Library | ESG issues
Oversight, Assurance & Audit
Effective oversight, assurance, and audit are essential for organisations to manage risks and ensure the integrity of both financial and sustainability reporting. Boards and senior executives are responsible for overseeing risk management processes, obtaining assurance that principal risks are identified, managed, and monitored, and ensuring the effectiveness of internal controls. Audits, whether financial or sustainability-focused, involve independent evaluations of an organisation’s reports and controls to provide stakeholders with confidence in the accuracy and reliability of disclosed information.
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Systems-informed stewardship part II: Bringing a systems perspective to stewardship
This article applies a systems lens to stewardship, arguing that fragmented intermediation and entrenched short-term time horizons undermine sustainability outcomes. It calls for recognising these structural barriers as a critical step toward more effective, systems-informed stewardship.
Indicators of global climate change 2024: Annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence series
This series provides annual, peer-reviewed updates on key indicators of the global climate system and human influence. It tracks developments between IPCC assessment cycles, using consistent methods to support comparability, transparency, and evidence-based decision-making for policy and finance audiences.
Climate fiduciaries: part III – mind the model gap
The article explores how pension funds rely on imperfect climate models to assess financial risk and whether fiduciary duty requires deeper scrutiny of their assumptions. It highlights emerging legal challenges, model limitations, and the shift toward richer scenarios and climate narratives in investment decision-making.
National ecological footprint and biocapacity accounts series
This series provides consistent national and global accounts of ecological footprint and biocapacity, tracking resource demand and regenerative capacity over time. It supports comparative analysis across countries and years, using harmonised methods and internationally sourced data to inform sustainability assessment and policy analysis.
The British Standards Institution (BSI)
British Standards Institution (BSI) Group is a global standards organisation supporting quality, safety and sustainability. It develops British and standards, certification, training and solutions across sectors, helping organisations manage risk, improve performance and meet regulatory and ESG requirements worldwide for supply chains, compliance and resilience in regulated and emerging markets.
Advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment: Target setting guidance for banks
This guidance outlines how banks can set and implement measurable targets to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment across leadership, portfolios, financial inclusion and ecosystems, aligned with the Principles for Responsible Banking and Women’s Empowerment Principles.
Net Zero Asset Managers' target disclosures series
The Net Zero Asset Managers Target Disclosures is a reporting series that tracks how participating asset managers set, disclose, and update net zero targets over time. It provides a consistent, initiative-wide view of commitments, disclosure practices, governance arrangements, and methodological approaches across reporting years.
Footprint data foundation
Footprint Data Foundation (FoDaFo) is a not-for-profit organisation that governs the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. It ensures ecological footprint data are accurate, transparent and independent, supporting researchers, policymakers and sustainability practitioners with robust environmental accounting used globally.
Sustainable Finance Roundup January 2026: Geopolitics, Energy Transitions, and Systemic Risk
This month’s sustainable finance article roundup examines a landscape increasingly shaped by geopolitics and climate risk, as near-term fragmentation, energy security, and affordability pressures collide with intensifying long-term threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, and water stress. The works featured analyse how these dynamics are reshaping capital allocation, disclosure, and resilience planning, demonstrating the growing need for sustainable finance to integrate geopolitical risk with real-economy transition.
Crushed series
CRUSHED is a longitudinal research series by the Safe in India Foundation assessing worker safety in India’s automotive manufacturing and supplier ecosystem. Drawing on annual field evidence across multiple years, the series tracks workplace conditions, governance practices, and enforcement gaps to support consistent analysis over time.
Endowment impact benchmark series
The Endowment Impact Benchmark is a benchmark series that provides a structured assessment and benchmarking framework for endowments and foundations. It evaluates policies, governance, management and transparency related to sustainable and impact investing, enabling consistent comparison and ongoing progress tracking across participating institutions.
Climate risk self-assessment survey series
This series presents APRA’s Climate Risk Self-Assessment Surveys, which review how APRA-regulated entities approach governance, risk management, metrics, targets and disclosure of climate-related financial risks. It provides a consistent, periodic view of industry practices and alignment with prudential guidance over time.
Climate fiduciaries: part II – the duty of even-handedness
This article explores the fiduciary duty of even-handedness and its implications for climate-aware pension fund investing, focusing on emerging legal challenges in Australia and Canada. It argues that unmanaged climate risk may breach trustees’ obligations to act equitably across generations, particularly where younger members bear disproportionate long-term harm.
Directors’ duties navigator: Climate risk and sustainability disclosures series
This is a series of legal and governance primers examining directors’ duties and corporate disclosure obligations in relation to climate and sustainability risks. It provides jurisdictional analysis and practical guidance to support board oversight, risk management and reporting as regulatory and market expectations evolve.
Roadmap development tool for adopting ISSB Standards
IFRS Foundation Sustainability Disclosure Standards Roadmap Development Tool is an online resource supporting jurisdictions in planning adoption of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. It outlines key steps, policy choices, timelines, and implementation considerations to support consistent, decision-useful sustainability reporting aligned with financial markets.
Nature Enters the Boardroom: Why Directors Are Paying Attention
Drawing on Australia’s first national study of board-level engagement with nature, this article shows how directors are treating nature as a material governance and financial issue. It highlights how boards are extending climate governance systems to manage nature-related risks, adopt frameworks like TNFD, and build resilience and long-term value despite policy uncertainty.
