ESG

Dutch financial institutions are beginning to show how they plan to align their business with a climate-safe future, and regulators say the early progress is encouraging, even if the road ahead is long. In a new review, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets finds that eight of the country’s largest banks and insurers are reporting on their climate transition plans and financed-emissions data in a more structured and transparent way than ever before.

The UK is stepping deeper into the sustainable finance arena. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has put forward plans to regulate ESG ratings (the scores that influence trillions in investment decisions) in an effort to make them far more transparent, reliable and comparable than they are today.

EU governments have agreed on their starting position for revising the EU Deforestation Regulation, signalling that the legislation may not apply as early as previously planned. Member States endorsed a one-year postponement alongside several changes aimed at easing administrative pressure on companies and national authorities.

Deloitte Global’s 2025 C-suite Sustainability Report suggests that corporate sustainability is sharing the front row with technology adoption and artificial intelligence, not just holding steady in a crowded field of business priorities. Now in its fourth year, Deloitte’s survey of more than 2,100 executives across 27 countries paints a picture of organizations still pushing toward long-term sustainability goals even as the operating environment shifts under their feet.

The European Commission is once again adjusting the shape of the EU’s sustainability rulebook, this time turning its attention to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. Published on 20 November 2025, the proposal aims to make sustainability disclosures far simpler, far shorter, and far easier for investors to understand. It is the clearest sign yet that Brussels is reassessing the administrative load of its sustainability agenda and looking for ways to bring consistency across a landscape that has grown unwieldy.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has put a temporary hold on California’s Climate-related Financial Risk Act, SB 261, granting an injunction that pauses enforcement while the law faces an ongoing legal challenge. The court’s brief, one-page order did not explain its reasoning, but it drew a clear line between the state’s two major climate disclosure laws. First, SB 261 is paused for now, and second, SB 253 will continue moving forward as planned.

Spain’s financial and audit regulators are trying to bring some stability to the sustainability reporting landscape as the clock ticks toward the 2025 reporting cycle. This week, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) and the Institute of Accounting and Auditing (ICAC) issued a joint statement outlining how Spanish companies should approach their disclosures while the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is still in the process of being transposed into national law.