Response to consultation on Implementing Technical Standards on amended disclosure requirements for ESG risks, equity exposures and aggregate exposure to shadow banking entities
2. Do you have any comments on the simplified set of information for Other listed institutions and Large subsidiaries?
We would appreciate a clarification on the application and the scope for a Bank that is a large non-listed institution and a large subsidiary. Namely, a Bank is the largest financial institution within the Group and a credit institution controlled by the EU parent financial holding company prepares the document Disclosures under Part 8 of the Regulation CRR at the highest level of consolidation. However, the Bank discloses also on a sub-consolidated level. Please clarify if this disclosure obligation applies also for Disclosures for Article 449a? Does the Bank need to comply with the Pillar 3 ESG risk disclosures requirements for large non-listed institutions or just as large subsidiary. Or both?
3. Do you have any comments on the simplified set of information proposed for SNCI and other non-listed institutions?
We would like to receive a clarification regarding the ESG disclosure obligations for small and non-complex institutions (SNCIs) and other non-listed institutions, in relation to the subject CP.
Point 38 of the CP states that ESG disclosure requirements under the Pillar 3 ITS do not apply to these institutions until the reference date of 31 December 2026. Furthermore, point 39 encourages competent authorities to allow flexibility during the transitional period and not to require additional disclosures if institutions choose to apply the proposed transitional approach.
Based on this, we kindly ask you to confirm whether our understanding is correct that, for institutions falling under the category of SNCIs and/or other non-listed institutions:
- There is no obligation to report ESG disclosures under the currently applicable ITS for the reference date of 31 December 2025, and
- The reporting obligation will commence only as of the reference date of 31 December 2026, in line with the new CRR3 framework and amended ITS.
For further context, we refer to point 40, which highlights the purpose of the transitional provisions—to avoid unnecessary ESG disclosure obligations for institutions that were not previously subject to Pillar 3 requirements.
5. Do you have any comments on the transitional provisions and on the overall content of section 3.5 of the consultation paper?
The transitional provisions provide postponement of the disclosure obligation under templates 6–10 until 31 December 2026 for banks classified as "large listed" or "large non-listed institutions" under the CRR. The disclosure obligation applies only to those banks that are required to prepare disclosures under the Delegated Disclosure Act based on Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation. However, this article applies solely to entities that are obliged to prepare a sustainability report under the CSRD.
We believe that the date of 31 December 2026 is not aligned with the postponement date set out in the "Stop the Clock Directive«, which postponed the obligation to report under the CSRD by two years. Banks falling under the so-called second wave of CSRD reporting entities will report for the first time only in 2028 for the financial year 2027.
In practice, this means that many banks may be required to disclose information under templates 6–10 as of 31 December 2026, even though they have not yet started reporting under the CSRD, due to the postponement granted by the Stop the Clock Directive.
We therefore propose aligning the deferral period with the CSRD timeline.
We appreciate the inclusion of the transitional provisions to adapt to the revised ESG disclosure requirements, particularly the suspension of Green Asset Ratio (GAR) and EU Taxonomy-related disclosures in templates 6-10 until the end of 2027.
10. Do you have any views with regards to NACE code K – Telecommunication, computer programming, consulting, computing infrastructure and other information service activities, and in particular K 63 - Computing infrastructure, data processing, hosting and other information service activities, whether these sectors should be rather allocated in the template under section Exposures towards sectors that highly contribute to climate change?
We believe the majority of the GHG emissions in this sector derives from used energy mix. The energy producers already report their GHG emissions and the sustainability transition should be directed towards energy production from renewable sources. Allocation of K-sector under Exposures towards sectors that highly contribute to climate change would be inconsistent and would entail a risk of double counting. Thus, we suggest NOT to allocate the K-sector under Exposures towards sectors that highly contribute to climate change.
12. Do you have any further comments on Template 1?
(d) companies that derive 1% or more of their revenues from exploration, mining, extraction, distribution or refining of hard coal and lignite:
05.10
Mining of hard coal
05.20
Mining of lignite
19.10
Manufacture of coke oven products
(e) companies that derive 10% or more of their revenues from the exploration, extraction, distribution or refining of oil fuels:
06.10
Extraction of crude petroleum
09.10
Support activities for petroleum and natural gas extraction
19.20
Manufacture of refined petroleum products and fossil fuel products
46.81
Wholesale of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels and related products
47.30
Retail sale of automotive fuel
49.50
Transport via pipeline
(f) companies that derive 50% or more of their revenues from the exploration, extraction, manufacturing or distribution of gaseous fuels:
06.20
Extraction of natural gas
09.10
Support activities for petroleum and natural gas extraction
20.11
Manufacture of industrial gases
35.21
Manufacture of gas
35.22
Distribution of gaseous fuels through mains
35.23
Trade of gas through mains
35.24
Storage of gas as part of network supply services
46.81
Wholesale of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels and related products
49.50
Transport via pipeline
(g) companies that derive 50% or more of their revenues from electricity generation with a GHG intensity of more than 100 g CO2 e/kWh:
35.11
Production of electricity from non-renewable sources
Regarding financed emissions
If Scope 2 emissions are to be reported, we suggest an update to the instructions so it is clear which Scope 2 emissions are to be considered when reported by clients: Market or Location based?
16. Should Template 2 in addition include separate information on EPC labels estimated and about the share of EPC labels that can be estimated?
We believe we should keep the reporting as simple as possible so we suggest not to add a column or row “the share of EPC labels that can be estimated” in the Template 2.
20. Do you have any further comments on Template 2?
- We would appreciate a clarification regarding the “institutions shall disclose the gross carrying amount of exposures grouped by energy performance buckets based on the specific energy consumption of the collateral in kWh/m2, as indicated in the EPC label of the collateral”. In Slovenia, EPC label is based on “Heating energy demand” of the building. In columns b) to g), should institutions report the “Heating energy demand”? Or should all institutions report the “Primary energy demand” in these columns? We suggest the latter.
- There are differences between EU countries in EPC label calculation methodologies, especially regarding the label thresholds. For example, in Slovenia, a building with Heating energy demand of 74,55 kWh/m2a belongs to class D whereas in Croatia it belongs to class C. Thus, we suggest to delete columns h) to o) or at least postpone the reporting of EPC label until all countries adopt the renewed EPBD directive and the calculation of EPC label is based on primary energy demand and the class thresholds are unified within EU.
21. Do you have any comments on Template 3?
We would appreciate if the publication of the NACE codes for the 18 TCFD sub-sectors is included in the instructions.
Perhaps the updated table from the previous version of Template 3 could be useful, but with only NACE 4-digit codes (rev 2.1) to avoid ambiguities (please see the table on pages 5 and 5 in the attached letter).
25. Do you have any comments on the proposal using NUTS level 3 breakdown for Large institutions and NUTS level 2 for Other listed institutions and Large subsidiaries? Would NUTS level 2 breakdown be sufficient for Large institutions as well?
We understand one of the basic ideas of the latest changes in ESG regulations is simplification and the reduction of the administrative burden. A breakdown by sector of economic activity (NACE classification) AND by geography of location of the activity of the counterparty or of the collateral is a step in the opposite direction as it would incur 12 templates for physical risks only. We suggest the Template 5 to be simplified so it will either:
- be similar to Template CRFR2 (exposures subject to physical risk) of “A framework for the voluntary disclosure of climate-related financial risks”, published by Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on 13 June 2025; or
- show only breakdown by sector of economic activity, without geographical breakdown.