ÖBB Annual Report 2023

143 Group Management Report Österreichische Bundesbahnen-Holding Aktiengesellschaft Consolidated Financial Statements | Group Management Report 98 The publication of a Sustainable Finance Framework in the 2023 financial year saw ÖBB as a Group create a document that integrates sustainability parameters into the forms of financing used by the Group. It is to apply to the ÖBB companies that are active on the capital market and have an ESG rating and are yet to be equipped with one. Transparency and openness regarding sustainable finance products help to sustainably strengthen their credibility vis-à-vis the relevant capital providers. Furthermore, a sustainable-linked syndicated loan with a volume of approx. EUR 500.0 million was successfully implemented for Rail Cargo Austria AG for the first time in 2023. Outlook for 2024 The annual revolving rating process for obtaining ESG ratings will be continued in 2024. The partial use of sustainable finance products – for the Group companies with an ESG rating and Rail Equipment GmbH & Co KG – is to be stepped up further. In addition, new financing will be targeted at the sustainable financing market with the support of the Sustainable Finance Framework. The fundamental strategy regarding future financing partners will also be further developed in 2024. This should be done with regard to how the respective financing partners deal with the topic of “sustainability” in order to set standards for further cooperation with all partners on the financial market. Voluntary implementation of the EU Taxonomy Regulation in the ÖBB Group Disclosure pursuant to Article 8 EU Taxonomy Regulation High levels of investment are required to achieve the goals of the EU Green Deal and achieve an effective transformation towards a more sustainable economy. Countries are unable to finance this transformation independently. Additional private investment is needed. The EU action plan “Financing sustainable growth” with ten measures was developed based on these findings. The most important of these is the introduction of a standardised classification system for environmentally sustainable activities – the so-named EU Taxonomy Regulation (EU Taxonomy Regulation). This is intended to promote the channelling of capital flows into environmentally sustainable investments and activities and to avoid greenwashing. In July 2020, the EU Taxonomy Regulation (2020/852) was published. This states that economic activities are environmentally sustainable if they make a substantial contribution to achieving at least one environmental objective, do not have a significant negative impact on any other environmental objective and comply with minimum social protection standards. The EU Taxonomy contains a total of six environmental objectives (Art. 9 EU Taxonomy). These are climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, transition to a circular economy, pollution prevention and control, protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems. A simplified implementation (simplification provision) was applied for the first reporting year 2021. In the first year of reporting, the non-financial companies concerned only needed to conduct an evaluation of the taxonomy capability (Article 8 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation) of their economic activities on the basis of the first two environmental objectives (climate change mitigation and adaptation). The publication included the disclosure of the shares of revenue, CapEx and OpEx for taxonomy-eligible and taxonomy-non-eligible economic activities. Since the 2022 financial year, the share of taxonomy-compliant and taxonomy-non-compliant economic activities are to be disclosed in the form of key performance indicators. As in the 2022 financial year, the shares of taxonomy-eligible economic activities for the first two environmental targets (climate change mitigation and adaptation) will be disclosed in the 2023 financial year in the form of key performance indicators (revenue, CapEx, OpEx). In addition, the shares of taxonomy-eligible economic activities are disclosed for the other four environmental targets and for the new activities added to the two climate targets in Yune 2023. The determination of the share of taxonomy-compliant economic activities for the other four environmental objectives is not required for the 2023 financial year in accordance with Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2486 - for Sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, Transition to a circular economy, Pollution prevention and control, Protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems. The key performance indicators were determined in the 2023 financial year using the same methodology as in the previous year, which also involved updating the impact analysis for all six environmental targets. MR98 |