REP Wrap: Climate disclosure updates from California and New Zealand

Exxon is suing California over its climate disclosure rules. In a complaint filed with a US court, the oil major argues that bills 253 and 261 violate its First Amendment rights by obliging it to “serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees”, and asks for California to be banned from enforcing them.

The European Commission has officially proposed a set of simplifications to the EU Deforestation Regulation. It wants to retain the current December deadline for most companies to start complying with the law, despite previously calling for a one-year delay. Micro and small enterprises, and downstream operators, will get an extra 12 months to comply, as well as reduced obligations under the law. All other companies will be granted a six-month grace period for enforcement, because of problems with the Commission’s IT platform.

The New Zealand government has become the latest to scale back its climate-related disclosures requirements. The reporting regime will now only apply to companies with a market capitalisation higher than $1bn – up from $60m under the original rules – and director liability has been removed. 

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has released a document explaining how its recommendations map to CDP’s annual questionnaire. It concludes that firms disclosing through CDP in 2025 can report on a substantial proportion of the TNFD’s 14 recommended disclosures and core metrics. It will provide another update next year. 

Meta has signed a deal to buy environmental attribute certificates from US ‘clean iron’ start-up, Electra. The agreement means Meta can count the emissions reductions associated with a tonne of Electra’s iron toward its own sustainability targets. No details about the price of the certificates were provided. Microsoft, meanwhile, signed its third deal with carbon removals firm UNDO, agreeing to purchase nearly 30,000 more tonnes of carbon removals.