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Environmental Liability Solutions Europe Ltd.

ELS Europe

ELS Europe is a sustainability consultancy delivering solutions to financial and non-financial organisations.

Lobbying Activity

Response to European climate resilience and risk management law

4 Sept 2025

ELS Europe Ltd. is a market leading consultancy providing sustainable finance and environmental risk management solutions to the finance community and real economy actors. We are pleased to provide our inputs, which focus on three areas relevant to the EUs climate resilience and risk management framework. (1) Adhering to EUs sustainable finance principles Climate resilience is an integral part of sustainable development but may also be a component of development that is not sustainable, such as where climate adaptation efforts cause harm to other environmental or social objectives, or to the adaptation efforts of others. Examples are financial instruments, such as investment portfolios, loans or insurance products that support the climate resilience of: - a fossil fuel exploration activity and significantly harming the mitigation objective; - a facility that causes significant harm to water resources; - projects that participate in undermining minimum social safeguards and respect for human rights. All financial instruments which support climate adaptation and resilience efforts of private and public actors must adhere to the key principles of the EUs Sustainable Finance framework, including the do no significant harm (DNSH) principle, and minimum social safeguards. (2) Scaling up climate resilience finance at pace This includes a wide variety of financial instruments distributed to large companies, small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and public entities, necessary to address climate risks. Climate finance is a key part of Europes climate resilience toolbox including loans, investments, pensions, EU Green Bonds, and re/insurance products. However there remains severe underinvestment. Globally, adaptation costs are estimated at 1018 times as much as current flows of international public adaptation finance. The finance gap is even greater in the private sector where less than 2% of climate resilience finance comes from private sources. The Climate Resilience Dialogue Report acknowledges that early investment in climate resilience saves up to ten times in avoided future losses and this needs to be recognised as a return both in a business and a wider economic sense. Compounding issues are the ongoing delays in decarbonisation at the global level, which are pushing up transition and adaptation costs even further. During 2024 the annual cost of flooding alone in Europe was estimated at 15.6 bn with a five-year moving average of 19 bn and growing. Clearly, public and private finance for climate resilience need to be scaled at pace. Where feasible, action should be undertaken jointly in public-private partnerships to enhance knowledge exchange and risk-sharing. Whether for private, public or joint climate resilience efforts, creditors, investors and re/insurers have a critical role in the provision of climate resilience support. Initiatives that engage financial organisations with companies and public bodies for practical implementation of climate resilience measures both physical and behavioural, need to be prioritised. (3) Transparency for stakeholders to make informed decisions about their financial lifecycle. Every choice a person makes concerning their finances can be used for long-term positive impacts and benefits for businesses, communities, and the natural and built environments. Companies have obligations not only to investors but to other stakeholders such as employees and customers, who as workers, spenders, savers, investors, and pension holders need to readily access information. It is questionable whether information made available through the Sustainable Finance framework is currently sufficient to allow employees for example, to make informed and actionable decisions about their company pensions. The integrated framework must ensure that the financial lifecycle of of stakeholders is considered in the transparency requirements of key actors. Thank you. Please refer to the attached.
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Response to Templates for voluntary post-issuance disclosures for issuers of green bonds or sustainability-linked bonds

