ESG regulatory landscape for listed issuers
Given the markets’ increased focus on ESG considerations, legislators and regulators alike have started legislating with a view to (primarily) increasing ESG-related disclosures. While the scope of a number of these laws is narrow (e.g. the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which requires financial market participants and financial advisers to disclose information about the sustainability risks they face and their principal adverse impacts), other pieces of legislation apply more broadly, including in respect of issuers. The main laws which issuers ought to concern themselves with in terms of ESG regulation are the following: Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive On April 21, the European Commission presented its proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which aims to revise, broaden and strengthen the existing rules introduced by the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and to bring sustainability reporting on a par with financial reporting. Under CSRD, all large companies, and all companies listed on EU regulated markets except listed micro-enterprises, would be subject to these reporting requirements and will have to...