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Travers Smith is delighted to have been recommended by the Legal 500 UK Green Guide 2024. The guide is based on client feedback.

After months of negotiations, on 14 December, the EU Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement on the principles that will underpin the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive ("CS3D").

Our ESG timeline archive sets out past UK and EU legal and regulatory developments relating to ESG and wider sustainable business topics from January 2023 onwards. As with the main timeline, the timeline archive can be filtered according to your business type or the relevant ESG theme.

At the time of our last COP28 update, we were still waiting to hear what the outcomes would be from several key discussion areas that remained open, including the results of the first Global Stocktake ("GST").

In this session from the recent PMI's ESG and Climate Summit (December 2023), Pensions Partner Andy Lewis and Senior Counsel Harriet Sayer looked at how law and regulation, including the recent output from the Taskforce on Social Factors, might help support and guide schemes with moving social factors up the agenda.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

After many months of speculation and preparation, COP28 got underway last week in Dubai. As set out in our article prior to COP28 commencing, the conference comes at a crucial time in collective international efforts to tackle the climate crisis, with King Charles emphasising in his address to the conference that "COP28 will be another critical turning point towards genuine transformational action".

Introduction

SDR is widely seen as the UK's answer to the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which is currently under review by the European Commission (in fact, we understand that the Commission has an eye on SDR as part of that review). While narrower in scope than SFDR in some respects, it goes further in others insofar as it provides for a set of formal product labels and imposes minimum standards for labelled­ products and non-labelled products that have ESG-related terms in their names (although some will already be familiar with the FCA's ‘Guiding Principles’ for authorised ESG and sustainable investment funds, which sets out expectations in terms of design, delivery and disclosure in relation to such funds).

Partner Andy Lewis outlines four key steps for pension schemes on the net zero journey.

Our regular round-up of recent and forthcoming developments in law and practice for in-house counsel.

In this edition, we highlight the key regulatory and policy developments this Autumn which will impact investors in and operators of energy and infrastructure assets in the UK. Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss any of the issues discussed below.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

On 16 March 2023, the EU Commission announced plans for the "Critical Raw Materials Act" (the "CRMA"): a "comprehensive set of actions" designed to ensure long-term access in the EU to a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials. The proposal forms part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan, adopted in February 2023, which aims to create a regulatory environment which supports the net-zero transition.

Funds Partner Jeremy Elmore and Financial Services & Markets Senior Consultant Simon Witney have featured in the latest edition of Private Equity International's Impact Investing Report. In this keynote interview, Jeremy and Simon discuss how greater clarity, precision and standardisation can help the impact investing market reach its full potential.

On 1 October 2023, the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism ("CBAM") regulation officially entered into its transitional period, which will run until 31 December 2025. The CBAM is effectively an import tax on carbon-intensive products, such as cement, steel, iron, aluminium and electricity.

This Briefing sets out the headline changes that UK incorporated main market and AIM listed companies should be aware of from the past year and a timeline of key upcoming developments. This Briefing also covers, at a high level, some topics which are not specific to listed companies.

The UK CMA has now (12 October) published its keenly awaited Green Agreements Guidance, explaining how collaborations between competitors to promote environmental sustainability will be treated under domestic competition laws prohibiting anticompetitive agreements. 

As many companies take the first steps towards understanding the impact of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive ("CSRD") on their organisations, a series of seemingly impactful changes to the regime, and corresponding alarming headlines, have emerged. However, while these changes and headlines might make businesses worry that they will need to pivot their plans and processes as a reaction, in practice, many of those currently preparing for CSRD reporting may find that recent developments do not move the dial significantly and they may well still be on the right path towards CSRD compliance.