The Taxonomy Regulation: what can be called 'sustainable'

A common dictionary of 'sustainable'

The Taxonomy Regulation establishes a shared classification system to say when an economic activity is environmentally sustainable. It serves to steer investment towards green and to fight greenwashing: 'sustainable' is no longer a slogan but a matter of common, verifiable criteria. It is an EU regulation: it applies directly, without transposition.

The six environmental objectives

The Taxonomy revolves around six environmental objectives, equal in dignity.

When an activity is 'aligned': the four conditions

Doing something green is not enough. An activity is taxonomy-aligned if it meets four conditions together: it contributes substantially to at least one objective; it does no significant harm to the others (DNSH); it complies with minimum social safeguards; and it meets the technical screening criteria set by the delegated acts.

The conceptual core: the DNSH principle (the hard case)

'Do No Significant Harm' is what makes the Taxonomy serious. A building may contribute to climate mitigation but, if it wastes water, consumes land or fails to manage waste, it is not aligned. Sustainability is not a score on a single axis: it is crossing a threshold on all of them. DNSH is today required beyond finance too — for example in the recovery-fund (PNRR) projects.

Eligible or aligned? (the other common mistake)

Two words not to confuse. An activity is 'eligible' if it is among those described by the Taxonomy; it is 'aligned' if it actually meets all its criteria. Declaring 'eligible' as if it were 'aligned' is a subtle form of greenwashing.

The link with building

For buildings the technical criteria rest on the tools we already know: energy performance (NZEB and EPC, hence the minimum-requirements decree and the EPBD), the renewables share (D.Lgs. 199/2021) and the circular management of construction and demolition waste (the Environmental Code). The Taxonomy does not invent new technical obligations: it ties the existing ones to a threshold of 'sustainability' recognised at European level.

Why it matters

The Taxonomy is the point where sustainability stops being a narrative and becomes a criterion: it defines, in common across the EU, what may be called green. For an architecture that wishes to compete internationally it is the language to prove — to investors, banks and clients — that the declared environmental quality is also real and financeable.