Featured Product

    HM Treasury Sets Out Roadmap to Sustainable Investing

    October 18, 2021

    Her Majesty's (HM) Treasury published a roadmap detailing the new sustainability disclosure requirements and the Green Taxonomy in UK. The roadmap highlights the importance of investor stewardship in green finance and reiterates the commitment of UK to the international leadership on green finance. The roadmap also sets out the long-term ambition of the government to green the financial system and aligns it with the UK’s world-leading net-zero commitment.

    Greening the financial system can be seen in three phases: ensuring decision-useful information on sustainability is available to financial market decision-makers (phase 1); mainstreaming this information into business and financial decisions (phase 2); and ensuring that financial flows across the economy shift to align with the UK’s net-zero commitment and wider environmental goals (phase 3). This roadmap represents the government strategy to deliver Phase 1, which will be delivered through new economy-wide Sustainability Disclosure Requirements. The roadmap sets out implementation pathways for different sectors of the economy and provides more detail on the requirements, including that they will be:

    • Integrated—Investment products, financial services firms, and real economy corporates will be required to report consistent information on sustainability.
    • Streamlined—The regime will streamline existing disclosure requirements, such as the UK’s commitment to make reporting aligned with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) mandatory, with new requirements, including on reporting environmental impact.
    • Consumer-focused—Investment products will need to set out consumer-focused disclosures showing the impact, risks, and opportunities of the activities they finance on sustainability. This will be accompanied by a consumer-facing label developed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) so that consumers can make informed investment decisions that take sustainability into account.
    • Credible—Asset managers, asset owners, and investment products will be required to substantiate sustainability claims they make.
    • Robust—Disclosure requirements will include reporting under the UK Green Taxonomy, which will provide a robust list of economic activities that count as environmentally sustainable.
    • In line with international standards—UK is a strong advocate for international standards for sustainability reporting, and is preparing the ground to adopt international standards in this area (subject to consultation).

    The roadmap highlights that the government will update the Green Finance Strategy in 2022. This will go beyond the timescales in this roadmap and set out an indicative sectoral transition pathway to 2050, to align the financial system with the net-zero commitment of UK. The updated strategy will assess industry progress on Phases 1 and 2. and will consider triggers for stronger policy to facilitate Phase 3 and help ensure that the UK meets its climate and environmental objectives.

     

    Related Links

    Keywords: International, Banking, Principles of Responsible Banking, ESG, Climate Change Risk, Paris Agreement, Sustainable Finance, Financial Inclusion, UN, Biodiversity Loss, UNEP FI

    Featured Experts
    Related Articles
    News

    EBA Finalizes Templates for One-Off Climate Risk Scenario Analysis

    The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published the final templates, and the associated guidance, for collecting climate-related data for the one-off Fit-for-55 climate risk scenario analysis.

    November 28, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    EBA Mulls Inclusion of Environmental & Social Risks to Pillar 1 Rules

    The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently published a report that recommends enhancements to the Pillar 1 framework, under the prudential rules, to capture environmental and social risks.

    October 31, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    BCBS Consults on Disclosure of Crypto-Asset Exposures of Banks

    As a follow on from its prudential standard on the treatment of crypto-asset exposures, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) proposed disclosure requirements for crypto-asset exposures of banks.

    October 19, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    BCBS and EBA Publish Results of Basel III Monitoring Exercise

    The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) have published results of the Basel III monitoring exercise.

    October 18, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    PRA Updates Timeline for Final Basel III Rules, Issues Other Updates

    The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) recently issued a few regulatory updates for banks, with the updated Basel implementation timelines being the key among them.

    October 18, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    US Treasury Sets Out Principles for Net-Zero Financing

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury has recently set out the principles for net-zero financing and investment.

    October 17, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    EC Launches Survey on G7 Principles on Generative AI

    The European Commission (EC) launched a stakeholder survey on the draft International Guiding Principles for organizations developing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

    October 14, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    ISSB Sustainability Standards Expected to Become Global Baseline

    The finalization of the two sustainability disclosure standards—IFRS S1 and IFRS S2—is expected to be a significant step forward in the harmonization of sustainability disclosures worldwide.

    September 18, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    IOSCO, BIS, and FSB to Intensify Focus on Decentralized Finance

    Decentralized finance (DeFi) is expected to increase in prominence, finding traction in use cases such as lending, trading, and investing, without the intermediation of traditional financial institutions.

    September 18, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    News

    BCBS Assesses NSFR and Large Exposures Rules in US

    The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) published reports that assessed the overall implementation of the net stable funding ratio (NSFR) and the large exposures rules in the U.S.

    September 14, 2023 WebPage Regulatory News
    RESULTS 1 - 10 OF 8938