The Best and Worst of Sustainability in 2024

In the festive spirit, I’m channeling Charles Dickens, the man who gave us A Christmas Carol and popularized the holiday season.

Another of his classics, A Tale of Two Cities, is a fitting analogy for 2024’s ESG & climate landscape. Its iconic opening line—"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"—captures the contrasting themes in this year’s ESG and Climate News.  

Here’s a breakdown of the year's biggest news stories into five positive stories (the best of times) and five negative stories (the worst of times) from a sustainability lens.  For the hot news of this week - check out the notable news section at the end.  

Let’s review the positives first:

It Was the Best of Times

1. New Regulations A Plenty

A host of ESG new regulations aimed to nudge companies to act on sustainability were introduced in 2024:

• California Climate Disclosure Law: The law will require companies to report on climate emissions and risks starting in 2026 and has already survived legal challenges. So far, the courts have upheld the policy, and it has inspired similar bills in 4 other states. This week, the California Air and Resources Board called for consultation on a number of key questions for this policy. The comment period will be open until February 14th.
• EU Directives: Adding to their Green Deal, the EU adopted the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), requiring companies to identify and mitigate social and environmental impacts in their supply chains by 2027. While Europe has been slow to adopt the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the first tranche of companies is set to issue reports in early 2025. Also, the EU’s new ESG Ratings Regulation will require ratings providers to share their methodology and prevent conflicts of interest from mid-2026. 
• International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB): Over 30 jurisdictions now claim alignment with ISSB standards. Most recently, the UK Government is aiming to adopt the ISSB climate standard for UK companies.

2. Companies Continue To Take Voluntary Action

Despite the ongoing ESG backlash, companies continued to act voluntarily in 2024. A record number of companies reported on social metrics and climate emissions, plus 95% of the 250 largest companies in the world now publish a carbon target. And some companies have seen significant success: Walmart, for example, managed to complete its ambitious Project Gigaton - reducing a billion metric tons of emissions from its sprawling supply chain - six years ahead of schedule!

Mounting evidence is furthering the case that mitigating climate risk makes economic sense. A new report released by BCG this month shows that each dollar spent on reducing climate risk can produce as much as $19 in return.  

3. Record-Breaking Year for Renewables and EVs

2024 was a pivotal year for renewable energy and EV adoption. Zero carbon energy now makes up 40% of global output, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts almost a tripling of renewable energy by 2030, currently tracking at 2.7 times 2022 levels. For EVs, the number of new vehicles being bought worldwide is up 35% from last year and six times more than in 2018. We also saw some emblematic wins with the closure of the UK’s last coal power station after 142 years of producing power from coal, and in the US, wind energy beat out coal for two consecutive months.

4. Biodiversity and Nature Came into Focus

The world’s largest biodiversity event happened in Cali, Colombia, earlier this year. Even though the delegates failed to reach an agreement, several announcements at this year's event showed that companies are considering nature and biodiversity, evidenced by a 43% surge in the number of companies reporting biodiversity metrics to CDP and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), reaching a milestone of 500 companies. A new report released this week found that business impacts on biodiversity cost the global economy between $10tn and $25tn annually.

5. Sustainability Professionals and Activists Showed Steely Resolve

Sustainability professionals have been resilient in the face of political backlash and reporting/regulatory fatigue in 2024. This survey by Joel Makower found that the vast majority of sustainability workers remain cautiously optimistic. 

Climate activists notched victories in the first climate case to be heard at the International Court of Justice and the Swiss activists' victory in the European Court of Human Rights, which led to a change in Swiss climate policy. This all happened amidst activists being convicted as criminals and facing lengthy prison sentences.

It Was The Worst of Times

1 The US Election

There is no end of speculation about the impact on climate progress stemming from President-elect Trump’s victory in November. It’s a near certainty that the US will pull out of the Paris Climate Accord (again), and there will be stalling and reversal of key environmental policies along with increased oil and gas production and consumption. It is less clear if the Biden-era climate incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will be rolled back. In any case, much of the IRA grant money and tax credits have already been deployed - primarily to “red” states. 

Trump’s win has already inspired a group of Republican State Attorneys to sue three asset managers for manipulating the energy market. This month, Ohio banned ESG from investing in some pension funds, bringing the number of states with anti-ESG legislation to 17. Also, in 2024, the number of anti-ESG shareholder proposals at proxy voting reached a record, increasing 90% since 2022. 

However, this does not tell the whole story: In 2024, there was a backlash to the backlash, with some states getting sued for their anti-ESG laws and others being blocked. Plus, although there was a record number of anti-ESG proxy votes, only 1.9% gained support.

2. Corporate BackTracking 

Faced with the growing anti-ESG backlash, many companies reduced or repealed their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and environmental goals in 2024. Also, financial institutions that joined groups like Climate Action 100+ and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) with great fanfare just a few years ago left in droves.

Again, this is not the whole story: Amid the high-profile defections, the majority of Climate Action’s 650 members remain in the group. The same is true of GFANZ members. 485 of the Fortune 500 still have DEI goals, and fewer than 10% of firms plan to reduce DEI resources over the next three years, reflecting a continued recognition of diversity’s business value.

