The European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, known as the PPWR, began to apply across the bloc on Aug. 12, bringing with it restrictions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in food-contact packaging. Packaging containing PFAS above limits set by the regulation can no longer be placed on the EU market.
An Australian investment manager has been ordered to pay approximately $5.2 million (AUD $7.3 million) after a court found that it failed to properly oversee an ESG fund while making claims about the fund’s ethical and socially responsible investment approach that it did not have reasonable grounds to make.
European banks entered the final months of 2025 with much the same climate-risk exposure they had six months earlier. What changed was their ability to measure it. The European Banking Authority said last Thursday that climate-related risk indicators across banks in the European Union and European Economic Area remained broadly stable during the second half of last year, with little movement in either transition or physical risk exposures. At the same time, banks made gradual progress filling some of the data gaps that have complicated efforts to assess those risks, particularly in mortgage portfolios.
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.