The FCA invites environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings providers to complete a voluntary survey to help inform the future regulation of ESG ratings and broader sustainability disclosures.
Background
In November 2024, we welcomed[1] the government’s publication[2] of its consultation response and the draft legislation on bringing ESG ratings providers into regulation.
As we continue to develop the future regulatory regime, we are engaging widely to inform our approach, which includes ESG ratings providers and users.
In November 2024, we invited firms from all sectors, who may be users of ESG ratings and sustainability disclosures to respond to a survey.
Provider of ESG ratings survey
We are now inviting ESG ratings providers to complete a voluntary survey, to help shape this important policy area.
The input from this survey will inform our cost benefit analysis (CBA), policy development and help ensure that the future regulation is both proportionate and tailored to the needs of the market.
The information we are requesting is to help us better understand the ESG ratings market, including:
- The business models and group structures used to provide ESG ratings.
- How ESG ratings are constructed and distributed.
- What policies and processes firms have in place.
As part of this survey, we also want to understand how firms interact with the broader sustainability disclosures, which will inform our approach to the future regulatory regime in this area.
In 2024, we confirmed, subject to government endorsement of the International Sustainability Standards Board[3] (ISSB) standards, we plan to consult on amending our climate-related disclosures rules for listed companies to refer to these new standards. At the same time, we intend to consult on strengthening our expectations for listed companies’ transition plan disclosures, with reference to the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) Disclosure Framework[4]. The information we are requesting will also inform our approach to these policies.
Next steps
We issued the survey to ESG ratings providers on 21 March 2025. If your firm has not received the survey, please notify us by emailing [email protected] and use the link below to respond.
We are encouraging firms to respond by 2 May 2025 but ask providers to kindly respond through the link no later than 16 May 2025. Should you have any questions about the survey, please contact us at [email protected].
We are also considering how best to engage with small and medium sized ESG rating providers through the policy development process. If you are interested in hearing from us, please send an email to [email protected].
