The Institute appointed to new EU sustainable finance platform
The Danish Institute for Human Rights has been appointed a member of the European Commission’s new permanent platform on sustainable finance. Together with other experts in the finance sector and within sustainable development, the Danish Institute for Human Rights will advise the European Commission as it furthers its work on mainstreaming and standardising sustainability in finance. A key focus for the Institute will be to make clear the centrality of human rights as well as the relevance and implications of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights for environmentally sustainable economic activities and not least when considering expanding the taxonomy to other dimensions of sustainability.
“We appreciate that the commission with our appointment on the platform recognises the importance of human rights to this policy area. This next regulatory chapter in the EU has the potential to effect change globally notably when it comes to ensuring environmental sustainability. But it is critical that the EU does not overlook the human rights dimension in its important work to make the economy greener. For a green transition to be fully sustainability it is essential that human rights are adequately and better reflected in policy and regulation to come. We look forward to contributing to this important work,” says strategic adviser Signe Andreasen Lysgaard who will represent the Danish Institute for Human Rights on the sustainable finance platform in a two year mandate period.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights will represent the common interest of European National Human Rights Institutions on this matter including through liaising with the Business and Human Rights Working Group of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI).
The platform on sustainable finance consists of 50 experts who will advise the European Commission on the development of a sustainable financial system including identifying technical screening criteria that can determine which economic activities are sustainable, the so-called EU taxonomy.
The platform will advise the commission on fully developing the EU Taxonomy for environmentally sustainable economic activities as well as potentially extending it to other dimensions of sustainability including social sustainability. In this context, the platform has as a specific task to advise the commission on how to ensure respect for international labour standards and human rights by undertakings when carrying out environmentally sustainable economic activities and the possible need to supplement the requirements thereof.