European carbon measurement, reporting and reduction software provider Plan A announced that it has raised $27 million, with proceeds from the financing aimed at growing its team and expanding its platform’s capabilities. Founded in 2017, Plan A provides corporate carbon accounting, decarbonization, and ESG reporting software. The company’s Sustainability Platform automatically maps data across Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions,…

IBM announced the integration of natural language processing (NLP) in its ESG data collection, analysis and reporting platform IBM Envizi ESG Suite, significantly enhancing the solution’s ability to capture, calculate and analyze organizations’ Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The new features come as companies globally face increasing regulatory pressure to report on their Scope 3 emissions, or those originating…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the adoption of new rules that will require   funds with names that suggest an investment focus on ESG or sustainability-related factors to invest at least 80% of the value of assets in accordance with those factors. The SEC action consists of an amendment of the Commission’s “Names Rule,” first adopted in…

HSBC announced today that it plans to make available $1bn of financing to support early-stage climate tech companies around the world. The new commitment comes as funding for climate startups is tightening, with the bank noting that venture capital funding for climate start-ups plunged by 40 per cent in the first half of 2023, as market conditions are pressuring tech…

Lawmakers at the European Parliament and EU Council announced that they have reached a provisional agreement on new rules aimed at protecting consumers from misleading sustainability claims and greenwashing practices, including bans on unverified generic environmental claims and those based on emissions offsetting schemes. The agreement follows the release in March 2022 by the EU Commission of a set of…

Automotive giant Ford issued a harsh response to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to push back the country’s ban on the sale fossil fuel-based cars, arguing that the move will undermine government consistency needed to enable investment in the industry’s transformation. The government, under former PM Boris Johnson, announced in 2021 that the UK will end the sale of…