ESG Regulations for Financial Institutions

Over the last hundred years, humans contributed to an acceleration of climate change. Rising greenhouse gas emissions increase the amount of solar energy the earth retains, tipping the balance of received and removed energy.

The consequences do not solely entail higher temperatures, but also a higher frequency and intensity of extreme weather events which have major consequences for the global economy. On every continent, the public sector imposes new regulations and stricter compliance measures for companies to fight climate change. The financial sector is no exception - in fact, it must play a crucial role by leveraging the power of capital.

Sia Partners guides businesses toward compliance on various regulatory matters such as:

• In Europe: EU taxonomy, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD)
• In Asia: ESG Reporting/Disclosure Frameworks by the HKEX (Hong Kong), CSRC (China), FSA (Japan) or SGX (Shanghai)
• In the USA: ESG Disclosure Simplification Act
• In the UK: UK Taxonomy, Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR)

These ESG regulations compel banks to take climate-related aspects into account throughout the entire organization. Banks have an important role to play in financing a green transition, while also being vulnerable to the risks resulting from climate change and the efforts it takes to comply with new regulations.

How does Sia Partners provide support for Financial Institutions to understand and implement regulatory changes worldwide? We follow an approach that adapts to the level of maturity to bring value and enable the achievement of objectives. Our way of working to implement regulatory change(s):

1. Understanding the regulatory challenge

Decrypting regulatory text and establishing any overlap with other regulations

2. Identifying the impacted business process

Identification of related business processes, governance framework, strategy, and risk management framework

3. Maturity assessment

Determine which requirements and corresponding climate-related risks are of strategic significance to the financial institution and formulate a compliance maturity assessment framework based on local requirements.

4. Gap analysis

Identification of main gaps compared to the guiding principles of the local regulatory requirements

5. Regulatory Roadmap

Provide recommendations to close the gaps and develop a detailed regulatory roadmap to cater for the regulatory requirements