What's Happening in Sustainability & ESG (16.06 - 22.06) 🌎

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. 🍀

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The CSO role is changing. Here's what that means in practice.

The CSO role is evolving fast. Join us on June 25 (10am BST / 11am CET) to hear from senior sustainability leaders on:

• How to secure buy-in and budget from CFOs and senior leadership

• Navigating tighter resources, shifting regulation, and rising internal scrutiny

• What it takes to keep sustainability credible as a core business function

Featuring Elena Dimichino, CSO at EssilorLuxottica, and Renata Greenberg, Director & Regional Lead at BSR.

In this edition, we’ll cover:

• ISO released a draft of its new ISO 14060 Net Zero Aligned Organizations Standard 📑

• Three of Europe’s largest steelmakers have called for urgent reforms to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) 🇪🇺

• Frontier doubled its carbon removal commitment with $915 million in new funding 🟢

• SpaceX received the lowest possible ESG rating (CCC) from MSCI 🔴

• and other news 🌍

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THIS WEEK’S TOP NEWS

Regulatory Oversight & Industry Insights

📑 ISO has released a draft of its new ISO 14060 Net Zero Aligned Organizations Standard, providing a globally applicable and independently verifiable framework to help organizations develop, implement, and disclose net-zero strategies. The standard requires companies to set emissions reduction targets, publish a detailed transition plan within two years, disclose how progress will be measured and verified, and explain any planned use of carbon credits. It also aligns with existing emissions reporting frameworks and references widely used methodologies, including SBTi’s new net-zero standard.

The draft includes specific guidance for small and medium-sized enterprises, allowing greater flexibility through simplified reporting and a focus on the most material emissions sources. ISO has opened a 12-week public consultation and aims to finalize the standard later this year.

The proposed standard also requires companies to set climate targets based on a carbon budget, a concept already used internationally to determine how much carbon can be emitted while staying within the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals. Unlike many existing frameworks, the approach considers a company’s cumulative emissions over time and aims to avoid rewarding businesses that delay decarbonization efforts. To help organizations calculate their carbon budgets, ISO proposes sector and country-specific multipliers, with stricter budgets for companies in higher-income countries and adjustments for firms operating across multiple regions.

Supporters argue that carbon budgets provide a more transparent and intuitive way to manage emissions, framing climate action as a finite resource allocation challenge rather than an arbitrary reduction target. The approach could benefit early movers and companies in developing markets, while making targets more demanding for latecomers in wealthier economies. ISO believes the method will make climate targets easier for non-sustainability professionals to understand, with feedback on the proposal now being collected during the consultation process.

MORE INTERESTING NEWS

Latest developments, reports, insights, and trends

🇪🇺 Three of Europe’s largest steelmakers, ArcelorMittal Europe, thyssenkrupp Steel, and voestalpine, have called for urgent reforms to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), warning that rising carbon costs could undermine Europe’s industrial competitiveness and put up to 5 million jobs at risk. While supporting the EU’s climate goals and their own decarbonization plans, the companies argue that key enablers such as affordable green hydrogen, competitive electricity prices, carbon capture technologies, and demand for low-carbon steel are not yet available at scale. They are urging policymakers to pause further ETS cost increases until these conditions are in place, direct ETS revenues toward industrial decarbonization, and strengthen measures to protect European manufacturers from unfair competition, warning that the current framework could lead to a 30–40% decline in steel-intensive manufacturing activity across the EU.

⚡️ The US Department of the Interior signed an agreement with Invenergy to terminate four offshore wind leases worth $765 million, redirecting the funds toward natural gas and geothermal projects. The move is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to halt offshore wind development and shift investment toward what it describes as more reliable domestic energy infrastructure. Invenergy said it will focus capital on projects that can meet growing energy demand on commercially reasonable timelines, including gas-fired power plants and geothermal projects across the US.

🇨🇦 Canada introduced legislation to strengthen its ban on imports made with forced labor, following criticism from the US that it has failed to effectively enforce existing rules. The proposal would create a list of high-risk goods, require importers to provide enhanced supply chain tracing information, and automatically prohibit imports of designated high-risk goods unless reporting requirements are met. The move aims to improve enforcement, strengthen human rights protections and align Canada more closely with international efforts to eliminate forced labor from global supply chains.

WHAT ARE COMPANIES DOING?

