Consultation is open until 30 October, 2026.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to provide feedback during the consultation.
We will publish a summary of the feedback received and the consultation outcomes in due course.
The final NZ Taxonomy Construction and Buildings Criteria will be published for voluntary use early next year.
Public consultation on the Energy sector criteria is expected open in June 2026.
Public consultation on the Construction & Buildings sector criteria will open later in the year.
This page will be updated when consultations open.
Click the links below to navigate to the relevant sections of this page.
The NZ Taxonomy is a classification system. It defines economic activities that contribute to an environmental objective, alongside criteria to assess the performance of those activities.
It is a voluntary tool for investors, lenders, businesses, and other decision-makers seeking to identify green- or transition-aligned opportunities.
By providing clear, credible, and consistent criteria for identifying environmentally sustainable activities, the NZ Taxonomy is intended to help market participants identify sustainable investment opportunities, reduce greenwashing risks, lower transaction costs and friction, and support capital allocation decisions that contribute to New Zealand’s sustainable future.
A well-designed NZ Taxonomy is also intended to support New Zealand businesses in attracting capital, demonstrating alignment with global customer expectations, showcasing sustainability performance, and enabling efficient access to global markets.
This consultation:
Following a series of workshops with the advisory and expert groups between October 2025 and May 2026, the criteria for the Energy sector have been drafted. This draft is now being shared for wider stakeholder feedback through public consultation from Monday 8 June to Friday 10 July.
Revisions will be made by the technical groups based on the feedback received, and the criteria will be finalised by the end of 2026.
The NZ Taxonomy includes critiera for activities which contribute to the goals for climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation and resilience (A&R).
The prioritisation of the climate change mitigation goals reflects the urgent market need for credible and usable guidance to identify activities that are aligned with, or make a substantial contribution towards, achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goals. It also supports interoperability with international taxonomies and consistency with sustainability-related disclosure frameworks, which have similarly prioritised climate change mitigation to date.
The climate change A&R criteria provide further options for NZ Taxonomy alignment and are intended to support investment in activities that help New Zealand businesses to increase their adaptive capacity and build resilience in a changing climate.
Taxonomies assess the performance of activities against one environmental objective at a time (assessed by the Substantial Contribution Criteria), while providing protections against perverse outcomes for other environmental objectives (assessed by Do No Significant Harm Criteria) and social outcomes (assessed by the Minimum Social Safeguards). By following this structure the NZ Taxonomy aligns appropriately with other taxonomies globally.
It provides decision-useful information by setting clear criteria for what effective climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience look like.
It is at the discretion of any business owner/operator if they wish to undertake any of these activities. Likewise, it is at the discretion of any financial institution or investor if they wish to use this information in capital allocation decisions.
By responding to the consultation on the drafted criteria, you can ensure that future NZ Taxonomy users have a fulsome, robust and credible framework available to them.
The Ministry for Cities, the Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT) provides government oversight, with key financial markets regulators providing the Government quality assurance function.
A Technical Expert Group provides strategic direction, oversight and final endorsement of the criteria.
A sector-specific Technical Advisory Group provides technical input and feedback on the sector’s proposed criteria.
The Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) is the technical partner for the NZ Taxonomy development. CBI has contributed to the development of more than twenty sustainable finance taxonomies globally, including in the EU, Singapore, Brazil and Australia.
CSF provides coordination and secretariat functions for the development of the NZ Taxonomy.
In 2024, an Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) made a series of recommendations regarding the taxonomy purpose, design principles and priorities, to the Minister of Climate Change.
The NZ Taxonomy design principles:
Excluded from this consultation are the pan-sectoral components, including the process-based approach to climate change A&R, and generic DNSH and MSS criteria and guidance, which have been previously consulted on and finalised.
The climate change mitigation Substantial Contribution (SC) criteria set out the thresholds and requirements that an economic activity or measure must meet to be classified NZ Taxonomy aligned under the climate change mitigation objective.
Through this consultation, we are seeking feedback on the SC criteria, including whether they are appropriate for achieving the purpose of the NZ Taxonomy of directing and mobilising capital to activities that are aligned with the long term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement (limiting warming as close as possible to 1.5°C), and whether they strike an appropriate balance between credibility, usability and interoperability.
Areas where input is particularly sought are:
As well as feedback on all other areas of the drafted criteria.
NZ Taxonomy Construction and Buildings sector climate change mitigation Substantial Contribution criteria
The Construction and Buildings sector Whitelist provides a list of low-risk, pre-approved climate change A&R measures that can be applied to an activity to substantially increase its adaptive capacity and resiliency.
Measures included on the Whitelist are automatically deemed eligible for NZ Taxonomy Green-alignment and do not require a full assessment against the Process-Based Approach (PBA) or the Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) criteria.
For more information on the NZ Taxonomy’s two-pronged approach to climate change A&R—including what the Whitelist is, what it is not, and how it differs from the PBA—please refer to the introduction to these criteria.
In this consultation, we are seeking feedback on the suitability of the proposed whitelisted measures for NZ’s Construction and Buildings sector, as well as any additional measures that should be considered.
NZ Taxonomy Construction and Buildings sector climate change adaptation and resilience Whitelist
The DNSH criteria ensure an activity that makes a substantial contribution to one of the NZ Taxonomy’s environmental objectives (e.g., climate change mitigation) does not cause significant harm to any of the NZ Taxonomy’s other environmental objectives.
They are not intended to achieve positive environmental change by themselves, but rather to, prevent adverse (negative) environmental impacts.
NZ Taxonomy’s DNSH framework consists of generic and activity-specific criteria. Generic DNSH criteria are principles-based and apply consistently across sectors. Activity-specific DNSH criteria are tailored for individual activities and their material impacts.
It is intended that users of the NZ Taxonomy demonstrate alignment with the Substantial Contribution (SC) criteria for one environmental objective (i.e., the objective to which the activity is making a substantial contribution), and demonstrate DNSH compliance for the remaining five environmental objectives.
Areas where input is particularly sought are:
NZ Taxonomy Construction and Buildings sector activity-specific Do No Significant Harm criteria
The public consultation is open from Monday 5 October till 5pm NZT, Friday 30 October 2026.
All feedback will be reviewed and analysed by the Climate Bonds Initiative (technical partner) and the Centre for Sustainable Finance: Toitū Tahua (secretariat), and considered in consultation with the TEG and the Construction and Buildings TAG.
Submissions will be anonymised in the public summary.
A recorded webinar will be released approximately one month after the consultation closes to share key themes from the feedback, outline how the technical partner and expert groups have responded, and explain the resulting decisions. Consultation respondents will be notified when it is available.
If you have any questions about the consultation or would like to submit a general response via email, please contact taxonomy@sustainablefinance.nz.
CSF provides the coordination and secretariat function for the development of the NZ Taxonomy.
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Financing sustainable growth in Aotearoa New Zealand.
A classification system for sustainable economic activities.
Accelerating financing solutions for affordable, abundant clean energy.
Guidance for SMEs to start sustainability reporting.
Promoting greater options for New Zealand investors
