What's Happening in Sustainability & ESG (30.06 - 06.07) 🌎

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 REUTERS EVENTS

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In this edition, we’ll cover:

• The revised ESRS have been formally adopted by the European Commission 🇪🇺

• The World Bank retired its target to allocate 45% of annual lending to climate projects, following pressure from the Trump administration 🏦

• While 85% of leading buyers now collect product-level carbon footprints from suppliers, 30% of suppliers provide no carbon data at all - EcoVadis report 📑

• Google and Amazon report an increase in total GHG emissions in 2025, driven by AI and fossil fuel-heavy supply chains 🔴

• and other news 🌍

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THIS WEEK’S TOP NEWS

Regulatory Oversight & Industry Insights

🇪🇺 The revised ESRS have been formally adopted as a Delegated Regulation and, unless rejected by the European Parliament or Council within the next two months, will become the final sustainability reporting standards for companies within the CSRD scope from 2027, with first-wave companies able to apply them from 2026.

While the European Commission largely followed EFRAG’s technical advice, it weakened several disclosure requirements following lobbying, particularly on GHG emissions, microplastics and human rights reporting, although it retained key principles such as double materiality, fair presentation, and the requirement to quantify anticipated financial effects, with the latter phased in until 2031. The revised standards also provide greater flexibility in calculating GHG emissions by allowing companies to choose between financial control, operational control, or equity share approaches, while scaling back disclosure requirements on secondary microplastics and human rights incidents.

In related EU news, Europe’s three financial regulators, the ESAs, proposed a new package of measures to simplify EU Taxonomy reporting and reduce disclosure requirements for companies, asset managers, banks, and insurers as part of the EU’s Omnibus simplification agenda. The proposals include limiting the operational expenditure (OpEx) KPI to R&D spending, removing or narrowing banking metrics considered to have limited value, simplifying insurance reporting requirements, and introducing cross-sector measures to streamline group reporting, with public consultations open until August 12, 2026.

EU member states have also formally adopted new circular vehicle rules requiring automakers to design vehicles that are easier to repair, dismantle, reuse, and recycle, while making manufacturers financially responsible for managing vehicles at the end of their life. The regulation introduces phased recycled plastic content requirements of 15% after six years, rising to 25% after ten years, expands producer responsibility across the full vehicle lifecycle, bans the export of non roadworthy used vehicles, and paves the way for future recycled content targets for materials including steel, aluminum, magnesium, and critical raw materials.

MORE INTERESTING NEWS

Latest developments, reports, insights, and trends

🏦 The World Bank extended its Climate Change Action Plan but retired its target to allocate 45% of annual lending to projects with climate co-benefits, following pressure from the Trump administration to refocus the institution on its core development mission. The bank said it will shift from climate finance input targets to measuring development outcomes, while continuing to support client demand for climate-related projects such as renewable energy, climate-resilient infrastructure, and drought-resistant agriculture. It will also maintain climate scorecard reporting and conduct an independent review of its climate strategy.

📑 The latest edition of the EcoVadis Sustainability Ratings Index found that while 85% of leading buyers now collect product-level carbon footprints from suppliers, 30% of suppliers provide no carbon data at all, highlighting a growing gap between companies’ climate action and their ability to prove it. The report also shows that many companies are already investing in the energy transition, with 46% purchasing or generating renewable energy, 38% training employees on climate action, and 32% conducting energy or carbon audits. However, only 26% have a corporate GHG inventory, 23% publish emissions reports, and just 19% report upstream Scope 3 emissions. As buyers increasingly deploy AI tools to validate supplier emissions data, EcoVadis argues that the challenge is no longer ambition, but building the measurement and reporting infrastructure needed to generate reliable, decision-grade carbon data across supply chains.

🌎 Global energy-related CO₂ emissions rose 1.1% to a record 35.8 billion tonnes in 2025, with the US accounting for around one third of the increase as higher natural gas prices drove utilities back to coal, reversing recent decarbonization trends. US coal consumption increased 10%, and total emissions grew 3.2%, while China remained the world’s largest emitter but recorded only a modest 0.3% rise in emissions. Despite emissions increasing, global energy demand continued to grow, with renewables leading the expansion as renewable electricity generation rose 9.1%, driven by a 30% surge in solar power and rising electricity demand from AI, data centers, and electric vehicles.

WHAT ARE COMPANIES DOING?

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

🔴 Google reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2% in 2025 despite a 37% increase in electricity consumption, but total emissions still rose as Scope 3 emissions jumped 25%. The rise was driven by data center construction and fossil fuel-heavy supply chains, underscoring the growing tension between AI growth and Google’s 2030 net-zero and 24/7 carbon-free energy goals. The company also warned that reaching its climate moonshot is getting harder, as its AI infrastructure buildout accelerates faster than the grid is decarbonizing. Google also matched 100% of its electricity use with renewable energy purchases and signed more than 12 GW of new clean energy agreements in 2025.

Amazon also reported a 16% increase in GHG emissions in 2025, acknowledging that rapid growth in cloud computing and AI is making its 2040 net-zero goal harder to achieve, but said it remains “confident and optimistic” and “stubborn” in its long-term sustainability vision. The increase was driven largely by data center and building construction, with emissions from purchased electricity rising 34% and total emissions now 58% above 2019 levels. At the same time, Amazon highlighted progress on key sustainability initiatives, including expanding its renewable energy portfolio to 42 GW across more than 712 projects, growing its global electric delivery fleet to 52,700 vehicles, reducing emissions per shipped unit by 39% since 2019, and avoiding 288 million plastic bags in North America through packaging improvements.

