Sustainability Briefing — 25 July 2026
Today's developments centre on how EU carbon-market revenues are flowing into clean-energy projects, the practical shape of the new voluntary reporting standard for smaller firms, a maturing toolkit for carbon-aware software, and fresh climate science on the limits of averaging across models.
EU disburses EUR 2.5 billion of ETS revenues to 51 energy projects across 11 states
The European Commission and the European Investment Bank announced the disbursement of EUR 2.5 billion from the Modernisation Fund to support 51 energy-related projects in 11 EU member states. The fund, financed by EU ETS revenues, supports renewable energy, efficiency, storage, grids and just-transition measures in lower-income member states.
Voluntary standard aims to standardise ESG data requests for smaller firms
The VSME, developed by EFRAG, is intended to give SMEs a simple, standardised way to respond to sustainability information requests from banks, large companies and other stakeholders. Analysis for the Commission suggests a common framework should generate rapidly declining incremental costs and potential net savings within a few years compared with responding to fragmented, uncoordinated ESG requests.
Study: moderate warming does not rule out extreme climate outcomes
A study in Nature finds that limiting global warming to 2C would not eliminate the risk of extreme impacts, analysing rainfall extremes, concurrent breadbasket droughts and fire-weather extremes. A reviewer notes that risks are obscured when only averages across multiple climate models are considered, underscoring the need to sample the full range of possible outcomes.