Regardless of political pressures, the biggest challenge for most is the inability to show an ROI on their sustainability policies. 

3. Regulatory Backtracking

While new laws are enacted, existing laws are being reopened, reconsidered, or in some cases, repealed. Some notable regulatory retreats:

• The CSRD, CSDDD, and EU Taxonomy: Readers of this newsletter are no doubt following the saga of the new “Omnibus” rule in the EU. This directive is aimed at streamlining, but supposedly not weakening, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and EU Taxonomy.  While this is a developing story, German ministers are already pushing to postpone and reduce the scope of the CSRD. 
• The EU Deforestation Rule (EUDR): The EUDR was meant to block certain goods linked to deforestation from entering the EU market starting at the end of this month. The final rule is intact, but implementation has already been delayed for two years.
• The SEC’s Climate Rule: The SEC’s Climate Rule was approved in March this year, but before the ink was dry, it was challenged in court. The SEC stayed the rule until after the court case was settled. With a Trump presidency and current SEC Chair Gary Gensler leaving his post, the rule will likely be withdrawn. 

4. Most Emissions and Hottest Year Ever

For the second year in a row, 2024 was the hottest year ever. It was also the first year that global temperatures averaged over 1.5°C above pre-industrial times (the goal of the Paris Agreement). However, scientists predict that next year will be cooler.   

Due to unprecedented heat, we also saw a wide range of extreme weather events worldwide—far too many to mention. Some notable examples include Hurricanes Milton and Helene in the US, and the devastating floods in Valencia, Spain. 

Even with the increases in renewables, 2024 will have the most emissions ever, surpassing last year by 0.8%.

5. A Series of COP Disappointments

Back in October, we had the biodiversity COP, which failed to reach an agreement, pushing talks into next year. Then, we had the Climate COP (COP 29), which did reach an agreement for funding, but most delegates were unhappy with the outcome. Finally, we had the UN Plastics Treaty, heralded as the next biggest multilateral environmental agreement after the Paris Agreement, until it fell apart. 

The lack of progress at the international level and the failure of a multilateral plastics deal have led some to suggest that these processes are not fit for purpose and should possibly be combined and reformed.

Top 5 Editions of 2025

Thanks to readers like you, ESG & Climate News was read over 1 million times in 2024. Here are the top five editions you don’t want to miss for a deeper dive into key moments of the year.

1. General Motors’ CSO Kristen Siemen’s Driving Mission: Zero Emissions, Zero Crashes, and Zero Congestion: Our first industry deep dive explored GM’s groundbreaking sustainability efforts.
2. The Dragon Roars: China’s New Sustainability Disclosure Mandate: China’s new ESG disclosure proposals were introduced.
3. ESG On Fire: Tackled the anti-ESG backlash and debated whether “sustainability” is a better term.
4. Top Five Takeaways from SEC’s Final Climate Rule: Covered the finalized SEC climate rule before it was stayed, likely permanently.
5. ISSB Adoption in Full Swing: Explored how countries are adopting ISSB standards for climate and sustainability reporting.

Did you have a favorite story from last year? Share it in the comments.

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer. 

Other Notable News:

Carbon Removal

• My company, BCG, bought 50,000 tons of carbon removals, bringing the total purchased to date to 200,000 tons. 

New Reporting Standards

• The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) released a new sustainability reporting standard for voluntary reporting from small and medium entities (SMEs) designed to help them report their sustainability results. 

Greenwashing

• A UK regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), banned Lloyds bank advertisements due to misleading climate claims.

Climate Rules

• In one of their last acts under the current administration, the EPA allowed California to ban petrol-powered cars by 2035. However, this will likely be challenged by the Trump administration.

Climate litigation

• This week, a Montana court affirmed a decision to side with climate activists, saying that state energy policies violated their constitutional rights to a clean environment.

Climate Science

• This article from NYT explores three complex climate science questions: Why the last two years have been so hot, how AI can be used to reduce emissions, and the prospect of geoengineering.

Notable Podcasts: 

• In this week’s episode of the BBC’s The Climate Question, the podcast host, Grahaigh Jackson, examines the connection between plastics and climate change. In light of the failed plastics treaty in South Korea last month, Jackson interviewed experts to understand what this might mean for the future of plastic waste and the climate. 
• This week’s episode of Outrage and Optimism focused on what a Trump government will mean for climate action. The team is joined by Obama advisor Ben Rhodes, who suggests that we need a "climate populist" strategy to combat Trump 2.0. 

Notable Jobs:

• Principal, Decarbonization, American Airlines, Dallas, Texas
• Principal, Sustainability Reporting, American Airlines, Dallas, Texas
• Sustainability demo analyst, Watershed, New York
• Reporting Fellow, Climate, Crooked Media, Los Angeles, California
• Research Associate (Science), Carbon Direct, Remote, US
• IBM Corporate Social Responsibility, ESG Strategy & Programs Team 2025, IBM, Raleigh, North Carolina
• Climate Analyst, Loomis, Sayles & Company, Boston, Mass, Hybrid
• Associate, Sustainability Risk Management, BCG, New York, Hybrid
• ESG Coordinator, Neuberger Berman, New York, Hybrid