Products

This interactive and practical course, “Introduction to Sustainable Finance Taxonomies”, provides an overview of sustainable finance taxonomies, their relevance, purpose, and different use cases. It explains the core elements of taxonomies and introduces principles and good practices for their development. It shows how theory is applied in practice through in-depth case studies and real-world examples from China, Colombia, the EU, and South Africa. This is a self-paced course that takes 4–5 hours on average to complete.

The course is divided into four modules:

• Module 1: An Overview of Sustainable Finance Taxonomies
• Module 2: Taxonomies in Practice: the EU and China
• Module 3: Principles of Taxonomy Development
• Module 4: Taxonomy Development Principles in Practice: South Africa and Colombia

This course was developed on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It was created by the GIZ Financial Systems Development, Sustainable Finance, and Investment Sector Project in cooperation with the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network (SBFN).

This course is aimed primarily at policymakers, including key ministerial staff, regulators, central bankers, capital market authorities and their advisors, who are interested in learning how to set up and develop sustainable finance taxonomies. By outlining the core elements and use cases of taxonomies, the course also provides important information for the real economy, including financial and non-financial companies that may need to report on the taxonomy alignment of their business activities in the future.

The e-learning course was launched in 2023. As of December 2023, more than 6,000 users have registered, and more than 1,000 certificates of completion have been issued.

"The introduction to sustainable finance taxonomies course has been an excellent learning
experience for me. The course structure is well-designed, making it easy to grasp the
concepts of sustainable finance taxonomies. Prior to taking this course, I had a misconception
that taxonomies solely revolved around taxing regulations. However, this course has provided
me with a fresh perspective and has inspired me to delve deeper into these areas."

"Thanks a lot for the great efforts for making Climate finance knowledge easy and accessible."

"I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this course and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in sustainable finance and taxonomies. […] I liked the combinations of sources, text and videos instead of only video learning course. This is quite simple and motivates me to dive deeper into sustainable finance."