US companies quietly maintaining, boosting sustainability investments in 2025: report

EcoVadis found companies are less likely to publicize their sustainability efforts this year, but have largely maintained or increased their ESG investments amid shifts and backlash.

By Lamar Johnson • July 16, 2025

California’s 2026 climate-risk reporting deadlines are here to stay: KPMG

Despite regulatory uncertainty at the federal level and internationally, California’s forging ahead and expecting companies to disclose their climate risks starting next year.

By Lamar Johnson • July 14, 2025

Explore the Trendline➔

Top 5 stories from ESG Dive

This year has shaped up to be a formative one for ESG, from the U.S. pulling out of major climate agreements to federal agencies recalibrating their approach to sustainability under the new administration.

By ESG Dive staff

Cities can decarbonize buildings while cutting costs, new road map says

The guide from Climate Mayors and Veolia aims to help cities tackle one of their biggest greenhouse gas emissions challenges, even as federal support for energy efficiency and decarbonization shrinks.

By Robyn Griggs Lawrence • July 14, 2025

CARB publishes compliance guidance, update on California’s climate disclosure laws

The agency said it is in the “informal, information-gathering stage” for implementing SB 253 and SB 261, and aims to develop a regulation by the end of the year.

By Zoya Mirza • July 11, 2025

HSBC departs Net-Zero Banking Alliance, following US banks

The U.K.-based bank became the latest to exit the United Nations-backed NZBA, following in the footsteps of Wall Street's exodus from climate alliances.

By Lamar Johnson • July 11, 2025

Flexible work is ‘non-negotiable’ for gender equality, UN Women report says

“For the first time, gender equality ranks alongside healthcare and climate change as a top global concern,” according to the report.

By Carolyn Crist • July 11, 2025

European Commission proposes simplifying sustainability taxonomy

The changes would reduce the number of reported data points by 89% for financial institutions and 64% for non-financial companies.

By Lamar Johnson • July 8, 2025

Coach’s leather could pose deforestation threat: report

An investigation by environmental nonprofit Earthsight said the Tapestry-owned brand is at risk of sourcing leather linked to illegal cattle ranching in Brazil.

By Laurel Deppen • July 8, 2025

Amazon releases waste diversion metrics as part of larger sustainability plan

The company says it reached an 85% waste diversion rate in 2024. Amazon’s waste and biodiversity director, Justine Mahler, says that’s driven partly by organics diversion programs and ongoing data collection investments.

By Megan Quinn • July 8, 2025

Google’s emissions still rising, despite data center decarbonization, energy procurement progress

The search engine and tech conglomerate’s overall emissions are up 51% from a 2019 baseline, despite making headway in procuring carbon-free energy last year.

By Lamar Johnson • July 2, 2025

House committee clears bill to limit retirement fund managers from using ESG factors

The bill, which reverses course on a Biden-era regulation, would issue a variety of documentation requirements for any use of “non-pecuniary” factors by retirement plan managers.

By Lamar Johnson • July 1, 2025

Federal agencies, including FERC and DOE, revoke environmental review rules

The agencies eliminated all references to consider climate change, environmental justice and other key environmental issues in their permit reviews, Earthjustice said.

By Ethan Howland • July 1, 2025

As the GHG Protocol eyes the homestretch in its scope 2 revisions, are the right voices being heard?

A requirement for hourly matching and the dramatic narrowing of the geographies in which companies can make clean energy investments could stifle the voluntary market.

By Roger S. Ballentine • July 1, 2025

EU Commission nixes proposed anti-greenwashing legislation

The Green Claims Directive is at odds with the Commission’s “simplification agenda,” a spokesperson said.

By Laurel Deppen • June 25, 2025

Companies are recalibrating ESG strategies in response to US policy shifts: report

Executives have decided to expand legal oversight of ESG and refine sustainability communication in response to backlash against ESG, a report from The Conference Board found.

By Lauren Schenkman • June 24, 2025

US, global cities tout emissions reductions

Local U.S. officials say they’re driving emissions goals from the ground up since the Trump administration’s withdrawal from key international climate events and agreements.

By Robyn Griggs Lawrence • June 24, 2025

SBTi calls on companies to pilot new net-zero standard

The two-phase pilot will begin with a broad company survey, as the Science Based Targets initiative looks to further refine “v2” of its Corporate Net-Zero Standard.

By Lamar Johnson • June 23, 2025

US senators call on EPA to study reuse, refill

Recycling policy advocates Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., are teaming up again, this time on the REUSE Act, to assess opportunities in consumer packaging, food service and more.

By Maria Rachal • June 23, 2025

US electric vehicle sales are slowing amid policy shifts: BNEF

BloombergNEF cut its expectation for cumulative U.S. electric vehicle sales through 2030 by 14 million units.

By Robert Walton • June 23, 2025

Datamaran launches product for ESG risk, compliance management

The company's Core product will use AI-powered workflows to help corporate sustainability, legal and risk management teams comply with global climate and ESG disclosure regulations.

By Lamar Johnson • June 20, 2025

Companies are ‘very struck’ by SBTi’s net-zero standard draft changes: Sustainability Roundtable Inc.

James Boyle, CEO of the strategic sustainability advisory firm, said his clients are “definitely concerned” by the “high integrity, challenging standard” SBTi has put forward in its draft.

By Lamar Johnson • June 13, 2025

‘The world has changed’: PepsiCo CSO explains sustainability goal reset

Pepsi isn’t backing away from sustainability, says Chief Sustainability Officer Jim Andrew. He describes the shifts, from better aligning with global recycling infrastructure efforts to weighing the role of quantitative metrics for reuse.

By Katie Pyzyk • June 3, 2025

Clean power deployments neared record in Q1, but development pipeline growth slowed: ACP

Utility-scale solar and energy storage have made inroads in the Midwest and South, but political uncertainty could quash the momentum, the American Clean Power Association said.

By Brian Martucci • May 30, 2025

Sustainability platform Watershed launches free global emissions database

The database aims to help companies “address critical gaps in emissions reporting data to inform more impactful climate action.”

By Zoya Mirza • May 29, 2025

PepsiCo resets packaging sustainability goals, ditches reuse target

The company discontinued some sustainability goals and revamped others for packaging and emissions. PepsiCo says the goals are still ambitious and reflect external challenges to achieving targets.

By Katie Pyzyk • May 27, 2025