What's Happening in Sustainability & ESG (08.09 - 14.09) 🌎

This week’s read time: 8 minutes

Welcome to this edition of Green Digest, where you will get updated about everything happening in the Sustainability & ESG space in less than 10 minutes. 🌎

We go through tons of articles and data from the most reliable sources, filter & simplify them, and serve them to you in bite-sized chunks every week. 🍀

PRESENTED BY ECONOMIST IMPACT

Economist Impact’s 6th annual Sustainability Week Europe | October 6th-7th 2026, Amsterdam

Economist Enterprise’s 6th annual Sustainability Week Europe brings together leaders to share case studies, insights and ideas to examine the strategic decisions that will define Europe's industrial future. Hear discussions on energy security, manufacturing, AI, finance, supply chains and clean technology as participants explore how organisations can respond to today's pressures while positioning Europe for long-term growth.

Learn more on the event website and register here.

In this edition, we’ll cover:

• Record sustainability spending over the past decade, but progress remains uneven (Bain report) 📈

• The EU proposed new rules to integrate environmental, social, and other quality considerations into public procurement 🇪🇺

• The US EPA repealed Biden-era limits on carbon emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants 🇺🇸

• An EU Parliament SFDR compromise could allow some fossil-fuel companies into the proposed transition category 🇪🇺

• Consolidation continues in the sustainability software market, with Greenly acquiring Normative 📊

• and other news 🌍

THIS WEEK’S TOP NEWS

Regulatory Oversight & Industry Insights

📈 Bain’s The Visionary CEO’s Guide to Sustainability 2026 highlights a capital allocation challenge for sustainability: record spending is producing uneven results. Investment reached $2.4 trillion in 2025 and $17 trillion over the past decade, yet only three of 37 technologies assessed—solar, battery storage and electric vehicles—strongly exceeded deployment forecasts. Nearly 90% of funding went to energy, buildings and mobility. Agriculture, land use, manufacturing and materials, together responsible for roughly 37% of global emissions, attracted less than 10%. The report argues that scaling depends on three conditions coming together: competitive technology, supportive policy and customer adoption. When any one falls short, even well-funded transitions can stall.

Consumer engagement also requires a more precise approach. In Bain’s survey of roughly 7,500 consumers across five countries, 85% expressed concern about environmental sustainability, while 83% reported at least three sustainable lifestyle habits. In half the habits examined, however, the main motivation was something other than the environment, including affordability, health, or convenience. Respondents reported willingness to pay an 18% premium for sustainability benefits, rising to 24% when combined with health benefits. For sustainability and product teams, these findings support connecting environmental improvements to benefits customers already value.

Natural disasters are also becoming more costly, with insurance covering only part of the damage. Bain reports that losses are growing by 5–7% annually in real terms, while the gap between total and insured losses remains large. Its chart shows five-year average annual losses approaching $300 billion, compared with roughly $120 billion insured. The figures exclude droughts and heat waves. For sustainability teams, the report recommends assessing exposure across suppliers, logistics and critical inputs, including risks that insurance does not fully cover.

For business leaders and investors, the report connects sustainability directly to operating performance, resilience, and long-term value. In Bain and CDP’s company sample, more than 96% recognize physical climate risks, but fewer than 70% can articulate their financial impact. Insurance and supplier diversification provide only partial protection against climate disruption; companies also need to strengthen vulnerable supply chains and build adaptation into asset design and planned upgrades. AI can support that work through energy efficiency, better forecasting and more detailed climate-risk analysis, provided its benefits and impacts are measured. Bain’s overarching recommendation is to concentrate investment where companies understand the opportunity, can influence progress and can demonstrate commercial and environmental results.

MORE INTERESTING NEWS

Latest developments, reports, insights, and trends

🇪🇺 The European Commission proposed new rules to integrate environmental, social and other quality considerations into the EU’s €2.5 trillion annual public procurement market. Quality would normally carry at least 30% of award criteria, rising to 50% for labour-intensive contracts, under a comply-or-explain approach. Buyers could consider emissions, circularity, working conditions and supply-chain human rights alongside price. The proposal now moves to Parliament and Council negotiations.

🇺🇸 The US EPA repealed Biden-era limits on carbon emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants and proposed eliminating remaining GHG requirements to prevent future federal climate regulations targeting the power sector. The agency argues it lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate the sector’s GHG emissions and says the repeal will save industry $370 million in compliance costs while enabling new power generation to meet rising electricity demand. Biden’s rules were expected to cut emissions by 1 billion metric tons by 2047 and deliver an estimated $370 billion in net benefits, while the power sector currently accounts for nearly a quarter of US GHG emissions.

The Trump administration is also easing permitting for data centres, drawing criticism over pollution and public scrutiny. EPA proposals would allow construction of non-emitting structures before major air permits are issued and leave public-participation requirements for smaller pollution sources to state and local authorities. The agency says these changes would accelerate infrastructure development while maintaining emissions standards and environmental protections.

🇪🇺 More than 100 ESG rating providers have notified ESMA of their intention to seek EU authorisation under the new ESG Rating Regulation, which took effect on July 2, 2026, and made ESMA the sector’s sole direct supervisor in the EU. The rules introduce common transparency and conflict-of-interest requirements for an industry whose methodologies and scores can vary widely, with providers generating more than €50 million in ESG rating turnover immediately subject to the full regime and smaller firms eligible for a lighter temporary framework. Notified providers can continue operating while ESMA assesses their applications.

