ESG

More than a year after Brussels set out to make its sustainability reporting regime less burdensome, the revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards have made their way into the Official Journal. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 was published on September 21, replacing the existing ESRS annexes under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772. The regulation enters into force on November 10, 2026, and the revised standards will apply to financial years beginning on or after January 1, 2027.

ASIC has found an improvement in climate-related financial disclosures under Australia’s new mandatory sustainability reporting regime, although the regulator says companies still have work to do on some of the disclosures that demand the most judgment. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission reviewed a sample of 40 sustainability reports lodged for financial years ending Dec. 31, 2025. Its findings provide an early picture of what mandatory reporting has changed after years in which companies largely disclosed climate information voluntarily.

The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency have reached a proposed agreement requiring Environmental Resource Holdings to perform an estimated $125 million in work intended to move the long-running cleanup of New Jersey’s Lower Passaic River toward construction.

New Zealand’s Parliament has passed legislation barring civil tort claims over climate-change effects arising from greenhouse gas emissions, closing a potential avenue of liability for companies and other emitters.

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.