Banks want to capitalize on the surge in green capex borrowing as corporates rush to decarbonize. Cost inflation has increased the risks involved but not the long-term benefit of carbon reduction.

Latest iteration of the nature-related reporting framework tackles tension between demand for clear and simple methodology applicable to business models and the complexity of the science.

Stress tests mean that banks must assess their own climate impact. The glaring data gaps will close as the science progresses and methodologies evolve.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision adds another piece to the global regulatory puzzle with its principles on management and supervision of climate risk, after global demands for a harmonized framework applicable to the international banking sector.

The banking industry has become frustrated by slow regulatory progress as it waits for necessary standardization of climate risk assessments and disclosure policies to meet net-zero targets.

Lombard Odier joins Barclays and Nomura in hoping to grow partnerships and shareholdings in a market that is heavily banked but underpinned by a vast institutional bid and a belated surge towards sustainability.

HSBC Asset Management’s head of responsible investing has had it up to here with consultants and regulators lecturing him on climate change risk.

Asset managers and index providers are the focus of a backlash against ESG. Banks will face their own reputational roasting as demand for fossil-fuel financing rebounds.

Latin America’s corporates are embracing sustainable local debt financing with enthusiasm. The region’s bankers are betting that it’s going to be as good for bookrunner fees as it promises to be for the environment.

Demographics and technology are creating new markets for financial services in population segments long ignored by traditional banks. The region is seeing a feeding frenzy in fintech startups – and the banks are responding with a new strategy: get ready to meet ‘co-opetition’.

Since its establishment at the COP26 conference in 2021, the International Sustainability Standards Board has been busy drafting its first standards. Now they are out for consultation, but ISSB chair Emmanuel Faber is already looking beyond them and to the organization’s broader mission.

Credit intelligence specialist OakNorth is working with a consortium of US banks to assess physical and transition climate risk in loan portfolios. The motivation for the banks is clear: self-preservation in the face of growing climate-related disruption.

BNP Paribas’s top private banker talks to Euromoney about his love of Brittany’s rough seas, the power of ESG, and digital’s ability to transform and improve every step of the client journey.

If the French company cuts greenhouse gas emissions, it will use savings on loan margin to finance sustainability projects: if it doesn’t, its banks will fund them.

War in Europe has completely upended the narrative around energy transition. Corporates and their banks are now engaged in a more complex conversation around the production – and financing – of oil and gas to replace Russian supplies. This could translate into more aggressive shareholder action as ESG investors fight to keep their near-term green agenda on track.

The event was a showcase for both sustainability and trade agreements.

Corporates want to improve sustainability in their supply chains, but, if anything, the barriers to doing so are getting worse.

ESG has been an intense focus for banks in recent years – not least for their communications teams. But with war in Ukraine, ESG has hit its first real test – and the talking has stopped.

China’s approach to ESG is a jumble of grandiose and contradictory state planning alongside often marvellously successful bottom-up plans by banks and fintechs to instil in consumers a more sustainable lifestyle.

Where do the borders of ESG lie – now and in the future? Investors from the US to China are revisiting these questions and finding thorny and often unpalatable answers, even as they dump Russian assets for ethical reasons. The results are set to shape the financial world’s relationship with sustainability for years to come.

Not all heroes wear capes. But some do.

Treasury teams across the energy sector need to make better use of data if they are to make sense of a market that is becoming more complex.

Energy price volatility driven by war in Ukraine could deliver a windfall to banks such as Goldman Sachs that retain scale in commodity trading. Profits from dealing can also be made without triggering ESG or sanctions-related pain.

The first sovereign sustainability-linked bond has been announced, and it is no surprise that it is coming from Latin America. Investors and bankers will follow Chile’s transaction carefully, but is the issuer’s decision to enter war-spooked markets a sign of confidence or recklessness?

Last year, social was top of the ESG agenda. Today, it barely merits a mention.

Policymakers around the world are rushing to protect retail investors from buying products that are less sustainable than they believe them to be. Why?

Early in the Covid crisis, CACIB avoided the big equity derivatives losses its local rivals suffered. Chief executive Jacques Ripoll tells Euromoney how the bank plans to take advantage of the rise of sustainable finance, which plays to its long-standing expertise in infrastructure and energy.

A ‘remarkable’ global dollar bond from Airport Authority Hong Kong raises the question of whether any member of the aviation sector should include a green tranche within its funding structure.

The scrutiny of sustainable finance is expected to intensify over the year as stakeholders look for market participants to deliver on environmental promises.

Douglas Flint, former HSBC chair and current chairman of Abrdn, talks to Euromoney about climate change, his hope for the future and how he convinced CEO Stephen Bird to join the firm over fish and chips and a pint in an Edinburgh pub.