2025 could mark a turning point for sustainable finance, with the EU’s CSRD and global ISSB standards driving transparency. Financial institutions will need to navigate evolving frameworks, balancing compliance challenges with sustainability opportunities.

COP29 advanced international carbon trading with key agreements. Mixed signals on the energy transition, however, affirm investors’ view of an uneven transformation, while investment to address climate-driven physical risk looks likely to continue apace.

We evaluate European funds’ performance under sustainability regulations, including SFDR article 8 and 9 funds, EU Taxonomy alignment and new fund-naming guidelines, offering insights into regulatory developments and data improvements. 

Some sovereign-bond investors seeking to support climate mitigation might be interested in the idea of increasing their exposure to issuers with lower carbon emissions. Would this have been a good approach? 

Integrating sustainability and climate risk and impact into bond and private-debt analysis is becoming an increasingly important aspect of portfolio construction. This paper discusses a range of metrics that could guide investors in making these assessments.

What’s the state of climate expertise on the boards of the companies in your portfolio? We provide a regional analysis and offer a framework to help investors make their own assessments. 

What goes into an analysis of financially material social risks and opportunities? And what does it mean for a company’s market performance? Our analysis found that scoring on social-risk themes was a key indicator of performance. 

We found a strong historical correlation between a company’s MSCI ESG Rating and its cost of capital in both equity and debt markets. Firms assessed as the most resilient to financially material sustainability-related risks financed themselves more cheaply.