ESG News - February 2026

👉 PCAF expands global GHG accounting standard for finance and insurance

PCAF has updated its Global GHG Accounting Standard, widening coverage of financed and insurance-associated emissions. The revision adds new methodologies for insurance-linked emissions, avoided emissions and forward-looking metrics, responding to rising regulatory pressure for more complete climate disclosures. The framework helps banks, insurers and asset managers better assess climate exposure across current and future balance sheets.

Source: ESG News, 12/03/2025

👉 EU supervisors issue joint ESG stress-testing guidelines

The European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA) have published Joint Guidelines on ESG stress testing, setting out how banking and insurance supervisors should integrate ESG risks into supervisory stress tests. The guidance applies to both existing stress-testing frameworks and complementary ESG assessments. National authorities will apply the rules on a “comply or explain” basis, with translations due in early 2026. For banks and insurers, this signals rising supervisory expectations around systematic ESG risk integration.

Source: European Banking Authority, 01/08/2026

👉 US House passes anti-ESG bill targeting retirement investing

The US House of Representatives has passed legislation aimed at restricting the consideration of ESG factors in retirement plan investment decisions. The bill seeks to limit fiduciaries’ ability to integrate sustainability and climate-related risks when managing pension assets, intensifying the political backlash against ESG investing. If enacted, it could constrain asset managers and pension funds, increasing legal and compliance uncertainty around fiduciary duties in the US retirement market.

Source: Politico, 01/15/2026

👉 Hong Kong expands sustainable finance taxonomy to include transition and adaptation

Hong Kong has released a major update to its Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, introducing three categories: Green, Transition and Exclusion, and expanding eligible activities from 12 to 25. The new Transition category is designed to mobilise capital towards carbon-intensive sectors through time-bound decarbonization pathways aligned with net zero by 2050, while also incorporating climate adaptation. The move strengthens interoperability with global frameworks and aims to scale transition finance across high-emitting sectors.

Source: ESG News, 01/27/2026

👉 EU banks move towards standardised ESG disclosures in 2026

The EU Joint Bank Reporting Committee has published its 2026 work programme, setting out plans to harmonise ESG disclosures across supervisory, statistical and resolution reporting. The agenda focuses on semantic integration, aligning definitions, terminology and data structures, to reduce inconsistencies and reporting burdens while improving comparability. The recommendations will inform upcoming Implementing Technical Standards on ESG disclosures. For banks, this signals a more standardised but data-intensive reporting landscape, favouring institutions with robust ESG data architectures.

Source: ESG News, 01/21/2026

👉 French greentech funding fell by 46% in 2025 to around €1bn, according to EY, marking an unprecedented drop. Over two years, financing has nearly been cut by three, highlighting tougher capital conditions for environmental start-ups despite long-term transition needs.

Source: EY, 01/13/2026

👉 Corporate Knights’ 2026 ranking highlights the top sustainable equity funds across Canadian, global, international and US categories, using metrics such as sustainable revenue, investment and executive pay alignment. Sustainability and climate indices have grown at a 20% CAGR, reflecting a shift from exclusion-based screening to transition positioning.

Source: Corporate Knights, 01/07/2026

👉 Asset owners are showing growing interest in blue bonds as a way to integrate ESG, with investors citing first-mover advantages in the nascent market. Supported by IFC’s Blue Finance Guidelines, blue investments - spanning marine and freshwater ecosystems - are gaining traction, particularly in Asia, as a credible and scalable sustainable finance theme.

Source: Top1000funds, 11/26/2024

👉 A majority of investors and financial institutions fear that the EU’s proposed simplified ESRS will reduce the quality of sustainability data, according to an EFRAG study. Respondents cite weaker comparability and the loss of critical climate and environmental information as key concerns amid the Omnibus I simplification push.

Source: ESG Today, 01/13/2026

👉 New ECB research shows banks with higher transition risk face higher funding costs. Using 2019–2022 data, the study finds that banks with greater financed emissions pay 7-12% higher repo rates, signalling that markets are increasingly pricing climate transition and physical risks.

Source: Bloomberg, 01/19/2026

👉 The International Chamber of Commerce and Carbon Measures have formed an expert panel to develop a global, ledger-based carbon accounting framework. The initiative aims to enable product-level emissions tracking across value chains, supporting more granular, comparable and decision-useful carbon data for companies and investors.

Source: ESG Today, 01/19/2026

👉 A UN report finds a stark imbalance in nature finance: for every €1 invested in protecting or restoring nature, around €30 still fund activities that degrade it. In 2023, harmful investments reached ~€6.7tn versus ~€200bn for nature-based solutions, underscoring the need to redirect private capital and improve transparency.

Source: RSE Magazine, 01/23/2026

👉 A new Dunya Analytics study finds that only 22% of companies assess all four TNFD-recommended biodiversity measures, with ecosystem integrity the least covered. Fragmented nature risk assessments leave firms exposed to operational and supply-chain disruptions, particularly in resource-intensive sectors.

Source: PR Newswire, 11/20/2025

👉 European private equity invested €4.4bn in the ecological transition in 2023, a record year, before slowing in 2024. Industry players expect a rebound in 2026, driven by stronger ESG integration, SFDR pressure and investor demands, as climate risks increasingly factor into value creation and downside protection.

Source: Les Echos, 02/04/2026

👉 Fragmented sustainability data remains the top reporting challenge in 2026, but leading firms are shifting from manual, siloed systems to automated, integrated and predictive data management. Strategic use of AI-driven sustainability data is increasingly linked to lower financing costs, stronger resilience and long-term value creation.

Source: ESG Today, 02/02/2026