ESG round-up: Enel first company fully aligned with CA100+ benchmark

Enery firm Enel has been recognised as the first company fully aligned with the Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Company Benchmark. Launched last year, the benchmark assesses focus company alignment with a series of indicators including emissions and net zero targets, climate lobbying and the just transition, and is used as a basis for investor participants to carry out engagements. The lead investors for the engagement with Enel are abrdn, National Trust and Robeco.  

The Biden administration has revealed it will leverage disclosure regimes such as the CDP’s environmental reporting system, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) as part of its proposed Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule. Under the rule major federal contractors will be required to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk; it will also ask companies to take tangible action by setting science-based GHG reduction targets.  

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was adopted on Thursday in the Parliament, with 525 votes in favour, 60 against and 28 abstentions. The CSRD will set the rules of the road for companies operating in the EU on their sustainability reporting obligations; it replaces the existing Non-Financial Reporting Directive. Moving forward, the European Council is expected to adopt the proposal on 28 November, after which it will be signed and published in the EU Official Journal – the directive will enter into force 20 days after publication. 

Storebrand Asset Management, Triodos Bank, Cardano, ACTIAM, and ASN Bank – among others – have called on EU member states and the European Commission to stand with the parliament and support the inclusion of the financial sector in proposed deforestation regulation. The regulation would require companies to ensure that products sold in the EU do not come from deforested land or degraded forest. The letter warns “the commitments of financial institutions are not enough to halt the financing of activities that put forests at risk.” 

France’s stock market regulator has made an appeal to the European Commission and ESMA regarding the new Taxonomy reporting obligations. The AMF made the call in its analysis of a sample of 27 companies regarding their application of the obligations. AMF called on the pair “to continue to work – in consultation with the stakeholders – to provide the necessary answers to the numerous questions of interpretation and/or application regarding the applicable regulations, within an appropriate timetable in view of the companies’ publication time limits, and to guide companies in this reporting exercise”.