What's Happening in Sustainability & ESG (Week Recap 11.11 - 17.11) 🌎

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. 🍀

In this edition, we’ll cover:

• COP30 is highlighting the limits of the current COP model and the rising calls for reform 🌎

• EU Parliament voted to roll back sustainability rules & Omnibus trilogue negotiations start this week 🇪🇺

• The IEA’s new World Energy Outlook 2025 shows electricity demand is set to rise about 40% by 2035 ⚡️

• The UK’s Financial Reporting Council released ISSA (UK) 5000, a new sustainability assurance standard 📑

• Demand for high-quality carbon removal credits is surging, driven largely by Big Tech’s AI-related emissions 🟢

• and other news 🌍

THIS WEEK’S TOP NEWS

Regulatory Oversight & Industry Insights

🌎 As COP30 heads into its last three days, it has sparked a major debate over the future of the UN climate talks, with many experts arguing the 30-year-old system needs reform to shift from endless negotiations to real-world implementation. Frustration is growing over slow progress, the consensus model that allows a single country to block ambitious action, and summits that resemble trade shows more than policy forums. While the UN has convened an advisory group to rethink COPs for the next decade, opinions diverge sharply: some fear reform amid rising climate backlash, while others say change is essential. Brazil, hosting COP30, is pushing countries to focus on delivering past promises rather than making new ones.

Ministers are taking over negotiations in Belém as talks enter a tense final week focused on closing gaps in emissions cuts, climate finance, and trade disputes, with Brazil’s President Lula expected to help broker a consensus before Friday’s deadline. Developing nations are asserting more influence as the US is absent and the EU faces internal pressures, while countries debate how to address a path that now points to at least 2.3 °C of warming and how to enforce last year’s pledge for $300 billion in annual climate finance by 2035.

In the absence of a US delegation, Democratic leaders step in to shape the American presence

California Governor Gavin Newsom emerged as the leading US voice at COP30, using the Trump Administration’s absence to condemn Washington’s climate rollback and warn that it is allowing China to dominate clean energy industries. He stressed that current federal policies are temporary, urging global partners and investors to keep working with California as the state pushes ahead with ambitious climate targets and a strong clean-energy job base. Onstage across Brazil, he called policy uncertainty in Washington “madness,” argued that states and cities can still lead, and suggested that future Democratic leaders may not look kindly on companies retreating from climate action for short-term gains.

Also weighing in, former Vice President Al Gore said the world may have “passed peak Trump,” urging countries to keep advancing emissions cuts, resist US pressure that historically weakened climate progress, and recognize that Trump’s attacks on clean energy are harming US competitiveness as the nation will ultimately return to climate leadership.

🇪🇺 EU Parliament voted to roll back sustainability rules & Omnibus trilogue negotiations start this week

The EU Parliament voted to scale back the EU’s sustainability rules, slashing the scope of the CSRD and CSDDD and removing the requirement for corporate climate transition plans. The new position, pushed through after the European People’s Party aligned with farther-right parties, raises the CSRD threshold to 1,750 employees and €450 million in revenue and limits the CSDDD to only the largest firms with over 5,000 employees and €1.5 billion in revenue. It also shifts due diligence liability to national authorities and protects smaller suppliers from expanded reporting demands.

EU trilogue negotiations on the Omnibus package begin this week, with a tentative goal to wrap up by 8 December, but major gaps between Parliament and the Council remain unresolved. The biggest divide is over CSRD scope, with the Council’s position covering 4,792 companies versus Parliament’s 3,914, representing a 90–92% reduction. Climate transition plans remain a key sticking point as investors and the ECB warn of major data gaps while Member States push for further simplification. Civil liability is now aligned, but in a way that leaves CSDDD significantly weakened, with only about 1,300 firms in scope under the revised thresholds.

MORE INTERESTING NEWS

Latest developments, reports, insights, and trends

⚡️ The IEA’s new World Energy Outlook 2025 shows that renewables continue to grow faster than fossil fuels globally, even as US policy rollbacks cut its domestic renewables forecast by 30%. Electricity demand is set to rise by around 40% by 2035 due to EV adoption, electrified heating, data centers, and AI. China remains the dominant force in clean energy, accounting for 45-60% of new renewable capacity. The report also brings back the Current Policies Scenario, which shows oil and gas demand continuing to grow and oil potentially peaking around 2030, while electricity already makes up half of all global energy investment.

The Outlook warns that global emissions hit a record 38 gigatons in 2024 and that surpassing 1.5°C of warming is now inevitable without much faster action. Even in the Net Zero Scenario, warming briefly exceeds 1.5°C before returning below it by 2100, requiring rapid systemwide transformation and large-scale carbon removal. Supply chain concentration remains a major risk, with China refining about 70% of key minerals, and the IEA stresses that energy security, geopolitical tensions, and grid bottlenecks will shape the decade ahead.

🇺🇸 The US Chamber of Commerce asked the Supreme Court to pause California’s new climate disclosure laws, arguing they unconstitutionally compel companies to speak on a “controversial” climate topic. The emergency request follows a Ninth Circuit refusal to halt SB 253 and SB 261—rules requiring large companies doing business in California to report emissions (including Scope 3) and climate-related financial risks starting in 2026–2027. California expects more than 4,000 companies to be covered, even as other US climate disclosure efforts stall. The Chamber claims the laws violate First Amendment protections and impose impossible reporting burdens, despite multiple lower-court rulings rejecting these arguments.

