Category: ESG News Smart Read
By now, you have read a few 2025 forecasts. While no one knows the future, 2025 is shaping up to be a difficult year for Climate and Sustainability issues. Regular...
In the festive spirit, I’m channeling Charles Dickens, the man who gave us A Christmas Carol and popularized the holiday season. Another of his classics, A Tale of Two Cities,...
Climate activists and ESG investors are rethinking their strategies for the anti-ESG age. The anti-ESG movement has been building for around three years now, but with the imminent arrival of...
Companies racing to meet the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requirements are now facing an added layer of complexity as the rule is set to be re-opened and potentially...
It wouldn’t be a climate COP without negotiations going down to the wire. This year’s talks will likely go into the wee hours of tomorrow morning as delegates try to...
Follow ESG News on Linkedin In the first EU Parliament hearing since the US election, voices against the EU Green Deal from the right and far-right were louder than ever. Emboldened...
Follow ESG News on Linkedin After 40 years in sustainability, I’ve seen the ebb and flow of government action through many election cycles. Yet, as scientific understanding and public awareness of...
Follow ESG News on Linkedin On Monday, COP16 – the United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity – kicked off in Cali,...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here With the 29th “Conference of the Parties” – (COP29, the global climate confab) – just around the corner, countries are...
Follow ESG News on LinkedIn This week, the EU and the US seemed to swap roles as California advanced its climate disclosure law, maintaining the 2026 reporting deadline for large...
Follow ESG News on LinkedIn The world’s climate experts, influencers, and changemakers descended on New York City for this year’s largest climate event. With more than 100,000 attendees and 600+...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here The SEC’s beleaguered ESG agenda took another hit this week as their Enforcement Division’s Climate & ESG Task Force, set up...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here Tuesday’s US Presidential debate was remarkable for many reasons – but climate was not one of them. However, we listened...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here California made headlines in March 2023 when the legislature sent Governor Gavin Newsom three new climate laws. He signed all three into...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here To say the SEC’s Climate Rule has gone through the wringer would be an understatement. The policy has faced fierce...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here Get out your green eye shades….the next battleground for climate and sustainability is the fast paced world of accounting. For...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here Kamala Harris has a long history of supporting climate policy. This week’s announcement of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate further...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here While there are still many questions about how all of these policies will work and interact, the time for implementation...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here An unprecedented political tsunami hit on Sunday when President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. In just a few days,...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here Last week, we shared how the implementation of California’s climate laws is likely to be delayed for two years. This week, research...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here Governor Gavin Newsom proposed amendments to California climate laws SB 253 and 261 that would postpone implementation by two years and give the...
For more from Tim Mohin, sign up for his newsletter here For 40 years, the “Chevron deference” doctrine has meant that US courts defer to federal agencies’ “reasonable” interpretations in the...
Over the last few years, Europe’s “green deal” produced a plethora of sustainability policies. It seemed like every week, we reported on a new, far-reaching, world-leading sustainability regulation. Now that...
This week, Mexico elected its first female president and the world’s first national leader, who is also a climate scientist. Claudia Sheinbaum has a PhD in energy engineering and was part of...
Almost a year after the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) released its first two standards, they announced this week that more than half of the world’s economy has adopted them....
As the world’s largest trading bloc, the EU uses its considerablepurchasing power to meet its ambitious sustainability goals. In doing so, the EU’s new rules will reach well beyond its...
The age-old debate of whether doomerism or optimism will be more effective in driving the climate agenda forward reared its head again this week. On the doomer side, the pessimists...
The US has issued a raft of new climate policies in recent months as the Biden administration attempts to shield progress against any future government backtracking. This week alone, the EPA finalized a rule...
After a green voting marathon, the EU Parliament closed its final plenary of this term before its June elections. The huge voting sessions yielded a plethora of new policies, including...
Last-minute deals and a series of failed votes threatened to block the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD – also known as the CS3D), but a weakened version squeaked...
In the coming months, half of the world’s population will go to the polls. To say there is a lot at stake would be putting it mildly. Climate advocates are...
In a historic ruling, the European Court of Human Rights decided that Switzerland’s failure to act on climate violates human rights. This was the first time an international court determined that...
In an unprecedented move, late on Thursday, the SEC decided to stay their own rule while the litigation is settled to “avoid any regulatory uncertainty.” Meanwhile, Liberty Energy, a Denver-based fracking company,...
Larry Fink’s annual letters carry a lot of clout. As CEO of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, with over $10 trillion in assets under management (AUM), his annual open...
Europe continued its leadership in sustainability policy with the approval of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) late last week. The new policy requires companies to identify and mitigate...
As the dust settles on last week’s final SEC Climate Disclosure Rule, commentary around the content of the final rule is getting increasingly pointed, and battle lines are being drawn....
Two years after proposing the rule, more than 24,000 comment letters, and a nearly three-hour meeting marked by politically charged statements, the five Securities and Exchange Commissioners voted along party...
The EU has long been the leading edge of sustainability policy – though some might quibble with their approach. But in recent months, European ESG policy has encountered growing opposition...
There is new hope that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will issue its long-awaited climate disclosure rule soon. A draft of the final rule has been circulated to...
This week, the world’s second-largest economy released a mandatory sustainability disclosure regulation for its three largest stock exchanges. Beginning in 2026, large companies listed on the Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing...
Europe announced a sweeping new proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040, ahead of their 2050 carbon-neutral goal. The European Commission made the announcement on Tuesday ahead...
This week, tractors blocked highways across France, conducting “the siege of Paris,” partly in protest of unfair environmental standards driven by the EU Green Deal. Similar protests were seen across...
The Doomsday Clock, created back in 1947 by J. Robert Oppenheimer, remained at 90 seconds before midnight this week as concerns over war, climate, mass migration, the influence of AI,...
Global elites and world leaders met in Davos for the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual event. The wintery conditions belied the largely snowless Alps and a worrying downward trend in...
What’s in a name? Apparently, a lot! A viral WSJ article this week, “The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG,” showed how Corporate America is turning away from ESG...
And we are back! Here’s hoping you had a joyous and restful holiday break. To kick off the year, we reflect on some of the biggest ESG and Climate News...
Are COPs the most efficient means to manage the global climate crisis? No. But, it is the process we have. And, with close to 200 countries representing eight billion souls,...
Another COP – Conference of the Parties – is upon us. As the 28th COP gets underway, climate negotiators from nearly 200 nations are arriving for two weeks of negotiations...
Europe is often perceived as ahead of the US when it comes to climate action. While political polarization over environmental issues grabs the headlines, the US has been on a...
With COP 28 less than two weeks away, an agreement between the US and China builds momentum for a constructive conference. The agreement is to “recall, reaffirm, and commit” to joint efforts...
With so many new ESG standards and regulations announced in 2023, many fear that disclosures would be incomparable and inconsistent. Thankfully, this “year of interoperability” marched forward when CDP announced an...
SEC Chair Gary Gensler was forced once again to come to the defense of the Commission’s long-awaited climate disclosure rule. This time, it was in front of a US Chamber of Commerce...
Has the ESG backlash hit Europe? After spearheading the climate and sustainability agenda for years, a proposal to block Europe’s ESG reporting rules was narrowly defeated, and another proposal to...
The year of new ESG frameworks and standards continues, and I am beginning to wonder if the ‘alphabet soup’ is re-thickening. This week, The UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) released...
The EU has officially launched the first phase of its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the world’s first carbon tariff. The first phase of the CBAM targets imports of emissions-intensive products, including...
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