With anti-ESG sentiment on the rise amid a global financial tightening, is it time for investors to listen to the anti-woke agenda or double down on social responsibility?

Vocal members of the US political right are not happy, creating new laws that ban state investors from backing companies with an ESG agenda. Several fund managers have been quick to take up their cause.

Anti-ESG boycotts are unlikely to cross the Atlantic.

With more than 220 million homes to renovate, banks must provide the necessary funding to avoid being left with non-compliant housing assets. But a lack of standardized data on energy performance certificates makes it difficult to justify lending to some homeowners.

Wealth managers are keen to engage with clients on biodiversity, but concerns over liquidity and access pose challenges to retail and private clients.

The banking industry has become frustrated by slow regulatory progress as it waits for necessary standardization of climate risk assessments and disclosure policies to meet net-zero targets.

If the French company cuts greenhouse gas emissions, it will use savings on loan margin to finance sustainability projects: if it doesn’t, its banks will fund them.

War in Europe has completely upended the narrative around energy transition. Corporates and their banks are now engaged in a more complex conversation around the production – and financing – of oil and gas to replace Russian supplies. This could translate into more aggressive shareholder action as ESG investors fight to keep their near-term green agenda on track.

China’s approach to ESG is a jumble of grandiose and contradictory state planning alongside often marvellously successful bottom-up plans by banks and fintechs to instil in consumers a more sustainable lifestyle.

Last year, social was top of the ESG agenda. Today, it barely merits a mention.

The scrutiny of sustainable finance is expected to intensify over the year as stakeholders look for market participants to deliver on environmental promises.

The controversy around voluntary carbon markets has deterred banks from getting involved. They need to worry less about reputational risk and more about the planet.

Rabobank CEO Wiebe Draijer says that private finance must have a role in financing the transition to a more sustainable, equitable and healthy way of feeding the planet.

Governments have been slow to impose compulsory cap and trade schemes, but if voluntary markets nudge them along, a new asset class could flourish.

A new programme announced at COP26 plans to speed up progress away from coal-fired power in Indonesia and the Philippines by buying out plants, shutting them down, and helping to provide a cleaner alternative.

Investors fear that many Asian governments aren’t doing enough to transition to net zero. They are therefore engaging with the region’s largest utilities hoping for better results. CLP may be an example for others to follow.

There has always been great overlap between Shariah-compliant finance and ESG principles. Malaysia is trying to harness the potential that arises from this confluence.

A new poll by the data-room technology provider finds that worries over the potential for post-deal value destruction because of climate change have added to a risk environment already heightened by the coronavirus pandemic.

President Xi Jinping has set out ambitious plans to decarbonize China’s economy. But most companies and banks, hampered by a lack of top-down regulation, have little idea what ESG is, let alone how to measure and report it. It is a mess – and one that China needs to clear up fast.

Before long, investors will pay as close attention to an issuer’s green framework as to its credit rating.

China unveiled a plan for its first national parks on Friday, the final day of the COP15 conference in Kunming. It reveals the weight of Party concerns about pollution and biodiversity fragmentation, and their impact on political stability.

The BlackRock chief executive sees a big gap opening up between the commitments of large public companies and banks and the rest of society as inflation hits.

Sustainable agriculture holds the key to reducing emissions and transforming the global food system, says Rabo Carbon Bank’s chief executive.

Bank of America’s Abyd Karmali is on the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. He spoke to Euromoney ahead of the nature-based COP15 and climate-based COP26 conferences about what is at stake.

Amazonia Impact Ventures says that financing sustainable agricultural production can reduce deforestation rates.

Climate change cannot be tackled in isolation. Biodiversity is an equally important challenge, and the two must be considered in tandem. A new report backed by Singapore’s Temasek spells out the challenge and the opportunity.

Want to know what banks will be doing at COP26? Give them a minute and they’ll get back to you…

Credit Suisse’s chief sustainability officer is no ESG ideologue. She is at heart a hard-nosed investment banker who sees a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to guide clients to a more sustainable future.

South African banks’ sustainable finance challenges reflect the nation’s difficult but vital transition away from coal.

Macquarie Group chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake has laid out her bank’s ambitions in green energy, as its Green Investment Group reports a record portfolio.