What's Happening in Sustainability & ESG (Week Recap 23.09 - 29.09) 🌎

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. 🍀

In this edition, we’ll cover:

• NYC Climate Week: From pledges to pragmatism - Climate’s new era

• Stakeholder pressure for sustainability reporting continues to rise despite regulatory pullbacks - PwC survey 📑

• The California Air Resources Board published a list of 4,160 companies subject to the state’s new climate disclosure laws 🇺🇸

• Companies are increasingly integrating climate adaptation into their business strategies 🟢

• Pitchbook’s 2025 Sustainable Investment Survey shows shrinking participation, yet ESG investing remains resilient 📑

• and other news 🌍

PRESENTED BY BESIRIUS

Webinar: AI, money and the end of sustainability as we knew it

Sustainability is entering a new phase. What used to focus on reporting and reputation is shifting toward measurable performance, financial value, and technology-driven change. Artificial intelligence is at the centre of this transformation. On 2 October, beSirius will host a 60-minute live dialogue to explore what this means for companies and institutions in 2025.

Speakers:

• Anastasia Kuskova, CEO of beSirius – moderating the session and presenting insights from Sustainability Outlook 2025

• Amanda Gardiner, Executive Director, UN Global Compact Network USA (former Meta) – bringing a global perspective on AI and sustainability

• Luca Marioni, PhD, ArcelorMittal – sharing how AI is being embedded in industry to deliver real results

What to expect:

• Why glossy sustainability reporting is giving way to measurable performance and impact

• How AI is transforming corporate sustainability strategies

• Global and industry insights on the biggest opportunities and risks shaping 2025

• Concrete priorities for CSOs to keep sustainability strategic

📅 Thursday, 2 October | 16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
⏱ 60 minutes

Register for free and join participants from Anglo American, Vale, Tata Steel, Siemens, Trafigura, BASF, and others.

THIS WEEK’S TOP NEWS

Regulatory Oversight & Industry Insights

🇺🇸 New York Climate Week 2025 — the largest yet with ~100,000 attendees and 1,000 events — highlighted a shift from sweeping pledges to pragmatic energy and infrastructure action, reports CTVC. The spotlight was less on broad climate rhetoric and more on energy, AI, and resilience, with utilities, grid tech, and clean firm power dominating conversations. Rising electricity demand from data centers and electrification was seen both as a challenge and a driver of innovation, fueling interest in storage, flexibility, and distributed resources. Despite political headwinds under Trump and the absence of US leadership at the UN, states like New York, California, and Texas, alongside private capital, pressed ahead with renewables, advanced nuclear, and grid-enhancing technologies.

The event reflected a new realism: climate finance and innovation are being driven by business models that work without subsidies, with private equity, venture capital, and infrastructure funds actively deploying capital. Founders showcased grid and hardtech solutions, while corporates and big tech stayed behind closed doors striking deals. Conversations increasingly centered on adjacencies — security, resilience, affordability, and efficiency — rather than “climate” itself, with AI cast both as a source of soaring demand and as a tool for solutions. The tone was pragmatic but optimistic: the same headwinds of load growth, grid strain, and rising costs are also tailwinds accelerating scalable, profitable solutions in the new energy era.

Trump’s “Energy Dominance” Agenda

In the same week, at the UN General Assembly, President Trump dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job,” and doubled down on fossil fuels and nuclear under his “energy dominance” agenda. The Department of Energy also canceled more than $13 billion in clean energy subsidies, framing it as fiscal responsibility. Critics warned this risks ceding leadership to China and jeopardizing jobs in a sector that grew three times faster than the broader workforce in 2024. The rollback of tax credits and funding has pressured smaller developers into consolidation, with $34 billion in clean energy M&A already recorded in the first half of 2025 as private equity and utilities scoop up undervalued assets.

China announced the country’s first-ever absolute emissions reduction target

In a counterpoint to US retrenchment, China’s President Xi Jinping announced the country’s first-ever absolute emissions reduction target, pledging a 7–10% cut from peak levels by 2035. The plan includes building 3,600 GW of wind and solar, raising non-fossil fuels above 30% of energy use, expanding EVs, and broadening the national carbon market. While the move formalizes China’s transition and will shape its updated Paris pledge, critics argued the targets lack ambition since China is already on track to meet them with existing policies.

