Our clients’ priority is to ensure flow of finance and resources into more sustainable and regenerative businesses and investments.
This requires more sophisticated and innovative financial products, knowledge and clarity on investors and companies ESG, sustainability and impact objectives.
The risk of greenwashing, “purpose washing” or “purpose hushing”, apart from new ESG, commercial, legal, and reputational risks, is high.
Our primary goal is to identify, pre-empt and address such risks, and work alongside our clients in implementing suitable solutions. This involves not only actively sharing our knowledge or “holding hands”, but also often having tough conversations about their impact.
We combine our legal knowledge with the support from our culture transformation experts, many use Richard Barrett’s Tools and Assessments – Barrett Values Centre.
As a result, we can provide holistic legal and strategic business culture, diversity and inclusion advice to create, support, protect and enhance your company’s transformation.
Sustainable Finance and reporting – Legal frameworks and Principles
There is no single definition of sustainable finance, but it is generally understood as referring to the process of taking ESG considerations into account in investment decision-making. The goal is to increase investment in sustainable activities, and awareness of and transparency on the risks that may have an impact on the sustainability of the financial system, and the need for financial and corporate businesses to mitigate those risks through appropriate governance.
How far your company or investment chooses to go or what are the mandatory requirements for your business is set in three (3) key regulations in the EU and the UK (as adopted post-Brexit) on:
- Taxonomy, which sets out what an EU-wide environmentally sustainable activities are;
- Disclosure , with its sets of duties and disclosure requirements for certain firms and products; and
- Low Carbon Benchmark which lays down minimum requirements for EU climate transition benchmarks and EU Paris-aligned benchmarks, to ensure these benchmarks do not significantly harm other ESG objectives.
Further sustainability considerations are set in the delegated legislations, such as MiFID II, Insurance Distribution Directive, UCITS Directive, the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) and the Solvency II Directive, for MiFID II firms, insurers, UCITs or fund managers, applicable as of 2022.
Clients and Clients’ Insights
We advised:
- several UK, Dutch, US and Singapore based regulated and unregulated companies on their UK FCA, and other relevant authorities’ requirements, documentation, policies and processes related to introductory, deal arranging, tied agency, appointed representative, collective investment or other
- Singapore HealthTech VC on its expansion into the UK and European markets.
- corporation and investment network operating in an African country on a regenerative reforestation project, the use of NFTs and voluntary carbon credits schemes.
- several UK, continental Europe and Africa based companies, institutions, entrepreneurs and HNWI across many aspects of sustainable finance, including green and social lending policies, loans, bonds and sustainability-linked financings.
- a new UK deep tech venture capital micro fund on the formation and investment documentation.
- a group of international investors (LPs) on their investments into a UK private fund.
- several new UK market entrants on the emerging EU and UK sustainability policies and regulations.
- regulated UK brokerage firms on their set of internal and external policies and documentation.
- a UK and Singapore borrowers on their bridge and acquisition finance.
- an international firm on the trade finance within its supply chain.
Additional Resources
For some further background please see: EU Sustainability, the UK financial services regulator, FCA. ICMA Sustainability Bond Guidelines and ISDA response.
For reporting frameworks on disclosure and impact please see: