Aotearoa New Zealand’s maritime sector faces rising decarbonisation pressures. The report outlines emissions-reduction pathways, alternative fuel options, green corridor opportunities, and economic risks of inaction. It recommends coordinated planning, trans-Tasman collaboration, and enabling regulation to maintain trade competitiveness and support a lower-emissions shipping system.

The report outlines climate change scenarios for New Zealand’s agriculture sector, assessing physical and transition risks across regions and farm systems. It presents orderly, disorderly and hothouse futures, highlighting impacts on production, land use and communities, and providing a foundation for sector-wide resilience planning and adaptation.

This month’s sustainable-finance roundup highlights faster transition momentum, rising physical risks and a tightening focus on accountability. COP30 reinforced expectations for stronger 2035 targets, while national actions underscored diverging paths toward decarbonisation. Markets continued shifting toward clean energy and resilience, and new science made climate harms more visible. With regulatory scrutiny and litigation increasing, transition credibility and real-economy resilience are becoming core drivers of financial risk and investment decisions.

This benchmark series outlines key legal, operational, and investment considerations shaping ESG and the sustainable economy. It provides structured guidance for investors, operators, and policymakers on evolving practices, regulatory expectations, and sector-level developments, offering a consistent foundation for understanding how sustainability themes influence financial and organisational decision-making.

Oxygen Consulting offers specialist sustainability consulting services across carbon, climate and nature, sustainability strategy and advisory, disclosure and reporting, audit and assurance, and capability development. Serving organisations in New Zealand across diverse sectors, it supports measurement, strategy formation and robust sustainability-governance frameworks to drive meaningful business impact.

The article explores the paradox in which institutional investors focus heavily on climate-risk disclosure, an area of comfort and perceived legitimacy, while underinvesting in real-economy climate policy that could meaningfully reduce systemic risk. It argues that meaningful climate action requires shifting from technocratic “managing tons” approaches toward politically challenging asset revaluation and more robust policy engagement.

The report outlines the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance’s progress in reducing financed emissions, strengthening target-setting, and expanding climate-solution investments. It highlights updated methodologies, increased engagement with companies and policymakers, and rising member participation, underscoring the need for credible transition pathways and supportive policy environments to advance alignment with 1.5°C goals.

This article dives into an analysis of over 12,000 YouTube videos and finds that while outright climate-change denial is dropping, content undermining climate solutions and trust in scientists is rising sharply. It also highlights concerns over YouTube’s ad policies, which still allow monetisation alongside videos that downplay impacts or spread misleading claims about climate policy.

Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA) is a global multi-stakeholder coalition mobilising finance for urban low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure. It supports sub-national governments in developing bankable projects, strengthening enabling environments and closing investment gaps especially in emerging markets and developing economies.

China’s transition finance market is expanding to support the decarbonisation of high-emitting industries. The report outlines growth in green and sustainability-linked bonds, emerging transition frameworks, and ongoing debates on coal and gas inclusion, highlighting the need for clearer standards and broader financing tools to meet China’s 2060 climate goals.

This report outlines how Australian private equity firms are integrating ESG across the investment cycle in response to mandatory climate reporting, taxonomy alignment, and stakeholder expectations. It highlights evolving screening, due diligence, ownership, and exit practices, and shows how ESG integration can support value creation and strengthen competitive positioning.

The report develops a machine-learning method to measure firm-level climate change exposure from earnings calls across 34 countries. It identifies opportunity, physical, and regulatory dimensions and shows that these exposures predict green hiring, green patenting, and are reflected in options and equity markets.

This series explores how investors and lenders can integrate circular economy principles into financial decision-making. It outlines practical tools and frameworks for assessing risks and opportunities linked to circularity, helping finance professionals align portfolios with sustainability objectives while supporting Australia’s transition to a regenerative, low-waste economy.

This article explores the growing interest in deep-sea mining as a source of critical minerals for clean technologies, detailing how it works, its potential economic benefits, and the significant ecological and governance risks it poses. It also examines ongoing international regulatory disputes and alternative solutions such as recycling and circular mineral economies.

This article analyses how Canada’s Pathways Alliance representing 95 % of oil sands output frames its net-zero commitments. Reviewing 183 public communications, it finds widespread indicators of greenwashing, including selective disclosure, unverifiable claims, and poor accountability. The study urges broader scrutiny of coordinated industry communication across digital and public relations platforms.

This month’s sustainability roundup traces a rapidly evolving landscape in climate finance and accountability, spotlighting the weaknesses exposed by Hurricane Melissa’s disaster-risk finance system alongside new policy frameworks now reshaping sustainable investment. It highlights how vulnerable nations continue to bear the costs of climate impacts, how regulatory reforms such as Australia’s 2035 emissions target and global disclosure regimes are embedding accountability, and how renewed scrutiny of carbon markets is driving the search for credible, incentive-based pathways to real decarbonisation.