Greenfiling 2019-12-11 Meeting

2019-12-11 Meeting

Stock Exchange Building. Madrid.
List of attendees and participants:

  • Tom Baumann – Co Chairman of the Climate Chain Coalition
  • Ignacio Boixo – eBusiness CG Chair CEN/Eurofiling
  • María Parga Landa – President at Alastria
  • Cristina Martínez Laburta – Chief Legal Officer at Alastria
  • Jaime Cuesta – Project Manager at Alastria
  • Jesús Ruiz – CTO Alastria
  • Iñaki Vázquez – Registrars/Strategic Commission at XBRL Spain
  • Ismael Arribas –KUNFUD/Alastria
  • Francisco Benedito – Co-founder at Climatrade

Ignacio Boixo begins by thanking everyone’s presence, briefly exposing the purpose of the meeting: E.U. Directive 2014/95 (Spanish Law 11/2018) about non-financial information and diversity, establishes a reporting obligation about non-financial information, to medium and large companies and financial entities.

However, the Law does not indicate how this reporting duties should be carried out, which causes a multiplicity of little or no homogeneous formats that hinder its subsequent analysis. Basically, continues Ignacio Boixo, in European financial reporting, the formats are respectively set by the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the European Markets and Securities Authority (ESMA), and publication of each periodic financial report of each entity is in charge of the Officially Appointed Mechanism (OAM) of national scope. There is no European equivalent in the field of non-financial reporting.

The objective is to align the processes, formats and models of publication of financial and non-financial reporting, using:

  1. Greenfiling, open metric green reporting ecosystem, being our initiative that aims to mass adoption of environmental data and indicators in non-financial reports
  2. XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language, the language) based on XML standards, which allows interoperability and analysis of any type of financial and business information over the Internet. It is used by EBA, EIOPA, ESMA, Financial Authorities and a large community of professionals and organizations, public and private. The XBRL standard is managed by the XBRL International Non-Profit Consortium, coordinating a large number of countries, companies and institutions, including the Association of Registrars of Spain and the Bank of Spain
  3. Blockchain, that adds integrity, traceability and non-repudiation to the whole process.

In this point, Tom Baumann introduces himself, exposing his background in Green metrics. Tom Baumann has a large experience with GHG standards. During five years, he has been International Chair of ISO climate change standards (ISO TC207/SC7 GHG management and related issues). Tom Baumann recognizes that the multiplicity of formats hinders the final data analysis. In the same way, Tom Baumann knows the special interest of the European Commission in supporting projects relating focused to standardize the different ways of reporting. Tom Baumann suggests to explore German initiatives with similar projects/actions.

To Ismael Arribas is very important the governance and the interoperability of the future system and reminds to all the attendees his links to INATBA Work Groups.

What is need, continues Ignacio Boixo, is the support of the Policymakers in order to mandate the processes, formats and models of publication of financial reporting. In that sense, María Parga explains that we could have the support of the Bank of Spain, CNMV and Tesoro and Ministry of Economy, and probably the support of the Ministry of Ecological Transition. In this point, Jesús Ruiz reminds the recent statement made by the AEB (Spanish Banks Association) in order to support initiatives relating climate change. To Francisco Benedito and to Jaime Cuesta, this moment is perfect to accelerate the initiative, since that COP25 is taking place in Madrid through these days.

Next steps:

  1. Involving INATBA, because the project needs a global scope starting in Europe. Ismael Arribas.
  2. Involving Spanish Regulators (i.e. the Bank of Spain, CNMV, Treasury, Ministry of Economy, and Ministry of Ecological Transition). María Parga/Ignacio Boixo.
  3. AEB, because the project might start with the banking sector. María Parga/Jesús Ruiz.
  4. Explore the EC Unit in charge of the Guidelines on reporting climate-related information report (https://ec.europa.eu/finance/docs/policy/190618-climate-related-information-reporting-guidelines_en.pdf). Francisco Benedito.
  5. Looking for special supporters of a “Madrid Declaration”. María Parga.