🟢 Deep Sky became the first North American company to deliver verified direct air capture (DAC) carbon removal credits, supplying Microsoft and Royal Bank of Canada with credits generated from its first underground carbon injection in Alberta. Verified by Isometric, the credits mark a major milestone for the DAC industry, with quarterly deliveries now underway under long-term agreements. Deep Sky also has carbon removal deals with TD Bank, Lufthansa, and ENGIE, and plans to develop a large-scale commercial DAC facility in Canada after expanding its Alberta pilot project.

🌳 Amazon signed a multi-year agreement to purchase 1.95 million tonnes of carbon removal credits from a large-scale ecosystem restoration project in South Africa, enabling the expansion of one of the world’s largest carbon removal initiatives. The investment will support the planting of 180 million spekboom shrubs across more than 50,000 hectares of degraded land by 2028, restoring ecosystems while creating an estimated 11,000 jobs and injecting over $500 million into local communities.

🛩️ Deutsche Bank partnered with Lufthansa Group to invest in approximately 2 million liters of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), supporting the airline’s efforts to reduce the climate impact of business travel. The investment is expected to reduce lifecycle CO₂ emissions by around 5,500 metric tonnes compared to conventional jet fuel, equivalent to approximately 520 Frankfurt-to-London flights.

Solutions

📊 Crédit Agricole CIB launched SPASE, an ESG-linked trade finance platform that enables companies to assess ESG performance across suppliers, products, and trade flows. The platform automatically converts trade transaction data into ESG dashboards, helping companies improve supply chain transparency, identify higher-performing suppliers, reduce operational costs, and make more informed financing decisions. Following a successful pilot in Hong Kong, the bank plans to roll out SPASE across the Asia Pacific region.

EVERYTHING FINANCE

Sustainable finance, funding rounds, acquisitions & private equity deals

⚡️ Brookfield Asset Management expanded its partnership with Bloom Energy, committing $25 billion to finance the deployment of Bloom’s fuel cell technology to power AI infrastructure globally, a fivefold increase from their initial 2025 agreement. The investment, part of Brookfield’s $100 billion AI Infrastructure Fund, aims to address growing demand from hyperscalers for reliable, rapidly deployable power amid grid constraints, combining Brookfield’s infrastructure expertise with Bloom’s onsite fuel cell technology already deployed at data centers operated by companies including Equinix and Oracle.

⚡️ KKR and SK Group launched a KRW 2 trillion (USD$1.3 billion) renewable energy platform, creating South Korea’s largest renewable energy business to meet rising clean electricity demand from AI data centers, semiconductor manufacturing and other industrial sectors. The platform consolidates SK’s solar, onshore and offshore wind, and fuel cell assets into a single business with 1.7 GW of operating capacity and a development pipeline expected to expand total capacity to 10 GW.

Funds

📈 Generation Investment Management, the sustainability-focused investment firm chaired by former US Vice President Al Gore, closed its second Sustainable Private Equity Fund with more than $1 billion to invest in businesses driving the sustainability transformation of their industries. The fund targets minority and majority stakes in mission-critical companies with strong growth potential and has already invested in Octopus Energy, Kraken Technologies, and enterprise software provider IFS. According to the firm, the strategy focuses on companies that operate at the core of industries, where embedding sustainability can deliver impact at scale.

🌾 Lloyds Banking Group and Wildfarmed launched the Food & Nature Resilience Fund to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture across the UK by helping farmers adopt practices that improve biodiversity, soil health, water quality, and reduce carbon emissions. The fund aims to address the financial barriers preventing adoption, with 92% of farmers citing cost as the main obstacle, and comes as research warns that ecosystem decline could reduce UK GDP by 12% over the next decade.

📈 RGREEN INVEST raised nearly €500 million (USD$570 million) at the final close of its Article 9 Infrabridge IV fund, more than doubling the size of its previous infrastructure debt strategy to finance Europe’s energy transition. Around 70% of the fund has already been deployed to lower mid-market projects across geothermal energy, biomethane, energy storage, and hybrid solar and wind developments with battery storage.

📈 Climentum Capital launched its second fund with €60 million in first close commitments, targeting €100 million to invest in early-stage climate technology startups across Europe. The Article 9 fund will focus on Seed and Series A companies developing hardware and deeptech solutions for energy, industry, transport, and agriculture.

M&A

⚡️ KKR acquired EDF Group’s US and Canadian power solutions businesses in a $4.2 billion deal, marking the firm’s largest renewable energy investment to date. The acquisition includes one of the top ten renewable energy portfolios in the US, spanning solar, wind, battery storage, and an integrated platform covering project development, construction, operations, and asset management.

⚡️ Sustainable infrastructure investor Actis acquired Klara Renewables, a 171 MW operating onshore wind portfolio in Poland, marking its entry into the Polish market and the launch of a new renewable energy platform targeting up to 1.5 GW of onshore wind, solar and battery storage capacity. The portfolio consists of six wind farms generating around 500 GWh of renewable electricity annually and includes an additional 275 MW of solar and battery storage development potential.

Funding rounds

🔋 London-based battery technology startup Gaussion raised €24.5 million to accelerate the commercialization of its battery intelligence platform that improves charging speed, performance, and battery lifespan without changing battery chemistry. The company’s technology combines a magnetic PCB retrofit system with proprietary control software to optimize any lithium-ion battery, supporting applications ranging from EVs and drones to data centers and grid storage.

🌾 German AgTech startup Stenon raised €18 million in a Series B funding round to expand its real-time soil analysis platform, with a focus on nitrogen management and soil organic carbon (SOC), as farmers face rising fertilizer costs and increasing pressure to improve nutrient efficiency. The company’s FarmLab platform measures plant-available nitrogen directly in the field, enabling farmers to optimize fertilizer applications without waiting for laboratory results.

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