Issue - June 17, 2025

📝 Editor’s Summary

This week’s updates reflect growing legal and regulatory scrutiny of ESG-related commitments—from a legal challenge to New Zealand’s net-zero plan and the EPA’s proposed repeal of U.S. power-plant rules, to a $10B media discrimination settlement. Meanwhile, EU and global bodies are moving to streamline sustainability reporting, while Indonesia cracks down on mining in a key marine biodiversity zone.

📌 This Week’s Key Developments

New Zealand Government Sued Over ‘Inadequate’ Net-Zero Plan
Lawyers for Climate Action NZ and the Environmental Law Initiative have filed a High Court judicial review, calling the coalition government’s 2024 Emissions Reduction Plan “dangerously inadequate.” The suit argues ministers scrapped effective policies, relied heavily on forestry offsets and carbon capture, and failed to consult the public, breaching the Zero Carbon Act. Claimants argue that it is the first case worldwide to challenge a national net-zero pathway that relies excessively on forestry to meet targets, and hope the court will order a more ambitious, evidence-based plan.
🔗 Read more → The Guardian

U.S. EPA Moves to Repeal Power-Plant Carbon Rules
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin proposed scrapping the Biden-era 2024 standards that cap carbon and mercury emissions from coal- and gas-fired plants, arguing the sector’s CO₂ output is too small to warrant regulation. The draft repeal reverses a decades-old precedent under the Clean Air Act §111 and claims that regulating the industry would yield minimal global benefit—an assertion that legal experts say is at odds with prior court rulings and likely to trigger litigation.
🔗 Read more → Scientific American

McDonald’s Settles $10 B Suit over Black-Owned Media Ad Spend
McDonald’s has reached a confidential settlement with Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Network and Weather Group, ending a $10 billion discrimination lawsuit—and a related $100 million claim—alleging the chain broke its pledge to boost spending with Black-owned media. Both sides cited a new “mutually beneficial commercial arrangement,” averting a July 15 trial and following a 2024 anti-SLAPP dismissal of part of the case. The deal highlights the legal risks companies face when diversity spending commitments are perceived as unmet.
🔗 Read more → TheWrap

ACCA Urges EU to Streamline SFDR Rules
In its response to the European Commission’s SFDR review, the global accountancy body ACCA stated that the regulation’s “too granular and complex” data demands are discouraging sustainable-finance products and sidelining smaller firms. ACCA recommends simplifying disclosures, adding clearer product categories, and phasing in requirements with a greater focus on transition and social factors.
🔗 Read more → ESG Today

Indonesia Revokes Four Nickel Licences in Raja Ampat UNESCO Site
Jakarta has cancelled the permits of four nickel miners on Raja Ampat’s small islands for breaching forest-use rules, while allowing state-linked PT Gag Nikel to continue under strict monitoring. Environmental groups argue that any mining in the marine biodiversity hotspot violates Indonesia’s small-island mining ban and have renewed calls for a total ban to protect the UNESCO geopark.
🔗 Read more → The Straits Times

⚖️ Regulatory Spotlight

ISSB | 36 Jurisdictions Move Toward Global Baseline
The IFRS Foundation has released its first 17 “jurisdictional profiles,” which demonstrate how countries are incorporating the ISSB sustainability disclosure standards into their laws. Fourteen of the profiled jurisdictions, including Australia, Brazil, and Hong Kong, plan to adopt the whole framework; two will start with climate standards only, and one will partially incorporate the ISSB rules. Sixteen additional snapshots outline draft or proposed frameworks, bringing the total number of jurisdictions actively aligning with the ISSB to 36, covering a sizable share of the global market capitalization. The profiles are designed to provide investors with a transparent, single reference point for the state of ISSB adoption and to guide regulators as they develop their roadmaps.
🔗 Read more → IFRS Foundation

🧼 Greenwashing Watch

India’s ‘Eco-Park’ Program Branded Greenwashing
An investigative report finds that coal-company “eco parks” on reclaimed mine sites in Singrauli tout a just transition but conceal severe water and air pollution, prompting critics to call the projects image laundering rather than real restoration.
🔗 Read more → New Lines Magazine

📖 Insight of the Week

Banks and Climate-Litigation Risk: Navigating the Low-Carbon Transition (CETEx & LSE, Jun 2025) finds fast-growing climate suits against banks and their clients span credit, market, liquidity, and operational risks—but most of the 20 ECB-supervised banks still focus mainly on fines and greenwashing, downplaying “transition-mismanagement” and physical-risk cases.
🔗 Read more → Smoleńska et al., 2025, CETEx/LSE

📚 Browse Past Issues

Catch up on recent editions → Newsletter Archive

🤝 Support & Contact Us

Enjoyed this issue? Feel free to share it with colleagues or ESG/legal professionals.
Have feedback or collaboration ideas? Contact us at [email protected]