Addendum to the meeting minutes re: Green Open Filing Project

By Tom Baumann

The Climate Chain Coalition (CCC) is an open global multi-stakeholder innovation network for digital solutions to enhance climate actions. The CCC is co-chaired by Tom Baumann and Massamba Thioye (UN Climate Change Secretariat). The CCC has substantial collaboration with Miroslav Polzer of IAAI GloCha (a CCC founding member). Miroslav Polzer is based in Austria and is leading efforts to coordinate CCC activities in Europe in particular, and also Miroslav plays a central role in the planning of the CCC cooperative initiative to establish a global climate action data ecosystem (digital innovation community). The CCC was founded December 2017 and now has approximately 200 organizations from 45+ countries. The CCC is a founding member of INATBA and initiated the formation of a new Climate Action WG within INATBA. (Note – within INATBA, there is strong participation of many members from Germany. As well, German officials play a major role within the EC and particularly the EC digital and climate initiatives. Therefore, some form of cooperation is expected with German partners playing key roles).

Since before the Global Climate Action Summit in September 2018, CCC and core members have cultivated a concept to establish a global climate action data ecosystem to support non-stake actors (companies, individuals) with climate action planning and implementation, climate data services, climate entrepreneurship, MRV, cooperation and partnering to help mobilize climate finance. This cooperative initiative was announced during Climate Week in New York in September 2019, and with additional details of major components then formally announced via press conference on December 9, 2019 during COP25.

Among the core components includes:

  • Formation of a Digital Innovation Community within the UNFCCC process (launched)
  • Plans for a Digital Innovation Pavilion during COP26 in November 2020 (concept is accepted within the UNFCCC secretariat and concept proposal to resource the initiative is in progress)
  • Cooperation with European partners and the UNFCCC to develop plans to establish the global climate action data ecosystem (innovation infrastructure for data and digital solutions for enhanced climate action); this cooperative effort would be synergistic with workstreams to implement the EU Green New Deal

Next steps include:

  • The CCC is initiating an internal planning and reconfiguration process in regards to member groups and workplans
  • Participation in a focused workshop in mid-January 2020 in Brussels with the UNFCCC and European partners (e.g. ClimateKIC, EC, EBSI, ERIC, EIB…)
  • participation in a EPE-organized workshop on January 14 in Brussels as a “Think tank meeting for Blockchains for the European Green Deal and SDGs” (See attached event agenda)
  • Discussions with potential key partners for the global climate action data ecosystem, for example, ADEME and specifically their www.actproject.net as it represents a “next generation metrics” framework for non-financial information related to the low-carbon transition.

Initial proposal from Ismael Arribas in support of the Open Green Filing Project:

As background about the Open Green Filing Project:

  • Green metrics (non-financial information) software system based on XBRL
  • Green metrics include numeric data, text, user-defined formats, etc. with systematized labels and definitions, utilizing the methods and technology of XBRL, to be machine-readable
  • Agnostic/neutral on which “green metrics” can be supported by the system
  • System will become blockchain-enabled via Alastria members RedT to create “XBRLchain”
  • Next steps include development of a taxonomy and indicators during 2020/Q1

The proposal from Ismael – within INATBA link and coordinate among INATBA WGs, specifically

  • Standardization and Interoperability: Ismael Arribas and Joachim (IPDB)
  • Social Impact: Khalid Belghiti
  • Climate Action: Tom Baumann
  • INATBA Board: Maike Gericke

It has already been agreed that the Climate Action WG will have joint groups with different WGs (e.g. Energy, Social Impact, Real Estate). The proposal from Ismael is to form a joint group between Climate Action and Standards and appoint Tom Baumann as leader of the joint group, in order for Tom to serve as the link from INATBA to the Open Green Filing Project as it relates specifically to “climate metrics”. (Note – this is my understanding based on a message from Ismael, so if this is not correct, please clarify).

External to INATBA, the Open Green Filing Project involves cooperation of Alastria, with various partners including but not limited to ClimateTrade, XBRL Spain, CEN/Eurofiling.

The proposal from Ismael is for Alastria and ClimateTrade, as CCC members, to lead the effort of the Open Green Filing Project, in collaboration with CCC. Tom proposes the collaboration should specifically relate to the CCC cooperative initiative with the UNFCCC and partners engaged with the EC for the global climate action data ecosystem. In other words, the Open Green Filing Project would form an important foundation for the global climate action data ecosystem.

Therefore, to summarize Tom’s understanding of roles:

  • Tom as leader of a joint group between INATBA Climate Action WG and Standards WG, serve as a liaison to the Open Green Filing Project (to make XBRLchain and climate metrics)
  • As CCC co-chair, Tom facilitates the involvement of the Open Green Filing Project in the CCC cooperative initiative with European partners on the global climate action data ecosystem.
  • ClimateTrade and Alastria cooperate with their partners to develop the Open Green Filing Project, will also coordinating via Tom with INATBA WGs and with the CCC cooperative initiative