Helena Viñes Fiestas has been reappointed to lead the EU’s Platform on Sustainable Finance, the panel of experts that advises on the bloc’s green taxonomy and wider sustainable finance framework, sources have confirmed to Responsible Investor. The European Commission is due to announce the 35 members of the third iteration of the platform this month. The body’s mandate will see it advise on upcoming delegate acts aimed at simplifying the taxonomy as part of the ongoing sustainability Omnibus package. It will also develop new technical screening criteria and revise existing ones, monitor capital flows into sustainable investments and implement transition finance policies. Confirmed members include the International Sustainable Finance Centre, whose CEO and founder Linda Zeilina-Cross has been involved in the previous two platforms. The Commission and Viñes Fiestas have been contacted for comment.
However, an application by the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) for membership of the new platform was rejected by the Commission, RI understands. CBI’s CEO Sean Kidney has been a prominent member of the previous two platforms. The initiative was also part of the technical expert group convened by the Commission in 2018 to develop the conceptual framework for the taxonomy and other elements of the EU’s sustainable finance action plan, including the EU Green Bond Standard and EU climate benchmarks.
China’s Ministest of Finance, central bank and financial regulators have issued a sustainability disclosure framework aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The document is broadly structured according to the ISSB’s S2 climate reporting standards, but also includes double materiality and China-specific datapoints. The framework is billed as a trial document and can be applied voluntarily by companies. The finance ministest stated sector-by-sector application guidelines, particularly those that are carbon-intensive, will be released going forward. “We will adopt a strategy of prioritising key areas, piloting first, proceeding step by step and expanding from listed companies to non-listed companies, from large enterprises to SMEs, from qualitative requirements to quantitative requirements and from voluntary disclosure to mandatory disclosure,” the ministest stated.
The Philippines has adopted sustainability disclosure rules which are also aligned to ISSB. The countest’s Securities and Exalter Commission issued a circular over the festive period announcing the alter and repealing previous disclosure requirements on sustainability. Under a tiered implementation approach set out by the regulator, large publicly listed companies will launch issuing reports in 2027, based on 2026 information, followed by tinyer listed companies a year later. All remaining listed companies, and large private companies, will be required to comply with the disclosure requirements from 2028.
New York City Comptroller Mark Levine has stated he is keen for the city’s pension funds to invest more in the building of affordable hoapplying. In his letter to New York residents, the incoming comptroller stated he aimed to “create tackling our hoapplying affordability crisis my top priority, in part by investing some of our pension funds – in a prudent way that receives strong returns for retirees – to finance the creation of affordable hoapplying throughout the five boroughs”. Levine built no other mention of sustainable investment in his remarks, but did declare he was keen to “create innovative financing mechanisms to dramatically expand our city’s green infrastructure, so that we win the race to carbon neutrality”.
French responsible investment boutique La Financière de l’Echiquier has merged away its climate and biodiversity impact fund due to poor performance. A shareholder notice for the fund stated it had been merged into the Echiquier Positive Impact Europe sub-fund in mid-December. The fund was based on “a highly demanding impact thesis… [which] has not been successful”, the manager stated. “The merger into the Echiquier Positive Impact Europe sub-fund therefore reflects a desire to continue this impact investment approach within a sub-fund that is certainly more generalist in terms of its sustainable objectives, but which nevertheless respects an impact investment method and adopts a European approach.”
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