SBFN Toolkit: Sustainable Finance Taxonomies
SBFN’s Toolkit on Sustainable Finance Taxonomies is part of a series of Toolkits developed by SBFN to support member countries to develop the national enabling frameworks for sustainable finance.
It responds to the accelerating trend in global, regional, and national taxonomies being introduced by financial sector regulators, banking associations, and international organizations to provide clear definitions for sustainable finance and prevent greenwashing.
The Toolkit aims to support financial sector regulators and banking associations in emerging markets to develop and update national and regional taxonomies, leveraging international good practice and lessons learned from other countries.
It Includes
- Practical findings and examples of unique approaches from SBFN members that have introduced taxonomies.
- Emerging common elements of taxonomies.
- Guidance on the steps that countries can follow to strengthen i) governance, ii) design, and iii) implementation of their taxonomies.
- Practical ideas around “levels of interoperability” that can be used to guide the discussion going forward.
- High-level country profiles for 12 SBFN countries and three regions: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand, Association for Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Toolkit reflects emerging collective insights and questions. Many questions, particularly those that relate to implementing and expanding taxonomies, are yet to be fully answered, and this Toolkit will evolve over time as new knowledge and solutions become available.
The Toolkit has been developed under the guidance of the SBFN Working Group on Sustainable Finance Instruments and in cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, as well as various IFC, World Bank, and IMF teams.
Read the World Bank Group blog article “Taxonomy astronomy: The global search to define sustainable finance” by Fiona Stewart, Louise Gardiner, and Aaron Levine, JUNE 06, 2024