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Funds Europe: The European Securities and Markets Authority’s (Esma) new ESG fund naming guidelines have led to rebranding, particularly among passive funds, though most strategies have remained intact, according to data provider Morningstar.
Investment Executive: Europe’s financial regulators are consulting on a common approach to incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into stress testing across the financial sector.
OneStop ESG: Greenbelt Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Austin, Texas, has just sealed a massive $1 billion for its first-ever fund, Greenbelt Capital Partners III, hitting its hard cap and blowing past its original $750 million goal.
ESG Today: The European Council announced an agreement by EU member states on the Council’s negotiating position on the Omnibus proposal to simplify and reduce sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements for companies.
ESG Dive: U.S. policy has changed swiftly on climate, energy and ESG issues since Trump took office. The administration has prioritized fossil fuel production and infrastructure expansion while scaling back Environmental Protection Agency oversight and reducing federal support for renewable energy, among other shifts, the report noted.
ESG Today: Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) announced that it has invested $30 million in energy sector-focused methane management solutions provider Insight M, leading a growth equity funding round in the company.
ESG News: Italian energy giant Eni has sold a 20% stake in its retail and renewables arm, Plenitude, to U.S. alternative investment firm Ares Management Corp. for approximately €2 billion ($2.3 billion).
Funds Europe: Tensions between Israel and Iran are sending shockwaves through global markets. Investors are growing more cautious, closely watching oil-driven inflation, shifting safe-haven flows and uncertainty around central bank decisions.
BNN Bloomberg: It’s been a year now since a new law took effect that requires companies to back up their environmental claims, but there’s still a lot of unknowns about how the anti-greenwashing rules will play out.
Funds Europe: EU ESG Ucits funds are projected to top €11 trillion in assets by 2028, accounting for over 80% of total Ucits assets under management (AuM), according to a report from PwC Luxembourg.
ESG News: In a formal letter to Commissioner Jessika Roswall, the European People’s Party (EPP) has called for the complete withdrawal of the EU’s proposed Green Claims Directive (GCD), citing significant concerns over administrative burden, legal coherence, and lack of regulatory justification.
Portfolio Adviser: The Goldman Sachs Emerging Markets Green and Social Bond Active UCITS ETF invests mainly in fixed income across corporate and sovereign issuers in emerging markets, where issuers intend to allocate the proceeds for green or social contributions.
ESG Dive: The world’s largest banks increased fossil fuel financing by $162.5 billion year-over-year in 2024, reversing course on decreasing investments in the sector — a trend they followed for the past two consecutive years — according to the latest Banking on Climate Chaos report just released.
ESG News: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally withdrawn two proposed rules central to the Biden-era ESG regulatory agenda—one requiring enhanced ESG disclosures from investment advisers, and another revising the shareholder proposal and resubmission process.
CBC: Some corporate leaders say new anti-greenwashing legislation has had the unintended effect of dissuading companies from taking climate action. But environmental organizations and others say that's a cop out.
ESG Today: The Australian Sustainable Finance Institute (ASFI) announced the release of the Australian sustainable finance taxonomy, a new voluntary classification system for categorizing green and transition-focused economic activities, aimed at improving transparency and facilitating capital flows towards Australia’s climate goals.
Yahoo Finance: As venture capital investors look to profit from Europe’s defence spending boom, speculators hunting for the next unicorn need to navigate hurdles such as EU sustainability guidelines and difficulties for start-ups in a market dominated by large prime contractors.
Business Wire: KKR, a leading global investment firm, announced the signing of definitive agreements to acquire Zenith Energy (“Zenith” or the “Company”), a leading independent power producer (“IPP”), from a consortium including Pacific Equity Partners, OPSEU Pension Trust (“OPTrust”), and Foresight Group (together the “Consortium”), with Zenith’s founder and management retaining a minority stake.
ESG News: The European Parliament’s lead negotiator on the Omnibus regulatory package, Jörgen Warborn of the European People’s Party (EPP), has released a proposal calling for significantly deeper cuts to the EU’s sustainability reporting obligations than those originally suggested by the European Commission.
ESG Dive: The Science Based Targets initiative, an organization that validates that corporate sustainability goals align with leading climate science, released a draft revision of its Corporate Net-Zero Standard this spring that proposed substantial changes to the scope of the prior framework for setting climate targets.
Yahoo Finance: According to a new comprehensive report from The Insight Partners, the global investor ESG software market is observing significant growth owing to the focus on innovation in ESG software and integration with generative AI.
Funds Europe: The future of ESG is not about labels but about outcomes. That’s the key message from Christophe Girondel, deputy CEO of Nordic asset manager Nordea Asset Management, who says that despite growing media skepticism around ESG, demand from institutional clients remains strong and focused on long-term impact.
