Omnibus on Sustainability Reporting – upcoming Delegated Act with targeted amendments to the EU Taxonomy and Appendix C

The signatories support the European Commission’s intention to deliver on the simplification and competitiveness promises of the omnibus package and, in particular, by amending Appendix C.

To fully deliver on the omnibus’s objective and to address the usability concerns raised in the previous joint letter on Appendix C1, we recommend the Commission to confirm option 1 provided in the public consultation and therefore to delete paragraph f) bis of Appendix C.

Our industries represent a very significant part of the European economy and are enabling the EU’s net-zero transformation and green transition.

Paragraph f) bis of Appendix C is hampering the uptake of the EU Taxonomy and hindering the competitiveness of European industries – which despite being compliant with the existing EU chemical framework cannot report the alignment of their products and technologies in activity-specific realities.

Although option 2 provides harmonised classification – thus solving one of the usability issues of the current Appendix C, it fails to resolve the broader legal and practical challenges companies face. Hazard-related classifications of substances and mixtures are already communicated via safety data sheets (SDS), as required under the CLP and REACH Regulations. While SDS are mandatory for substances and mixtures, there is no legal obligation to provide SDS for articles, since articles do not typically release hazardous chemicals during normal use. Furthermore, alternative assessment documentation is not required to be communicated from supplier to supplier since this is confidential business information. Additionally, not every supplier is obliged to perform their own assessment on alternatives. For these reasons, we raise our objections to option 2: it will fail to deliver the needed simplification and undermine the effectiveness of taxonomy as an instrument to mobilise investment mfor economic activities that contribute to the achievement of environmental objectives.

We therefore urge the Commission to delete paragraph f) bis and eliminate disproportionate requirements that hinder the competitiveness of European businesses. This represents a timely opportunity to address the usability issues in Appendix C and ensure that enabling technologies for the green transition are appropriately recognised as Taxonomy-aligned.