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

🟢 Carbon removal advanced market commitment (AMC) coalition Frontier doubled its carbon removal commitment with $915 million in new funding, bringing its total to $1.8 billion and shifting from broad early-stage support to larger bets on more mature carbon removal companies. The new “Growth AMC,” backed by buyers including Stripe, Google, Shopify, Salesforce, H&M Group, and Anthropic, will focus on 10–15 companies through long-term offtake agreements running as far as 2040. The move signals continued corporate demand for permanent carbon removal, while also showing that scaling the sector will depend on delivery, stronger verification, and future policy support from mechanisms such as the EU ETS and emerging government procurement programs.

☕️ Starbucks merged its remaining sustainability functions under Chief Social Impact Officer Kelly Goodejohn after eliminating the roles of Chief Sustainability Officer Marika McCauley Sine and reusable packaging lead Chris McFarlane. The cuts are part of more than 2,300 corporate and administrative layoffs since September 2024, as the company prioritizes a financial turnaround. The move comes as Starbucks faces challenges meeting its 2030 climate goals, with its carbon footprint rising 3% between 2019 and 2024, and no 2026 global impact report has been published yet.

💧 Nvidia says its next-generation AI infrastructure could largely address data center water consumption by using liquid cooling that operates at higher temperatures, reducing or eliminating the need for water-intensive chilling equipment. The company argues the technology could make AI systems more efficient and lower cooling costs, but adoption will take years, existing data centers will continue using older systems, and broader water concerns remain tied to the electricity needed to power AI infrastructure.

🛩️ Twelve launched AirPlant One in Washington, the first commercial-scale US facility producing E-Jet fuel, a power-to-liquid SAF made from captured CO₂, water, and renewable electricity. The fuel meets commercial aviation standards and can be used in existing aircraft and airport infrastructure, with Alaska Airlines expected to operate flights using the SAF. Backed by Microsoft and Alaska Airlines, the facility also produces E-Naphtha, a fossil-free chemical feedstock, supporting cleaner aviation, fuel supply diversification, and new renewable chemical pathways.

🛩️ EcoCeres extended its sustainable aviation fuel supply agreement with British Airways through 2030, providing waste-based SAF made from feedstocks such as used cooking oil. The multi-year deal is expected to help British Airways cut lifecycle fuel emissions by around 198,000 metric tonnes compared with conventional jet fuel, supporting parent company IAG’s goal to use 1 million tonnes of SAF annually and fly with 10% SAF by 2030.

🌾 Nestlé partnered with regenerative agriculture company Wildfarmed to use regeneratively farmed British wheat in KitKat production in the UK. Following successful trials, the wheat will be incorporated into the production of 1.5 billion KitKat bars annually at Nestlé’s York factory. The initiative supports Nestlé’s goal to source 50% of its key ingredients from regenerative agriculture by 2030, while helping improve soil health, biodiversity, and carbon reduction across British farming.

Solutions

📊 Upright launched a new AI model trained on scientific evidence to help companies and investors quantify sustainability impacts, risks, and opportunities in monetary terms. Unlike approaches that rely primarily on corporate disclosures, the model powers real-time assessments across areas such as double materiality, climate risk, EU Taxonomy, SFDR, and SDG analysis. The company said the tool is designed to turn sustainability from a reporting exercise into a decision-making tool, enabling users to evaluate scenarios, benchmark performance, and explore the evidence behind sustainability claims.

📑 Sweep launched a new UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS) solution to help UK-listed companies prepare for upcoming mandatory sustainability reporting requirements. The platform includes pre-mapped disclosures, AI-powered drafting through its assistant “Sweepy,” approval workflows, audit trails, and supplier data collection tools, while allowing companies to reuse the same data across frameworks such as CSRD, CDP, GRI, and investor reporting.

📊 Bloomberg expanded its Transition Toolkit with new climate and transition analytics capabilities to help portfolio managers assess and manage climate-related risks and opportunities. The new features include climate scenario analysis and stress testing, Temporal Carbon Attribution to track changes in portfolio emissions over time, and Climate Alignment Scores that compare companies against sector- and region-specific transition pathways.

