Skip to main content
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

This week’s ESG news covers the rise in sustainable debt as investors pile into green bonds and the continued pushback faced by the EU’s ESG rulebook. Meanwhile, as investors become increasingly sceptical about the power of ethical investing, the 2021 launch of the GFANZ now seems to be the watermark of the ESG trend.
Verity Snow
June 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

More on the decline of ESG investing this week, as well as the ethics of boycotts, and the future of carbon offsetting. Investor Baillie Gifford was forced to pull funding from book festivals after facing pressure from protestors over its fossil fuel ties, calling into question the ethics of boycotts. Meanwhile, Wall Street backers are confident that the struggling carbon credit market will recover.
Verity Snow
June 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

Poor performance, ESG culture wars and new EU rules have all affected sustainability-focussed funds resulting in news of more substantial outflows this week. Elsewhere, the ECB takes a tough stance on climate change as it introduces fines over the failure of banks to deal with climate change.
Verity Snow
June 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

This week, news that ESG funds are suffering severe outflows for the first time ever dominated the discourse. Elsewhere the SBTi remains at the centre of a fierce debate over carbon offsets that it set to have major implications for corporate climate action, and the need to separate climate risk and financial risk grows.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

ESG news this week was focused around the social risks of renewable energy and carbon removal projects, and the impact of slowing electric vehicles sales on banking climate strategies. Elsewhere, new research from Morgan Stanley shows that 80% of companies see sustainability as a key driver of profit.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

In this week’s ESG news, sentiment grows against ExxonMobil’s CEO after the oil supermajor pursued legal action against shareholder groups demanding more climate action. In the UK, sustainable finance policy rollbacks reportedly threaten billions of pounds of funding and a new trend of ‘impact-washing’ is set to threaten the sustainable finance sector.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

There were debates this week around whether ‘Big Tobacco’ belongs in ESG funds while new research suggests that financed emissions disclosures (those attributed to a financial institution when investing in another company or asset) are more of a distraction to tackling climate change. In the UK, the government’s climate plans have again been deemed ‘unlawful’.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

This week, the EU delayed the implementation of some ESG reporting requirements and as EU investors pour money into defence exchange trade funds (ETFs), these investments don’t seem to be the ESG pariah they once were.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

Greenwashing was the theme of this week’s ESG news as the FCA confirmed that it will be going ahead with the implementation of stricter anti-greenwashing rules, and new research shows that strong climate rhetoric doesn’t always match up with sustainability performance. And news that net flows into EU ESG Exchange Trade Funds halved during the first quarter, is further evidence of the existential crisis facing ESG investing.
Verity Snow
April 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

Carbon cost was on this week’s ESG agenda as the IMF and World Bank gathered for their 2024 spring meetings. The estimated cost of climate change, and new guidelines on carbon credits were this week’s biggest stories. Elsewhere, an interview with BlackRock’s former ESG chief sheds light on the future of ESG investing.
Verity Snow
April 2024