GRI: Launch of New Climate Change and Energy Standards
In June 2025, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) announced the launch of new climate change and energy standards to empower organizations to take accountability for their impacts and accelerate climate action.
- GRI 102: Climate Change emphasizes that achieving substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions is the primary mitigation step organizations can take. It sets reporting expectations based on science-based targets and global climate goals, while incorporating “just transition” metrics covering impacts on workers, local communities, and indigenous peoples.
- GRI 103: Energy comprehensively addresses an organization’s energy-related impacts and activities. With disclosures on decarbonization efforts, renewable and non-renewable energy use, as well as where and how energy reductions occur, it positions responsible energy use as a central component of a company’s approach to climate change mitigation.
Both standards are based on scientific and authoritative global instruments on climate change and fully aligned with the GHG Protocol.
EU: Taxonomy Simplification Measures
On July 4, 2025, the European Commission adopted a set of measures to simplify the application of the EU Taxonomy, the EU’s classification system of sustainable economic activities and investments. The changes are intended to reduce the administrative burden for EU companies, thus enhancing EU competitiveness while preserving core climate and environmental goals.
The main simplification measures include the following:
- Financial and non-financial companies are exempt from assessing Taxonomy-eligibility and alignment for economic activities that are not financially material for their business. For non-financial companies, activities are considered non-material if they account for less than 10% of a company’s total revenue, capital expenditure, or operational expenditure.
- Non-financial companies are exempt from assessing Taxonomy alignment for their entire operational expenditure when it is considered non-material for their business model.
- Taxonomy reporting templates are streamlined by cutting the number of reported data points by 64% for non-financial companies and by 89% for financial companies.
- The criteria for “do no significant harm” to pollution prevention and control related to the use and presence of chemicals are simplified.
The Delegated Act will now be transmitted to the European Parliament and the Council for their scrutiny. The changes will apply once the four-month scrutiny period, which can be prolonged by an additional two months, is over. The simplification measures laid out in this Delegated Act will apply from January 1, 2026 and will cover the 2025 financial year. However, undertakings are given the option to apply the measures starting with the 2026 financial year if they find this more convenient.
EU: “Quick Fix” Adopted for Companies Already Conducting Corporate Sustainability Reporting
On July 11, 2025, the European Commission adopted targeted “quick fix” amendments to the first set of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). These amendments are intended to reduce burden and increase certainty for companies that had to start reporting for financial year 2024 (commonly referred to as “wave one” companies).
According to the current ESRS, companies reporting on financial year 2024 can omit information on the anticipated financial effects of certain sustainability‑related risks, among other things. The “quick fix” amendment, which applies from financial year 2025, will allow them to omit that same information for financial years 2025 and 2026. This means that “wave one” companies will not have to report additional information in 2025 and 2026 compared to 2024.
Moreover, for financial years 2025 and 2026, “wave one” companies with more than 750 employees will benefit from most of the same phase‑in provisions that currently apply to companies with up to 750 employees. A summary of the modifications is available here.
UK: Green Taxonomy Plans Scrapped After Public Consultation
On July 15, 2025, the UK government announced that it would not move forward with creating a UK Green Taxonomy. In light of the results of a public consultation, the government concluded that a UK Green Taxonomy would not be the most effective tool to deliver the green transition and should not be part of the country’s sustainable finance framework. Instead, respondents prioritized other policies to accelerate investment into the transition to net zero and limit greenwashing.