The Sustainability Signal

What changed. Why it matters. What to do about it.

Issue #5 · Week of March 2, 2026 · 5 min read

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THE BIG STORY

The EU Just Made Sustainability Reporting Optional for Most of Europe

On Tuesday, EU member states gave final approval to the Omnibus I simplification package — the most significant rollback of sustainability legislation in European history. The directive was published in the Official Journal on Thursday 26 February and enters into force on 18 March.

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) threshold now requires both 1,000 employees AND €450 million in net turnover — removing an estimated 90% of previously covered companies from scope. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) threshold rises to 5,000 employees AND €1.5 billion in turnover, with a single application date of July 2029.

But the cuts went deeper than thresholds. Climate transition plans are no longer mandatory under CSDDD — though companies still in CSRD scope must disclose any plan they have, creating a regulatory gap practitioners need to understand. The EU-wide civil liability regime for environmental and human rights harms has been removed entirely, with enforcement left to member state national law. Maximum administrative fines are capped at 3% of global turnover.

The Council framed the package as essential for competitiveness. Cyprus’s Deputy Minister Marilena Raouna, chairing the session under Cyprus’s EU presidency, described it as “reducing unnecessary and disproportionate burdens on our businesses, with simpler, more targeted and more proportionate rules.”

90%

of companies removed from CSRD scope

Why it matters

The EU was the global standard-setter for mandatory sustainability disclosure. That architecture remains — but for a dramatically smaller group of companies. For the thousands now exempt, the strategic question is immediate: continue building voluntary disclosure infrastructure, or scale back?

Monday morning action

If your company falls below the new thresholds, convene your sustainability team this week. Decide whether to continue voluntary disclosure using the VSME standard or scale back — the answer depends on your investor base and supply chain obligations, not just the regulation.

Source: Council of the EU · ESG Today · BHRRC

AI x SUSTAINABILITY

Trump Tells Big Tech: Build Your Own Power Plants

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Trump announced the “Rate Payer Protection Pledge” — a commitment from major technology companies to supply their own power for AI data centres rather than burden residential electricity customers.

Seven companies — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI — are expected to sign at a White House event on March 4. The urgency is quantified: new EPRI research estimates data centres could consume 9-17% of US electricity by 2030, up from 4-5% today. Virginia data centres already use roughly 25% of the state’s available power.

Nextgov · EPRI · CNBC

Google Is Already Building the Answer

While other tech companies prepare their response, Google announced three major clean energy deals this week: a 1.9 GW partnership with Xcel Energy in Minnesota (1.4 GW wind, 200 MW solar, 300 MW of Form Energy’s 100-hour iron-air batteries), an AES co-located clean power and data centre project in Wilbarger County, Texas, and a 150 MW geothermal portfolio deal with Ormat Technologies in Nevada (2028-2030).

Google’s approach — co-creating tariff structures with utilities rather than going off-grid — may prove the template for the industry.

Trellis · Ormat Technologies · AES

REGULATORY & POLICY

UK Publishes Final Sustainability Reporting Standards

On Wednesday, the UK government published the finalized UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS), based on the IFRS Foundation’s ISSB standards — moving in the opposite direction to the EU.

What changed: UK SRS S1 (general sustainability) and S2 (climate) available for voluntary use immediately. Scope 3 time reliefs from the exposure draft removed — regulators will set deadlines when mandatory.

Who's affected: UK listed companies first; government will consider extending to private companies.

Key date: FCA consultation closes March 20, 2026. Mandatory reporting from January 2027.

What to do: If you’re a UK listed company, begin assessing UK SRS S2 climate disclosures now — particularly Scope 3 data collection.

UK Government · ESG Today · Linklaters

CORPORATE & FINANCE

GreenBiz 26: The Sustainability Function Is Maturing, Not Dying

GreenBiz 26 (February 17-19, Phoenix) drew 1,500 sustainability professionals for what turned out to be less existential crisis and more operational integration. The dominant signal: companies embedding sustainability into procurement, risk registers, and capital planning are pulling ahead while those who treated it as a communications exercise are retreating. The CSO relevance debate has shifted from titles to decision rights — “if it’s not in the capital plan, risk register and revenue strategy, it’s not enough,” as one attendee summarised. AI governance emerged as a sustainability issue in its own right, with leaders warning of an “AI literacy gap” among sustainability teams.

Trellis/GreenBiz

MARTIN'S TAKE

Here’s what most commentary on this week will get wrong: they’ll frame the EU Omnibus and the UK SRS as two systems moving in opposite directions. They’re not. They’re converging on the same baseline — and diverging on everything else.

Think about it. The Omnibus stripped CSRD back to fewer datapoints, more principles-based disclosure, and greater company discretion on materiality. That sounds a lot like... ISSB. The UK just published standards that are ISSB. And 36+ jurisdictions worldwide are adopting the same ISSB baseline. The global reporting language is consolidating faster than most practitioners realise.

But here’s where it fractures: who has to report, how much they have to say, and what happens if they don’t. The EU just exempted 90% of companies. The UK is bringing listed companies in by 2027. California held hearings last week on climate rules that may exceed what Washington would ever have required. Same baseline, wildly different scope and enforcement.

For multinational companies, this is actually good news — if you read it right. Build your reporting infrastructure on the ISSB core (climate-first, investor-focused, financially material). Then layer on the jurisdiction-specific requirements where they apply. The architecture is the same. The obligations aren’t.

“The frameworks are converging. The ambition isn’t. Build for the baseline, then flex for the jurisdiction.”

The EU Just Made Sustainability Reporting Optional for 90% of Companies | The Sustainability Signal

The Sustainability Signal

The EU Just Made Sustainability Reporting Optional for Most of Europe

Trump Tells Big Tech: Build Your Own Power Plants

Google Is Already Building the Answer

UK Publishes Final Sustainability Reporting Standards

GreenBiz 26: The Sustainability Function Is Maturing, Not Dying

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