Environmental, social and governance (ESG) blog

Welcome news for public and private SMEs with new simplified sustainability reporting standards on the horizon. The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has opened the floor for public consultation on two draft EU reporting standards proportionate to the scale and complexity of SMEs.

Boards are increasingly looking to their in-house legal team for advice on ESG matters. This places a new onus on in-house solicitors who already face the difficult challenge of balancing an organisation’s legal obligation with its strategic goals.  

As the dust settles, concluding a day over schedule, COP28 marked a significant halfway point in achieving the goals set by the Paris agreement. King Charles, in his opening address, poignantly described humanity's actions as a "vast, frightening experiment" on our planet.

Cast your minds back to 2015 in which 194 states plus the European Union signed the Paris Agreement at the COP21 summit in Paris in order to pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels”. 

COP28’s Gender Day focussed on raising awareness on the importance of gender responsive climate policy and action and women’s contribution and leadership in climate action.

COP 26 saw leaders agreeing to the Glasgow Climate Pact, countries committing to limiting global warming to 1.5°, enhancing climate finance for developing nations and setting a framework for addressing the damage caused by climate change. There were also agreements on deforestation, methane reduction and phasing down coal.

The TNFD is a global initiative that provides organisations with a framework to report and act on their impacts and dependencies on nature.

Advertisers must also take care to not mislead consumers with false ‘time-limited’ promos.

The requirement for assessing nutrient neutrality (or the absence of it) and agreeing appropriate mitigation is adding significant cost and delay to the development consenting process, bringing some planning application decisions to a halt completely in the affected catchments.