Does this expression sound familiar to you?

You may recognise it in the context of the EU Taxonomy, the centrepiece of the EU Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth. The “Do No Significant Harm Principle” (DNSH) comes from the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) – the disclosure regulation that applies to providers of financial products.

To decide whether an economic activity is considered taxonomy-compliant, the DNSH principle must be fulfilled in addition to other criteria. This means that the economic activity to be classified does not compromise any of the six environmental objectives. The entire life cycle of the activity must be taken into account.