Sustainability Weekly 17 – 21 March

Last week, ahead of the entry into force of ESMA's rules on fund naming, Blackrock, Federated Hermes, Amundi, Fidelity, and DWS changed the names of several of their ESG funds or amended some of their exclusion criteria. The European Commission presented a white paper on European defense, which includes measures to promote ESG investment in the sector and the training of skilled workers. The SBTi published a draft of the second version of its Corporate Net Zero Standard, submitted for consultation: the organization is not fundamentally changing its position on carbon offsetting, but is changing the target settings for scopes 1, 2, and 3. The European Commission presented a communication on an action plan for steel and metals. Players in the cosmetics sector are calling for a fairer application of the polluter-pays principle imposed by the new DERU directive. BYD presented a new BEV architecture that achieves a charging time on par with internal combustion vehicles. RWE has been in the news, with a 25% drop in Capex in the 2025-30 investment plan, a new battery project, and a climate dispute. On the social side, UBS removed diversity targets from its annual report and pushed back the net-zero emissions target for its own operations from 2025 to 2035. On the governance side, two NGOs are suing Carrefour for breaching its duty of care. TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project received support from the US Export-Import Bank, amid a French manslaughter investigation. An ISS report on AI governance revealed that 20% of S&P 500 companies have at least one director specializing in AI on their board.