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.

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.

The report “The Pollution Premium” analyses how industrial pollution influences asset pricing. Using U.S. firms’ toxic emission data (1991–2016), it finds that companies with higher emission intensity earn around 4.4% higher annual returns than their low-emission peers, even after accounting for known risk factors. The study introduces environmental policy uncertainty as a new systematic risk, showing that firms more exposed to potential regulatory tightening demand higher expected returns as compensation.

This review examines how financial sector structures and actors influence sustainability outcomes through a systems lens. It identifies barriers such as inadequate metrics, poor risk integration, and limited understanding of complex dynamics, while highlighting collaboration opportunities between finance and science to align capital flows with long-term ecological resilience.

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.

The report, Assessing the Materiality of Nature-Related Financial Risks for the UK (April 2024), quantifies how biodiversity loss and environmental degradation could materially affect the UK economy and finance sector. It finds nature-related risks—especially from water scarcity, soil decline, and biodiversity loss—could reduce GDP by up to 12% by the 2030s, exceeding impacts from the Global Financial Crisis or COVID-19.

The study assesses the impact of industrial mining on African great apes, revealing that up to one-third of the population about 180,000 individuals faces direct or indirect mining-related threats. West Africa is most affected, with limited habitat protection and minimal survey data, underscoring urgent needs for transparent environmental monitoring.

This report by the American Evaluation Association’s Social Finance TIG outlines the evolving role of measurement and evaluation within the social finance ecosystem. It explains key concepts in impact investing, frameworks for assessing outcomes, and the intersection between evaluation and social impact measurement, offering resources for practitioners.

The report examines the expansion of place-based impact investing (PBII) in the UK since 2021. It outlines how institutional and local investors, supported by public–private partnerships, are aligning financial returns with social and environmental outcomes. The study highlights progress, barriers, and pathways to scaling PBII through collaboration and blended finance.

This publication is part of the Gender Benchmark series by the World Benchmarking Alliance. It serves as a practical tool for investors to assess and engage companies on their performance in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment across value chains, supporting stewardship and responsible investment practices.

Anti-Slavery International (ASI) is the world’s oldest international human-rights organisation, founded in 1839, dedicated to ending all forms of modern slavery worldwide. It campaigns with survivors, governments and businesses to tackle issues such as forced labour, human trafficking and child exploitation. Expertise spans more than 180 years.

This World Benchmarking Alliance report guides investors on using the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark to assess company performance in high-risk sectors. It outlines key findings, investor engagement questions, and sector-specific risks to promote accountability, human rights due diligence, and responsible investment aligned with sustainable development goals.

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.

Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) is an investor-led initiative engaging the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters to advance climate governance, set science-based emission targets and enhance climate-related disclosures. It collaborates with global investor networks to promote net-zero alignment, transition risk management and sustainable asset value preservation.