Taxonomy for Transparency in Non-Financial Statements – Clear Duty With Unclear Sanction

Abstract The updated Directive 2013/34/EU brought a legal duty for large undertakings in the EU to include in their management report a non-financial statement. Considering the UN Agenda 2030, the European Green Deal and Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, there was enacted Regulation (EU) 2020/852 aka Taxonomy Regulation which adds to this reporting duty the information about the environmental sustainability of the economic activities. What does it mean? Who, when and what must disclose and what are the sanctions for that? EU businesses and their stakeholders need answers to these four questions in order to satisfy their legal duty as well as to boost their effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy. A holistic deep content, comparative and contextual analysis with a teleological interpretation is performed and rather surprising answers along with more general observations about EU law and EU policies are proposed. A duty to defined subjects is imposed, but the sanction mechanism is missing.