We've got a lot to talk about in our insights this week, from the UK's new anti-greenwashing rule, climate plans suffering and possible fines for banks, to Shell's reduced climate targets and the extra $34 trillion needed to achieve net zero.
Here’s the key takeaways:
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UK anti-greenwashing rules now live – the FCA’s new rule requires authorised firms to make sure their sustainability-related claims are clear, fair, and not misleading so consumers can make informed decisions.
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Slowing electric vehicle (EV) sales impact bank climate plans… – continued adoption of EVs is a key part of many banks’ plans to decarbonise their loan-books, an area now facing difficulties as some large-automakers scale back on production.
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…as the European Central Bank (ECB) looks to impose fines for lack of climate disclosure – several banks look likely to miss the ECB’s deadline to set out their exposure to climate risks, facing daily fines of up to 5% of daily revenues.
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Shell waters down its transition plan – shareholders approved Shell’s updated carbon targets, including dropping its goal to reduce total emissions by 45% by 2035.
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Extra $34 trillion needed to reach net zero – new analysis from BloombergNEF now puts the total cost at $215 trillion by 2050.
Featured chart
Source: Bloomberg
Our chart of the week shows the number of times ‘diversity’ (and its synonyms) was mentioned in financial presentations from the largest listed US and European companies since 2021, broken down by region and quarter-on-quarter changes since Q1 2021.
Why’s this worth sharing?
The chart clearly shows the number of discussions around diversity has largely dropped over the last 12 months compared to the same quarter a year ago. The fall is especially pronounced in the US, where ‘ESG’ issues have become more politicised although European data is a little more mixed. The same analysis showed similar trends for mentions of climate-change related terms.
This is only one small datapoint but it’s an interesting indicator of how company attitudes towards ESG-related topics are evolving in the US and Europe.
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