Draft green finance criteria. pinfa input that the significant environmental impacts of fire safety should be considered. pinfa emphasised that fire has not only human and economic costs, but also important environmental consequences, both local (smoke and soot, polluted extinction waters, etc.) and global (impacts of response, replacement of damaged buildings and contents, site remediation, etc.), see pinfa Newsletter n°141. Fires also reduce the service life of installations and buildings, which is contrary to the Taxonomy’s Circular Economy objectives. The proposed criteria for electrical and electronics manufacturing (Annex II 1.2) exclude (with exceptions) halogenated materials in the finished product. pinfa underlines that PIN (phosphorus, inorganic and nitrogen based) flame retardant solutions are available to ensure fire safety in modern performance materials. A number of PIN flame retardants have been validated as low-risk and preferable for use by independent assessments (Denmark EPA Lous 2016, ENFIRO 2013, LIFE-FLAREX 2018, GreenScreen, Öko-Tex, TCO …) and are compatible with end-of-life recycling (see www.pinfa.eu/media-events/pinfa-academy).
pinfa regrets that fire safety is not specified in the proposed EU Taxonomy criteria for manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment (Annex II 1.2 ), for buildings (Annex II 3.1 + 3.2), for plastic packaging (Annex II 1.1, for e.g. pallets and films for transport and construction sites) and for spare parts (Annex II 5.2).
pinfa input 3rd May 2023 , on EU “Have Your Say” website: HERE
“Sustainable investment – EU environmental taxonomy”, EU public consultation (closed 3rd May 2023) and draft Delegated Regulation establishing further Technical Screening Criteria for the EU ‘Taxonomy’ Regulation 2020/852 HERE.
See also: European Commission taxonomy and sustainable finance web page HERE and EU Taxonomy Navigator online tool HERE.