ESG ratings consultation

Time does not permit me to do justice to everything that is happening in and around sustainable investment at the moment, however keeping tabs on what is happening in the regulatory arena is crucial.

So… with apologies for brevity, and a promise to look extremely closely at this paper as soon as we can – for obvious reasons – below is a link to a new consultation that will no doubt impact the way ESG and sustainable investment markets function in future.

Future regulatory regime for ESG ratings consultation launched by HM Treasury  March 2023.

My initial thoughts:

I am yet to digest this paper fully, but my first impression is that it looks sensible.

ESG ratings have been a ‘mixed bag’ since they started to mushroom around 8 years ago.

There was never any doubt that for sustainable investment, and investment in general, to flourish we would need much more data on sustainability issues and ESG.  Ratings agencies have enthusiastically filled that gap and so helped to ‘mainstream’ the area.  However the ESG ratings area has for too long displayed the hallmarks of an immature market enjoying exponential growth – with all that means for our clients and the planet.

SRI Services welcomes this consultation.  As yet we do not know how it will effect us, however we do plan to respond.

The consultation closes 30 June 2023.

Julia

ps this paper is thankfully brief at under 30 pages (including 22 questions), so please do respond if you can!