PRESENTED BY ECONOMIST IMPACT

Economist Impact’s Sustainability Week Europe

October 6th-7th, 2025 | Amsterdam

Economist Impact’s Sustainability Week Europe, brings together leaders in business, policy and innovation to share case-studies, insights and ideas about climate solutions that work for business and the planet. With more than 120 speakers, 500 in-person attendees, 25 case studies, the Sustainability Week Europe presents original insights and practical solutions. Meet the most influential industry leaders, policymakers and innovators.

Event website link
Registration link

Discount code for Green Digest readers = GD-SWE20

MORE INTERESTING NEWS

Latest developments, reports, insights, and trends

📑 Stakeholder pressure for sustainability reporting continues to rise despite regulatory pullbacks, PwC’s 2025 Global Sustainability Reporting Survey found. Nearly 500 executives across 40 countries were surveyed: 36% already report under CSRD or ISSB, 41% plan to report under CSRD, and 23% under ISSB. Despite EU delays and US rollbacks, over half said pressure to provide sustainability data grew, while two-thirds increased budgets and leadership time. Many see value beyond compliance, with 28% citing major insights. Tools are shifting: spreadsheets still dominate, but use of data storage, carbon tools, disclosure software, and AI is rising fast.

🇺🇸 The California Air Resources Board (CARB) published a list of 4,160 companies subject to the state’s new climate disclosure laws, SB 253 and SB 261. Signed in 2024, the rules mandate Scope 1–2 emissions reporting from 2026, Scope 3 from 2027, and risk disclosures by January 2026. Covering most large US firms, including a majority of the S&P 500, the laws apply to companies with revenues above $500m or $1b doing business in California, with about 60% based outside the state. CARB stressed the list is preliminary, and firms must comply even if not named.

📑 The TNFD’s 2025 Status Report highlights rapid global uptake since its 2023 recommendations, with 400+ organizations in 50+ countries supporting it and $30 trillion AUM represented. Regulators are embedding or aligning TNFD with frameworks like ISSB and EU ESRS. The report stresses the rising importance of nature-related risk management, shares early adopter case studies, and updates tools for assessing biodiversity and ecosystem impacts. Next steps include scaling capacity-building, refining sector guidance, and deepening policymaker collaboration to accelerate standardized, decision-useful nature disclosures.

🟢 Over 50 climate groups formed the Verified Carbon Market (VCM+) Coalition, targeting $100b in climate finance and 5 gigatons CO₂e cuts by 2035. The coalition aims to unify carbon markets by clarifying credit quality, expanding credits’ role in net-zero strategies, and bridging voluntary and compliance systems. Members include ICVCM, RMI, The Nature Conservancy, and BeZero, though registries like Verra and Gold Standard are absent. Some members push to loosen limits on credit use, challenging SBTi rules. The group also seeks to rebuild trust with stricter integrity standards, positioning itself to shape next-gen carbon markets.

WHAT ARE COMPANIES DOING?

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

🟢 Companies including Microsoft, Unilever, and Zurich Insurance are increasingly integrating climate adaptation into their business strategies, combining defensive, opportunistic, and transformative approaches. For example, Microsoft has developed climate-resilient cloud infrastructure designed to maintain operations during extreme weather, while Unilever has invested in regenerative agriculture programs to strengthen supply chain resilience and improve environmental outcomes. Zurich Insurance has expanded its role from traditional risk transfer to offering resilience consulting services, creating new advisory revenue streams alongside insurance products. These examples highlight how adaptation measures can support operational reliability, customer trust, and financial stability, suggesting that resilience is becoming an important factor in long-term competitiveness and value creation.

⚡️ TotalEnergies won France’s largest renewable tender with a 1.5 GW offshore wind project off Normandy. The €4.5B Centre Manche 2 will generate ~6 TWh annually—powering 1M+ homes—at €66/MWh, employ up to 2,500 people during construction, and start operations by 2033. TotalEnergies pledged €45M for impact mitigation, €15M for biodiversity, and set recycling goals of 95% for major components and 100% for generator magnets.

⚡️ Mars has reached 100% renewable energy use across its ten European Snacking factories. The achievement follows nearly a decade of investments, beginning with a windfarm in 2016 and including efficiency upgrades, renewable energy sourcing, and certificate-backed renewable electricity and biomethane for remaining needs. The factories, producing 900,000 tonnes of snacks annually for brands like Snickers, Twix, M&Ms, and Skittles, now operate fully on renewables.