9 Jan 2025

ELS Europe Ltd. welcomes the opportunity to participate in the consultation on the draft supplementing Regulation to (EU) 2023/2631 on fees to be charged by ESMA. We lay out the case for a revised supervisory fee structure for micro-enterprises that intend to provide EU Green Bond (EUGB) external review services. References are attached. We ask that supervisory fees take into consideration the particular operational and production challenges faced by micro-enterprises and the adverse impacts of such substantial sums of supervisory fees proposed upon their competitiveness. We point to ESMAs CRA supervisory fee structure which applies only to entities with greater than Euro 10 million turnover, and also the reliance of EU green policy on micro-enterprises. ELS Europe propose a 'triple 5 micro-enterprise solution' of a 5-year time limited exemption on the registration and annual fees for micro-enterprises, a cap of EUR5k registration and application of supervisory fees after EUR5 million turnover. From the beginning, ESMA has welcomed the participation of micro-enterprises (ref. 1). It is no surprise that ESMA would welcome the role of micro-enterprises as external reviewers of EUGBs. Micro-enterprises focused on enabling the shift to a green economy are critical for the EU and international green economy objectives as guided by the EUs Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, among other policy frameworks. In Europe, SMEs make up at least 99% of every industrial ecosystem and of those at least 93% are micro-enterprises employing up to 49 persons (Ref. 2). The independent and specialised expertise provided by micro-enterprises is necessary for the functioning of the green economy, including attaining the objectives of the EUs Green Deal and for EU GB issuances in particular. Micro-enterprises as knowledge bearers and entrepreneurs who are well-prepared to meet future climate and environmental challenges are recognised by the Union in the Green Action Plan for SMEs (Ref. 3) and the Think First Small Principle (Ref. 4). Compared to larger SMEs, a typical micro-enterprise incurs higher operational and production costs associated with labour, capital, admin costs, compliance, energy and recruitment. The proposed supervisory fees do not appear to take into account the different competitive position of micro-enterprises and the impact of increased compliance costs for external reviews. In this context, the registration and annual supervisory fees proposed by ESMA represent a financial barrier to micro-enterprises that wish to enter the EU GB external review market and will inevitably result in their exclusion. At a time when independent and specialised expertise is necessary for the functioning of the green economy, such a barrier will substantially hinder the objectives of the EUs Green Deal and EU GB issuances in particular. Union policy objectives and guidance are in place to help determine the level of fees for micro-enterprises, including SME-friendly provisions for EU legislation (Ref. 5) and the Better Regulation toolbox (Ref. 6), with recommendations for micro-enterprises (Ref. 7). Also, other supervisory fees charged by ESMA, such as the Credit Rating Agency annual fees apply only when revenues are higher than 10 million euros (Ref. 8). Such a fee threshold is unfortunately absent in the proposed EUGB supervisory fees for external reviewers. In conclusion, EMSAs proposed supervisory fees for EUGB external reviewers fail to take into account the resource efficiency challenges that micro-enterprises face. As a result, the fees may be considered prohibitive and anti-competitive towards micro-enterprises. As a matter of urgency, we request that ESMA undertake a review of the proposed fees in such a way to support the inclusion of micro-enterprises as is justified and in-line with Union policy objectives, guidance, other ESMA fee precedents, and market necessities. We are available to discuss.
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Response to European Sustainability Reporting Standards

4 Jul 2023

Date: 4 July 2023 REF.: Ares (2023)4009405-09/06/2023 European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) first set To: European Commission I am grateful for the opportunity to submit ELS Europes expert opinion on the draft ESRS issued on 9 June 2023 for public consultation and will be available for dialogue with the Commission and EFRAG as relevant in connection with ELS Europes comments and recommendations. The comments and recommendations contained in our response attached (ref. ELS Europe_ESRSFeedback_4July23) focus on the draft governance (G1) and environmental (E1 to E5) ESRS and incorporate a range of topics including as examples: definitions, materiality assessment, the characterisation of threshold of materiality, evaluation of impacts and dependencies, characterisation of estimations and proxies, audit and assurance, the allowance of opt-outs, disclosures related to radioactive waste as well as other comments and related recommendations. A considerable number of ELS Europes comments ultimately relate to the Commissions proposal to replace mandatory disclosures with an assessment, opt-in type of approach. It is our view that at a minimum, the Commission should retain EFRAGs technical advice that all the disclosure requirements and data points in the climate standard be mandatory for all undertakings under scope. We also have made other relevant recommendations which we trust are given due consideration prior to finalising this first set of standards Should you wish to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact: Dawn Slevin, MSc., CENV., MCIWM Managing Director, Environmental Liability Solutions Europe Ltd. (ELS Europe) Member of European Commission, Technical Expert Group (TEG) EU Taxonomy Sustainable Finance (2018-2020) Co-Chair of EFRAG Project Task Force on reporting of non-financial risks and opportunities and linkage to the business model and Endorsed for Chair of Sustainability Reporting Board Email: Dawn.slevin@elseurope.eu
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Response to Climate change mitigation and adaptation taxonomy

10 Dec 2020

To whom it concerns, Please find attached my comments in connection with the EU Taxonomy delegated regulations published on 20 November last, summarized in three tables i. General Comments, ii. Mitigation Taxonomy, and iii. Adaptation Taxonomy. Having served as Co-chair of ‘do no significant harm’ of the EU Taxonomy Technical Expert Group on the EU Taxonomy (June 2018 to June 2019) and as an adhoc expert to the TEG (July 2019 to September 2020), I wish to share my expert opinion on key matters summarized below and make recommendations to the Commission accordingly. Please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned should you wish to discuss or clarify any aspect. Yours sincerely, Dawn Slevin.
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