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EVERYTHING FINANCE

Sustainable finance, funding rounds, acquisitions & private equity deals

🏦 The European Banking Authority released its draft methodology for the 2027 EU-wide stress test, adding climate risks for the first time through a dedicated module. The climate module will assess transition and physical risks, including carbon pricing, energy price shocks, sector impacts, and river flood scenarios, focused on banks’ exposure to non-financial companies and real estate. While the module will not affect core stress test results initially, the EBA said it marks an important step toward embedding climate risk into prudential supervision.

The Bank of England also announced changes to its collateral framework that will, for the first time, incorporate climate transition risks into the valuation of corporate bonds used by banks as collateral. Starting in October 2026, the BoE will apply additional haircuts to bonds issued by companies in sectors exposed to transition-related risks, reflecting the potential financial impact of the shift to a net-zero economy. The central bank also said that bonds from companies generating revenue from thermal coal mining will no longer be eligible as collateral, aligning with broader efforts by central banks to integrate climate risks into financial supervision.

🔴 SpaceX has received the lowest possible ESG rating (CCC) from MSCI, reflecting concerns over its governance practices and management of ESG risks. MSCI cited issues including limited shareholder rights, concentrated insider control, potential conflicts of interest, and a lack of board independence, while also assigning the company a low controversy score due to ongoing governance concerns. The rating has intensified debate among investors, particularly in Europe, where some sustainability-focused funds may face restrictions on holding SpaceX shares. The assessment adds to longstanding criticism of ESG ratings by CEO Elon Musk, who previously dismissed ESG frameworks after Tesla was removed from a major ESG index. Despite the concerns, SpaceX was fast-tracked into major MSCI indices following its public listing.

📈 EQT secured a $4.4 billion sustainability-linked loan tied to the sustainability performance of portfolio companies in its Asia Pacific-focused private equity fund, BPEA IX. The facility, the largest sustainability-linked loan in Asia, links interest rates to progress against company-specific sustainability and climate targets, which must align with international frameworks and be independently verified.

⚡️ Iberdrola raised €1.5 billion through a green bond issuance to finance electricity grid investments and renewable energy projects across its key markets. The offering attracted strong demand of more than €4.5 billion from over 330 investors, allowing the company to improve pricing terms. The issuance, structured in four- and ten-year tranches, aligns with both ICMA Green Bond Principles and the EU Green Bond Standard, further expanding Iberdrola’s sustainable financing portfolio, which exceeded €66 billion at the end of 2025.

📈 100×100 launched its second climate tech fund, targeting $100 million to create and scale 50 new climate startups across South Asia and India. The Singapore-based venture builder focuses on developing companies in high-emissions sectors such as agriculture, energy, industry, materials, and buildings, with each venture designed to deliver both emissions reductions and economic value.

Funding rounds

⚡️ Energy infrastructure platform Verse raised $54 million in an oversubscribed Series B round and launched Dispatch Intelligence™, a new solution designed to help data center developers bring capacity online up to three years faster. The platform uses on-site batteries and other energy resources to reduce reliance on constrained grid infrastructure, allowing data centers to accelerate interconnection approvals without impacting computing performance.

⚡️ SolarSquare raised $53 million in a Series C funding round, the largest venture investment in India’s solar sector, to expand into new cities and strengthen its technology platform. The company, which provides end-to-end residential rooftop solar solutions, has powered around 50,000 homes and generated more than $105 million in annualized revenue.

📑 London-based certification platform Isometric raised €34 million in a Series A funding round to expand its AI-powered certification platform across industrial and sustainability markets. The company’s Certify platform uses AI agents and human experts to verify complex data from sources such as sensors, satellite imagery, supply chains, and laboratory results, helping companies obtain faster and more rigorous certification for regulatory, safety, and sustainability requirements.

🟢 Vertoro raised €17 million in a Series B funding round to scale its technology that converts plant-based waste into renewable oil for low-carbon fuels and chemicals. The Dutch startup uses lignin from biomass to produce a renewable feedstock that can replace fossil oil in chemicals, shipping fuels, and sustainable aviation fuel, while remaining compatible with existing refinery infrastructure.

🌊 Kvasir Technologies raised €10 million in a Series A funding round to accelerate the commercialization of its climate-neutral marine fuel technology and scale production. The Danish startup converts agricultural and forestry waste into biofuels for shipping using its patented solvothermal liquefaction process, which can serve as a drop-in replacement for fossil marine fuels without requiring engine modifications.

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