ESG

Thailand's December review of the SET50 Index will determine which companies must comply first with the country's new sustainability reporting requirements. Those included in the index will be required to disclose information covering 2027 under international standards, with their first reports scheduled for 2028.

The International Sustainability Standards Board has proposed new guidance on nature-related financial disclosures, but companies would not have to follow it to claim compliance with the board's sustainability reporting standards.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is contacting companies that may be subject to the state's corporate greenhouse gas reporting law, warning that their first emissions disclosures are due November 10, 2026, and that qualifying businesses must pay program fees even if they are unable to submit emissions data under a first-year reporting provision.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has called on financial firms to be more precise about claims of positive environmental and social impact and climate transition, warning through new guidance that investors need clearer information about what such claims mean and how the promised results will be assessed.

The Financial Conduct Authority has changed course on one of the harder edges of its new sustainability reporting regime. When the regulator consulted on the rules earlier this year, it proposed requiring listed companies to comply with the UK’s climate disclosure standard, UK SRS S2. Broader sustainability reporting under UK SRS S1, along with Scope 3 emissions disclosures, would have been handled differently: comply with the requirements or explain why not.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed seven bills on September 21 establishing new requirements for data centers, including measures governing electricity costs, water-use disclosures, resource reporting and environmental review. The package is intended to give communities more information about proposed facilities while preventing the costs of serving them from being shifted onto ordinary utility customers.

New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority has given a longer reprieve to climate reporting entities that were supposed to be on their way out of the country’s mandatory disclosure regime but, for now, remain caught inside it.