “I trust that 2026, or early 2027, if everything continues with this speed we can know a little more what applies and when apply and let it roll to see how it works.” Anyway, it celebrates community advances: “The time to respond to the guideline that corresponds to taxonomy within the BUNIBUS law has been a record, we go in sixth,” he says.

The risk of ignoring the industry

In view of being a neutral continent by 2050, the development of technologies and its application in the European industrial arm is fundamental. Laura Fernández believes that many of the solutions for long decarbonization “still do not exist”, so “it is totally understandable to think that you have to support much that any type of business is improved, of industry regardless of whether it is not the one that most contaminates.” On the other hand, Lara de Mesa, points out that it is clear that climatic policies have to be aligned with industrial policies: “If that is not done, then what we have met, is that steps that were looking to move forward have only led us to go back.”

Esther Moya suggests that, although Europa advances in the right direction, attempts to advance in the green path should not be at risk of democalizing industry: “It is a bit what could be happening if we only set ourselves decarbonization objectives,” he warns. Ensures that there is a real possibility of reinforcing the European productive arm. “But it is very important to listen to the industry and not end up buying decarbonized products that are generated in other latitudes.”like the United States or Asia, he mentions.

It also points out that, on the other side of the balance, focusing all the opportunities generated by the energy transition can lead to new and reinforced value chains in the continent. And it points out that the public sector will have to play a central role to boost emerging technologies: “The part of public-private dialogue is fundamental, is that the challenge is so great that only the public part or only the private part would be impossible,” he says.

In this line, from Mesa it indicates the creation of the Sustainable Finance Council this year, and mentions that among its main orders to the administration is a greater presence of the industry in negotiation spaces. “Finance are a habilitator who has to accompany this process, but really the leading agent is the industry that has to reinvent how things are doing; when speaking without them, the debate falls very short,” he says.

The threat of greenwashing

Among the main obstacles to mobilizing capital towards a more sustainable economy are both structural and political challenges. The risk of greenwashingthe lack of a unified global standard and the distance between national global and political climate objectives are factors that limit the effectiveness of current efforts. Lara de Mesa believes that the best way to avoid this threat is “to have clear criteria, eliminate voluntary or posture elements and call things by name.”

“Free statements should not be made without a solvency behind, but we must not denigrate nor should we stop putting in value that” not only the pure green has a merit, “explains table. For its part, Fernández adds what to do what to do what to do what to do ecoposture At the product level in the European Union it can represent great costs and risk companies. “To affirm that a product is sustainable and contributes, now it is accompanied by a report of report that does not make meaning or logic none to do greenwashing Today, ”he concludes.