🛩️ LanzaJet and Kazakhstan’s KazMunayGas (KMG) will advance the country’s first SAF project into the engineering and design (FEED) phase after a feasibility study. Using LanzaJet’s Alcohol-to-Jet technology to convert sustainable ethanol into SAF and renewable diesel, the project targets Kazakhstan’s 70,000-ton annual SAF demand by 2030.

📊 Watershed launched Product Footprints, an AI tool to measure and manage the carbon impact of products, materials, and processes. The system decomposes items into sub-materials, processes, and transport steps, while allowing integration of primary data for higher accuracy. Delivering results in minutes, it offers speed, precision, and actionable insights for sustainability and procurement teams to model scenarios and assess choices, replacing incomplete or costly emissions estimates with scalable, data-driven analysis.

📊 IBM launched a preview of its Envizi Emissions API, a tool that lets organizations integrate GHG calculations into existing data tools or new solutions. Part of the Envizi ESG Suite, the API offers access to 140,000+ global emissions datasets, enabling protocol-aligned, transparent calculations.

EVERYTHING FINANCE

Sustainable finance, funding rounds, acquisitions & private equity deals

📑 Pitchbook’s 2025 Sustainable Investment Survey shows shrinking participation (127 responses vs. 527 last year) amid US backlash, survey fatigue, and a pivot from exploration to execution, yet ESG investing remains resilient. 72% of investors still integrate ESG, though many “greenhush” by downplaying messaging, and only a small minority have exited. Most impact investors seek market-rate returns (66%), challenging perceptions of concessionary performance. Capital keeps flowing into PE, VC, and infrastructure, with climate, energy, and agriculture as key areas. Misperceptions, definitional confusion, and measurement hurdles persist, but many firms are doubling down, signaling ESG is stabilizing into a selective, pragmatic phase rather than fading.

📑 NBIM and PRI welcome EFRAG’s effort to simplify ESRS but warn against weakening transparency or comparability. They call for full ISSB alignment, retention of ISSB datapoints, and integration of SASB and TNFD frameworks to strengthen materiality and biodiversity reporting. While progress has been made on reducing duplication and clarifying requirements, NBIM and PRI caution that proposals like making quantitative disclosures voluntary, broad relief provisions, or diverging on GHG boundaries risk undermining interoperability and investor trust.

🤔 ESG investing is reinterpreting defence as a “public good,” driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine and Europe’s security needs. Banks like BNP, Danske, UBS, and Allianz have eased defence bans, while EU regulators aim to mobilise €800bn by loosening rules. Strong returns also drive the shift: Europe’s aerospace and defence stocks have tripled since 2022, far outpacing the market. Article 8 funds quadrupled defence exposure, with over half now invested. Despite ESG purist objections, geopolitical necessity, government support, and outperformance are pulling defence firmly into sustainable finance.

⚡️ KKR bought a 50% stake in TotalEnergies’ U.S. solar portfolio, valuing it at $1.25B. The assets include six large-scale projects (1.3 GW) and 41 distributed generation sites (140 MW), with TotalEnergies receiving $950M at closing while retaining operations and ownership.

⚡️ NBIM committed $1.5B to Brookfield’s Global Transition Fund II, its first energy transition fund investment. Since its 2019 mandate for unlisted renewables, NBIM has made eight direct investments in European solar, wind, and transmission, plus one fund investment. BGTF II will back clean energy, sustainable solutions, and transformation projects across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific, supporting the global shift to net zero.

Funding rounds:

🛩️ UK-based climate tech startup OXCCU raised $28 million in a Series B round to scale its breakthrough process that converts waste CO₂ and green hydrogen into sustainable aviation fuel. OXCCU’s single-step catalytic process reduces costs and enables greater feedstock flexibility, positioning the company to accelerate the adoption of affordable, low-carbon aviation solutions.

📑 Sunhat raised €9.2 million in Series A funding to scale its compliance platform that tackles the costly “Proof Gap” in ESG and sustainability reporting. Sunhat’s Proof AI generates verified, audit-ready proof on demand, cutting response times by up to 80% with 95%+ accuracy. Founded in 2022, the company now supports clients like EnBW, Ingredion, and Geberit across 20+ countries.

🟢 Cleantech startup Brineworks raised €6.8 million to advance its renewable-powered Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology targeting sub-$100/ton CO₂ removal and affordable e-Fuel production. Founded in 2023 in Amsterdam, the company’s patented electrolyzer runs on intermittent renewable energy and saltwater, reducing costs versus traditional DAC systems while also producing hydrogen.

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