🇬🇧 The UK’s Financial Reporting Council released ISSA (UK) 5000, a new sustainability assurance standard designed to ensure consistent, high-quality assurance of companies’ sustainability reporting. Based on the global IAASB benchmark, the voluntary UK standard comes as the government weighs future mandatory reporting rules and related consultations on UK Sustainability Reporting Standards and transition plans.

📑 Accenture’s new “Destination Net Zero 2025” report finds global net-zero target-setting back on the rise (including in North America), alongside broader use of decarbonization tools and better emissions-intensity results. Among the world’s 4,000 largest companies, 41% of the top 2,000 now have value-chain (Scope 1–3) net-zero targets, up from 37% last year, with Europe leading at 65%. Scope 1–2 targets are even more widespread at 73%, and 70% of those firms have transition plans.

WHAT ARE COMPANIES DOING?

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

🟢 Demand for high-quality carbon removal credits is surging, driven largely by Big Tech’s AI-related emissions, pushing prices to nearly four times those of cheaper forest-based credits and creating a supply crunch that experts say is necessary to scale the market. Microsoft, Google, and other firms have poured hundreds of millions into durable removals like biochar and direct air capture, but supply has not kept up: while 25 million tons have been purchased this year, fewer than 1 million tons of durable credits have actually been issued.

🛩️ Boeing agreed to buy up to 100,000 tons of carbon removal from Charm Industrial. Charm turns forest waste into bio-oil via pyrolysis and injects it underground for permanent storage, with co-products like biochar that enhance soil health. Boeing’s purchase supports a technology that also aids wildfire prevention, reduces pollution, and restores orphaned wells, as the aviation sector searches for scalable climate solutions beyond scarce SAF.

👕 Nike signed multi-year deals with Syre and Loop Industries to source textile-to-textile recycled polyester, advancing its push to cut supply-chain emissions and scale circular materials. Syre will become Nike’s lead strategic supplier, integrating circular polyester into core performance lines, while Loop will provide its “Twist” recycled polyester and make Nike the anchor customer for its new India facility, expected to cut GHG emissions by 81%.

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The report is published by Denominator, the global leader in social and human capital data, empowering companies and investors to quantify, benchmark, and manage social risks and opportunities.

EVERYTHING FINANCE

Sustainable finance, funding rounds, acquisitions & private equity deals

🇺🇸 The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will stop issuing most no-action responses this proxy season, including on ESG proposals, leaving companies largely on their own to decide whether shareholder submissions can be excluded. The Division of Corporation Finance said it will only weigh in on exclusions tied to a company’s state-law jurisdiction, citing limited resources after the record government shutdown and the existing body of SEC guidance. This marks a major departure from the traditional no-action process, where companies routinely sought staff assurance before leaving proposals off the ballot.

The SEC will also move to curb what it calls the politicization of shareholder voting by scrutinizing proxy advisory firms and large institutional investors. Chair Paul Atkins told Fox Business it is “time to focus” on this area, following a recent speech questioning rules that require companies to bring ESG-related proposals to a vote. The shift comes amid growing Republican pressure on ISS and Glass Lewis, including investigations into whether their DEI and sustainability recommendations misled investors or violated antitrust laws. Atkins said conflicts of interest at proxy advisors are “legion” and that the SEC will also examine passive institutional investors’ influence, with new “proposals and clarifications” expected within the next year.

🏦 The European Central Bank issued its first climate-risk-related fine, ordering Spanish bank ABANCA to pay €187,650 for failing to properly identify its climate and environmental risks. The penalty covers a 65-day breach of a 2023 requirement to conduct a full materiality assessment, part of the ECB’s post-2022 push to ensure banks integrate climate risks into their risk frameworks. While the ECB says most banks have made significant progress, it used ABANCA’s case to reinforce that non-compliance will trigger escalating supervisory action.

Acquisitions

⚡️ TotalEnergies will acquire 50% of EPH’s flexible power generation platform in a €5.1 billion all-stock deal, doubling its European electricity capacity to around 30 TWh. The €10.6 billion-valued portfolio includes 14 GW of gas, biomass, and battery assets across Western Europe, plus 5 GW of projects under development.

Startup funding rounds

🚛 Electric truck maker Harbinger raised $160 million in a Series C round co-led by FedEx, which also placed its first order for the company’s medium-duty EVs. Founded in 2021, Harbinger builds US-made electric stripped chassis designed to match diesel vehicle pricing.

⚡️ Exowatt raised $50 million to scale its round-the-clock solar technology for AI data centers and industrial sites. The company’s P3 system stores solar heat in long-duration batteries to deliver on-demand, 24/7 power without grid reliance.

⚡️ Voya Energy launched publicly with a $13 million seed round to develop carbon-free “metal fuels” for fast, distributed clean power. The startup converts recycled metals into safe, high-density fuel that can deliver electricity without grids or pipelines.

📊 GreenFi raised $2 million in seed funding to scale its AI-powered ESG risk and compliance platform. Founded in 2023, the Singapore-based company uses proprietary AI agents and a sustainability intelligence engine to automate ESG due diligence, reporting, and real-time risk monitoring for financial institutions and enterprises.

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