Ahead of next month’s COP27 climate summit we have been given a stark reminder of the lengths still required to tackle climate change. A new report estimates that investments of US$1 trillion (£904 billion) a year in renewable power will be needed by 2030 to avoid the effects of climate change. Scaling up private and public investment will be crucial in financing this transition.
Yet directing investment to where it can have the most decisive impact represents a challenge. “Greenwashing”, where organisations exaggerate their environmental credentials, is rife and impedes the flow of investment towards truly sustainable projects. One way to address this issue is by ranking activities in terms of how sustainable they are – producing something called a “taxonomy” of sustainable activities.