WHAT ARE COMPANIES DOING?

Corporate sustainability, new tools and services & companies in the news

📈 Google will invest €13 billion in digital infrastructure, clean energy projects and economic partnerships across Finland over the next two years, its largest single investment in Europe, to meet growing demand for services including Search, Maps and Gemini. The investment is expected to support more than 37,000 jobs during construction in 2027 and 2028 and contribute €3.6 billion annually to Finland’s GDP, alongside €31 million for local communities and AI training.

Google also agreed to purchase 1 million carbon credits from Mitti Labs over four years, supporting methane reductions by more than 70,000 Indian rice farmers. The projects replace continuous flooding with alternating wetting and drying, which Mitti Labs says can halve methane emissions and reduce irrigation demand without lowering yields. Satellite verification and field data will track progress as the programme expands across more than 100,000 hectares by 2030.

🌋 Climeworks says upgrades at its Mammoth direct air capture facility more than doubled CO₂ capture performance while halving operating costs per tonne. Improvements to filter materials, equipment and operating processes have brought the first upgraded collectors to their original design run rates. Testing of next-generation technology is planned for early 2027, following laboratory results indicating longer filter lifetimes and more compact capture systems.

🌱 GSK signed an eight-year agreement to purchase more than 500,000 carbon credits from Varaha’s regenerative agriculture project in northern India. Structured by Earthly, the deal supports expansion across 50,000 hectares in Punjab and Haryana, encouraging reduced tillage, alternative rice cultivation and crop-residue incorporation.

🏦 Standard Chartered launched Supply Net Zero, a free platform helping suppliers measure emissions and develop practical decarbonisation plans. Open to all its suppliers and designed particularly to support smaller businesses, it combines emissions tracking, tailored action plans, education and reporting dashboards. The initiative advances the bank’s supplier engagement strategy, following a 6% reduction in supplier emissions intensity over the past year.

🌱 Oracle committed up to $1 million to assess carbon capture and storage at its Project Jupiter data centre and across New Mexico. Researchers will examine capturing emissions from on-site Bloom Energy fuel cells, alongside CO₂ transport, geological storage and commercial uses. The study will assess technical, economic and environmental feasibility, supporting potential future deployments and Oracle’s goal of matching Project Jupiter’s energy consumption with 100% carbon-free energy by 2031.

Solutions

📊 Greenly acquired Normative, combining carbon accounting expertise and AI-driven automation as consolidation accelerates across climate software. Together, the businesses support more than 4,000 companies across over 30 countries, with an offering spanning supplier engagement, life-cycle assessment and sustainability reporting. The acquisition aims to improve Scope 3 visibility and reduce reliance on fragmented tools, while targeting growth in combined annual recurring software revenue from €30 million to €50 million within three years.

EVERYTHING FINANCE

Sustainable finance, funding rounds, acquisitions & private equity deals

🇪🇺 A European Parliament compromise on reforming the EU’s SFDR would retain exclusions for sectors including tobacco and controversial weapons, while giving fossil-fuel companies a potential route into the proposed transition category if they meet specified conditions. Fossil fuel companies would need to allocate at least 20% of capital expenditure to taxonomy-aligned activities and invest more in sustainable activities than new fossil fuel projects. The distinction has opened a wider debate over whether sustainable finance should exclude entire sectors or judge companies on their environmental performance and credible transition plans.

⚖️ The SEC asked a federal court to compel ISS to provide client-level proxy recommendations and voting records as scrutiny of proxy advisers intensifies. The regulator says ISS failed to comply with information requests during an examination. ISS argues that disclosure would compromise confidential client strategies and expose protected voting decisions to potential retaliation.

🇭🇰 Hong Kong’s monetary authority proposed expanding its sustainable finance taxonomy from 25 to 39 activities, broadening coverage of climate mitigation, adaptation and transition. The draft introduces pathways for aviation and steel, alongside battery manufacturing, recycling and other enabling technologies.

🏦 Santander mobilised €14 billion in green finance during the first half of 2026, bringing its cumulative total since 2019 to €188 billion. The bank reached more than 85% of its €220 billion target for 2030, following a record €34.6 billion in 2025. Its activities span project finance, green bonds and advisory services, with recent transactions supporting renewable energy, battery storage and financing under the European Green Bond standard.

M&A

☀️ Qualitas Energy agreed to acquire Cero Generation’s core European solar and battery platform from Macquarie, covering 5.8 GW across the UK, Italy and Spain. The portfolio includes over 2 GW operating, under construction or ready to build, plus a 3.8 GW development pipeline.

Funding rounds

⚡️ Skyborn Renewables secured €2.1 billion in financing for Gennaker, moving the German Baltic Sea offshore wind project into construction. With capacity of up to 976.5 MW, the wind farm is expected to become fully operational by the end of 2028 and generate electricity equivalent to the needs of around one million households.

⚓ Bluecore Energy raised $50 million in seed funding to develop floating nuclear systems supplying reliable power to ports, data centres and coastal infrastructure. Its first barge-based reactor is designed to deliver approximately 10 MW continuously, with development underway at the Port of Long Beach.

✈️ Twelve secured a credit facility of up to $45 million to refinance and expand its operating AirPlant One clean fuels facility in Washington. Powered by hydropower, the plant converts captured CO₂ and water into synthetic aviation fuel and chemical feedstock.

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