ESG Today: Most investors globally are shifting focus outside of the U.S. to find climate-related investment opportunities following the election of Donald Trump, and expect the new administration’s policies to negatively impact global net zero progress and their own portfolio decarbonization goals, according to a new survey released by international asset manager Robeco.
ESG Dive: Gaurav Raniwala, global renewable energy leader at GE Vernova, said that financing had previously relied on the tax equity market, which “was limited in capacity. The industry wanted to be bigger.”
MSN/Reuters: A lawyer for BlackRock said that Republican states' claim that asset managers violated antitrust law through industry climate groups was not "plausible," as the firms pressed to have the case dismissed.
ESG Today: Canada’s Competition Bureau announced the release of its final guidelines on environmental claims, aimed at helping companies to comply with new anti-greenwashing laws when making claims about the environmental benefits or attributes of products or businesses.
Benefits Canada: Institutional investors are moving away from standard environmental, social and governance factors, according to a new report by Morningstar Inc.
Green Central Banking: The administration of US president Donald Trump has announced that it plans to overturn a rule that allows pension funds to consider ESG factors when making investment decisions and exercising shareholder voting rights.
Investing.com: TPG Rise Climate, the climate investing platform of global alternative asset management firm TPG Inc, is set to acquire a majority stake in Aurora Energy Research.
MSN/Reuters: Texas removed BlackRock from a list of companies seen as boycotting the energy industry, a step the New York asset manager won only with steep cuts to its climate ambitions.
ESG Today: A public-private coalition of major financial institutions and governments has revealed its plans to launch a dedicated company aimed at accelerating private investment in sustainable development projects across emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).
MSN/Reuters: Citigroup said it was rolling back a 2018 policy that placed restrictions on providing banking services to retail clients selling firearms, citing recent regulatory developments.
Yahoo Finance: The venture capital model honed and perfected in Silicon Valley is proving a bad fit for the clean tech industry, and investors should instead accept that they’ll need to commit much bigger sums of money for longer periods of time.
ESG Dive: Vanguard first launched its proxy voting choice pilot in February 2023 with three eligible equity funds, before including two additional index funds for the 2024 proxy season and adding three more in November to bring the total to eight eligible funds.
Funds Europe: London-based sustainability analytics platform GaiaLens has launched a solution designed to cut ESG reporting times for financial institutions by “up to 6000 hours annually”.
ESG News: 80% of companies are reworking ESG strategies amid changing political and regulatory landscapes. Over half are shifting language, with many dropping the term “ESG” entirely. 90% foresee continued or increasing resistance—especially toward climate commitments.
ESG News: Previously focused on use-of-proceeds financing such as green bonds and sustainability-linked loans, the bank will now include comprehensive entity-level assessments as the basis for financing.
Climate Action: The fifth edition of BNP Paribas’ biennial ESG study, “Industry Survey: Institutional Investors Leading the Way”, captures the views of 420 asset owners, asset managers and private capital firms, representing an estimated USD 33.8 trillion assets under management across 29 countries.
ESG Dive: The Biden administration’s Labor Department finalized the rule, “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights,” in 2022, and it has been in effect since January 2023. At the time, the agency said the rule overturned guidance from the first Trump administration which had a “chilling effect” on fiduciaries.
PR Newswire: Significant policy changes are reshaping how many companies approach sustainability, according to a new survey by The Conference Board. 80% of surveyed sustainability executives say their companies are adjusting their ESG strategies in response to the new administration.
ESG Dive: Texas Attorney General Paxton initially filed the lawsuit against the nation’s three largest asset managers in November, supported by 10 other Republican-led states. The lawsuit alleges BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street acquired “substantial” holdings in public coal companies and then pushed those companies to reduce their output.
ESG News: The European Union’s Ombudswoman has opened an inquiry into the European Commission’s recent proposal to relax corporate sustainability rules—following accusations that the process lacked transparency and excluded public consultation.
ESG Today: EU banking supervisor The European Banking Authority (EBA) announced the release of new proposed amendments to Pillar 3 disclosure requirements for banks, including simplifications and clarifications around ESG risk-related reporting, particularly for small and medium-sized banks.
Funds Europe: In the world of ESG investing, the “E” – environmental – has long dominated the conversation. From climate change to biodiversity loss, environmental concerns are tangible, measurable, and urgent. The “G” – governance – has also found firm ground, thanks to clear regulatory expectations and investor scrutiny.
ESG Today: Italian energy company Eni announced that it has signed an exclusivity agreement with BlackRock’s infrastructure-focused unit Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for the potential sale of a co-control stake of 49.99% of Eni’s Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) business, Eni CCUS Holding.
