Disclosures pursuant to Article 8 of Regulation 2020/852 (Taxonomy Regulation)
The EU Taxonomy is designed to promote investment flows from the finance sector to businesses that are involved in environmentally sustainable activities. It is therefore aimed at helping implement the European Green Deal. As a basis for this, the EU Taxonomy provides a binding definition of the environmental sustainability of activities and investments. The EU Taxonomy Regulation requires companies to report on these economic activities.
Under the EU Taxonomy, the first step is to ascertain the taxonomy-eligible economic activities of a company. These are activities that are covered by the EU Taxonomy and that therefore potentially contribute significantly to achieving the environmental objectives. The second step is to check whether these activities are taxonomy-aligned. An activity is defined as taxonomy-aligned if it meets the technical screening criteria for a significant contribution to at least one environmental objective listed in the Annexes to Delegated Regulations (EU) 2021/2139, (EU) 2022/1214, (EU) 2023/2485, and (EU) 2023/2486. At the same time, it must not do any significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives and must meet the minimum social standards (“minimum safeguards”) set out in Taxonomy Regulation (EU) 2020/852, which in particular require compliance with human and labor rights.
Application of EU Taxonomy simplifications
Delegated Regulation 2026/73 entered into force on January 28, 2026 and applies retrospectively for the 2025 financial year. Its aim is to simplify the application of the EU Taxonomy. Under the Regulation, companies are exempt from assessing taxonomy-eligibility and alignment for economic activities that are not financially material for their business. For non-financial companies, activities are considered financially non-material if they account for less than 10 % of the entity’s total turnover, capital expenditure (capex), or operating expenditure (opex). In addition, non-financial companies are exempt from assessing taxonomy-eligibility and alignment for their entire opex when it is considered non-material for their business model. The Delegated Regulation also contains simplified tables for disclosing the taxonomy KPIs.
Economic activities at Deutsche Telekom under the EU Taxonomy
Deutsche Telekom is a company in the information and telecommunications industry. The EU Taxonomy does not currently include criteria for an economic activity “Provision and operation of electronic communication networks and services.” This means that most of our business model is not covered by the EU Taxonomy. As a result, the EU Taxonomy gives us only limited opportunities to indicate our contribution to climate change mitigation even though our industry makes a substantial contribution to achieving Europe’s digitalization and climate-related targets through the expansion and operation of telecommunications networks.
Similar to in preceding years, Deutsche Telekom again identified taxonomy-eligible economic activities in 2025. In total, they each account for less than 10 % of the Group’s total turnover and capex. The economic activities are therefore considered not financially material and an assessment of their taxonomy-alignment was not carried out for cost-benefit reasons. The economic activities that are not financially material are connected to the “Climate change mitigation” (CCM) and “Transition to a circular economy” (CE) environmental objectives and relate to the following sectors in accordance with the descriptions of activities in the EU Taxonomy:
- Data processing, hosting, and related activities (CCM 8.1) and data-driven solutions for GHG emissions reductions (CCM 8.2)
- Product-as-a-service and other circular use- and result-oriented service models (CE 5.5)
- Transport by motorbikes, passenger cars, and light commercial vehicles (CCM 6.5)
Definition and calculation of the EU Taxonomy KPIs
Turnover according to the EU Taxonomy is equivalent to net revenue in our consolidated income statement contained in the consolidated financial statements.
The relevant capital expenditure was determined on the basis of the consolidated statement of financial position contained in the consolidated financial statements and is determined as the sum of additions under property, plant, and equipment, intangible assets (excluding goodwill), and right-of-use assets. It also includes additions from assets acquired as a result of business combinations and additions recognized under non-current assets and disposal groups held for sale. In line with the EU Taxonomy requirements, the disclosures on capital expenditures do not form part of a capital expenditure (capex) plan.
The EU Taxonomy defines costs that relate to research and development, building remediation measures, short-term leases, maintenance and repair, and any other direct expenditures relating to the day-to-day maintenance of property, plant and equipment as relevant operating expenditure.
We clarified our interpretation of the definition of direct opex in the 2025 financial year for enhanced cross-company comparability of taxonomy reporting. The definition of opex is now in line with standard practice. In prior years, we interpreted taxonomy-relevant opex as expenditure that was directly related to the sale of services and products. Starting from the 2025 financial year, we will expand this interpretation to include operating expenses that are directly attributable to our assets, services, and products and relate directly to research and development, building remediation measures, short-term leases, maintenance and repair, and expenditures relating to the day-to-day maintenance of property, plant and equipment. The total figure for operating expenses has therefore been adjusted retrospectively. For this reason, the opex denominator will retrospectively increase from the EUR 0.4 billion previously reported to EUR 2.9 billion for the 2024 financial year.
Even though taxonomy-relevant opex is now more broadly defined, these expenses are cumulatively not material for Deutsche Telekom’s business model. The cost types in the EU Taxonomy are not individually planned and managed at Group level. Our core business is focused on investments. We recognize costs for large-scale repairs as capital expenditure, which means that operating expenditure for maintenance and repairs is minor. Expenses for short-term leases are also not material because leased assets are mostly recorded as right-of-use assets under capital expenditure. Furthermore, there is no significant expenditure on research and development. Consequently, the opex denominator under the EU Taxonomy is insignificant vis-à-vis Deutsche Telekom’s total operating expenditure. This is the reason why we opted for not assessing taxonomy-eligibility and alignment in accordance with Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/73.
Deutsche Telekom’s total figures used as the basis for calculation in accordance with the EU Taxonomy in the reporting year amounted to EUR 119.1 billion in turnover (2024: EUR 115.8 billion), EUR 29.5 billion in capital expenditure (2024: EUR 25.6 billion), and EUR 3.2 billion in operating expenditure (2024: EUR 2.9 billion).
Because the EU Taxonomy does not yet adequately cover our core business, applying the legally defined materiality thresholds results in economic activities that are not financially material and account for a total of 2.5 % of Deutsche Telekom’s turnover and 1.6 % of its capital expenditure. Given that taxonomy-relevant opex is not material for our business model, taxonomy-eligible and taxonomy-aligned opex will not be disclosed starting from the 2025 financial year.