The ESG Insider newsletter compiles news and insights on environmental, social and governance developments driving change in business and investment decisions. Subscribe to our ESG Insider newsletter, and listen to the ESG Insider podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Europe's banks face a daunting challenge: How do you determine which companies in your lending portfolio are green when there is a major lack of data?
A new report tests the EU taxonomy for climate-friendly investments on Europe's largest banks and finds that lender exposure to small and medium-sized businesses constitutes a major challenge because there is a widespread lack of data.
Some stakeholders say a centralized European database is the answer. "We are asking that the data, based on some common reporting standards, are reported to a central data register, to which anyone who is interested in the data could actually tap in and get this data in some kind of structured way," Denisa Avermaete, the European Banking Federation’s senior adviser for sustainable finance, tells us.
In this week's newsletter, we also dive into a massive new report commissioned by the U.K. Treasury that outlines the stark financial cost of rapid biodiversity loss. And we look at how early actions by the Biden administration are balancing both environmental and social concerns.
Chart of the Week
Top Stories
Banks struggle with SME data gap as they apply EU green taxonomy
A new report studied the EU green taxonomy’s impact on 26 of Europe's largest banks, testing the framework on lenders' retail and SME lending as well as corporate and investment banking. The report found that a lack of standardized and comparable data is a big challenge for the banking sector.
Rapid biodiversity loss poses financial risk for business, new report finds
A new U.K. government report highlights the growing financial risks corporations face as a result of a relentless depletion of Earth's natural resources, an issue that so far has flown below the ESG radar of most businesses. The global value of natural capital plunged nearly 40% between 1992 and 2014 on a per person basis, the report found.
Why just transition, environmental justice are key to any climate plan
Addressing environmental justice and ensuring a just transition for fossil-fuel industry workers are necessary to achieve deep decarbonization and an equitable economic recovery, U.S. President Joe Biden said in a speech before signing an executive order on climate change last week.
Environmental
US coal's 'road to extinction' may take well over a decade without policy push
Heavy industry coalition formed to plan sectorwide carbon emission cuts
Exxon writes down $18.5B of upstream portfolio, shifts investment focuses
Social
Mixed ethnicity and gender management teams receive over half of Future Funding
An equitable energy transition will require objective ESG standards, experts say
Google to pay $3.8M to settle pay, hiring discrimination claims
Governance
Retailers could face more investor scrutiny amid Biden climate policy agenda
SEC names former Jackson aide as senior climate, ESG adviser
EU markets regulator urges adoption of ESG legal framework
ESG Indices
Upcoming Events
GreenBiz 21
Feb. 9-11
Online
Responsible Company: ESG and Financial Instruments
Sustainability Week
March 22-25
Online
Impact Investing World Forum 2021
Impact Investing World Forum
March 22-23
Online
PRI in Person
PRI
Sept. 14-16
Tokyo
The European SDG Summit 2021
CSR Europe
Oct. 11-14
Online
COP26
United Nations Climate Change Conference
Nov. 1-12
Glasgow
Questions or suggestions? Contact S&P Global Market Intelligence’s ESG Insight team at ESGNews@spglobal.com