ESG

The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) has opened a public consultation on draft Singapore Sustainability Disclosure Standards that would require companies to explain how they identify, assess, and manage climate-related risks and opportunities. The consultation runs from July 27 through Oct. 25, giving businesses, investors, assurance providers, and professional bodies a chance to shape the rules before they are finalized.

Thirty ESG evaluation and data providers had endorsed Japan's Code of Conduct for ESG Evaluation and Data Providers as of June 30, 2026, according to an updated list published by the country's Financial Services Agency (FSA).

There is an understated honesty in the way the Monetary Authority of Singapore begins its latest sustainability report. Before it speaks of new guidance, larger investment pools or cleaner buildings, it acknowledges something that has become increasingly difficult for policymakers to ignore: the climate transition has become harder, not easier. Geopolitical tensions have reordered priorities. Funding is less certain. Energy security has reclaimed a place near the top of government agendas. Yet the physical risks associated with a warming planet have shown little interest in waiting for political consensus to return.

South Korea will require its largest publicly traded companies to begin mandatory sustainability reporting in 2028, moving forward a long-debated disclosure regime while introducing temporary legal protections intended to ease the transition and encourage broader corporate participation.

The European Commission has adopted revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), delivering the most substantial simplification of the European Union's sustainability reporting framework since the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) began reshaping corporate disclosure obligations.

For years, the complaint was that boards did not understand sustainability. KPMG's latest research suggests that argument has largely expired. The problem now lies somewhere less visible and, perhaps because of that, more difficult to solve. Executives understand the risks, and they understand the opportunities. What many still cannot do is express either in financial terms that withstand scrutiny inside the investment committee or the finance function.

The California Air Resources Board announced this week that it will postpone the state's first deadline for reporting Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions from August 10, 2026, to November 10, 2026. The extension is tied directly to the regulation itself, which remains unfinished. Rather than continue the approval process, CARB has withdrawn the package it submitted to the Office of Administrative Law, choosing instead to make what it describes as limited revisions that clarify certain requirements before asking regulators for final approval.