The REP Wrap: SEC moves to abandon climate disclosure rule
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked to delay its legal defence of its climate disclosure rules, because it wants to rethink them. This week, Republican commissioner and the US regulator’s interim head, Mark Uyeda, criticised the proposals, which are on the receiving end of a slew of legal challenges from lawmakers and companies. Outgoing Democratic commissioner Caroline Crenshaw criticised Uyeda’s “unilateral” decision to ask to postpone the SEC’s defence of the lawsuits – which have been consolidated into a single case – and pushed back against criticism that the rules go beyond its remit.
Amazon, ExxonMobil and Microsoft are represented on a new voluntary carbon market taskforce set up by Washington-based think tank, the Bipartisan Policy Centre. The group will develop policy recommendations on how the US government can “promote fair, efficient, and transparent markets”.
Nestlé has hit its 2025 emissions reduction and regenerative agriculture targets a year early. The Swiss food giant achieved a 20.38% net reduction in absolute emissions in 2024 compared with 2018, through a combination of reductions and carbon removals. It also met its goal to source at least 20% of key ingredients from farmers adopting regenerative agriculture practices.
Singaporean bank OCBC Bank has launched a new programme to help small- and medium-sized companies issue sustainability-linked loans. The OCBC SME Start-ESG Programme offers firms a grant to obtain a baseline measurement of their sustainability performance from a third-party provider, which is a pre-requisite for sustainability-linked loans.
The Institute for Human Rights and Business has published a case study on how business, politicians and workers collaborated in a coal mining town in Australia to achieve a just transition. The report explores “what worked, what didn’t, and how it could serve as a model for other coal regions worldwide”.
Accor Hotels, Club Med, Disneyland Paris and Best Western France are among 20 French firms to have road-tested a decarbonisation methodology created for the country’s tourism industry. Tourism accounts for 7% of French GDP and 11% of national emissions, and is one of the focus sectors identified by government-backed climate initiative ACT. The pilot methodologies related to measuring the climate performance of the companies and supporting them in the structuring of transition strategies.