ESG Monthly News Update: August 2025
Regulatory Rollbacks, Expanding Risks: August ESG Insights
August opened with one of the boldest U.S. climate policy reversals in years: the EPA’s move to undo its own Endangerment Finding, the legal foundation for regulating greenhouse gases. While litigation will likely drag this out for years, the immediate effect is unmistakable. Businesses are operating in a state of regulatory limbo, weighing how to plan when the rules themselves are in flux.
That backdrop makes the broadening of sustainability even more striking. Companies are no longer treating ESG as a climate-only issue, but as a framework for enterprise risk and opportunity—from supply chains and material sourcing to AI’s carbon footprint and water use. The AI conversation, in particular, has solidified this tension: it offers powerful tools to accelerate sustainability strategies, but also represents a fast-growing source of energy demand and emissions that companies can’t afford to ignore.
The connection is that credibility now depends on balance—progress paired with realism, ambition matched with resilience. Even as some firms go quiet on their sustainability commitments, others are embedding them more deeply into governance, operations, and long-term strategy. What’s at stake isn’t just reputation, it’s competitiveness in markets where policy, technology, and stakeholder expectations are moving ahead, with or without Washington.
At Summit Strategy Group, we help clients find clarity in this shifting terrain, building strategies that endure political cycles, integrate emerging risks, and translate sustainability into long-term value. Let’s talk about how we can support your journey.
Contributor Spotlight: Brandon Suchan
Brandon Suchan is a Manager of ESG Consulting at Summit Strategy Group, where he helps clients navigate their sustainability journey by conducting greenhouse gas emissions inventories, developing sustainability reports, and crafting strategic plans. With a background in data collection, analytics, and corporate sustainability, Brandon drives brand value through impactful storytelling and communication, leveraging both quantitative and qualitative insights.
Contact Brandon
What We Read in August 2025
The EPA’s Anti-Climate Move Leaves Industry Confused
Time, August 1, 2025
The EPA has moved to overturn its 2009 “Endangerment Finding,” the decision that gave the agency authority to regulate greenhouse gases as harmful to public health. This reversal challenges the legal foundation for federal climate rules, breaks with decades of scientific and policy consensus, and takes a step that previous administrations had considered too extreme.
The rollback is expected to face years of legal challenges, since past court rulings and recent legislation both affirm the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The final outcome is uncertain, leaving companies unsure which rules they will ultimately need to follow.
Even if federal rules weaken, global regulations, market demands, and technology trends are pushing companies toward cleaner operations. The rollback is disruptive, but it’s unlikely to fully reverse the momentum toward lower-emissions technologies.
Top 10 Corporate Sustainability Priorities for 2025
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, August 15, 2025
Companies are broadening sustainability focus beyond climate to include AI, biodiversity, water stewardship, and deeper business integration, while navigating uneven progress in embedding ESG into core operations.
Regulatory landscapes are increasingly fragmented, with shifting US federal policies, expanding state mandates, and evolving EU rules driving complex compliance choices and higher expectations for data quality and audit readiness.
Rising stakeholder pressure is pushing firms to show tangible ROI, strengthen supply chain transparency, and use both disclosure and storytelling to engage audiences, mitigate risk, and align sustainability with enterprise value.
IBM’s Sustainability Chief: 3 Strategic Ways I’m Using AI Today
Trellis, August 6, 2025
AI can streamline sustainability reporting, automate routine tasks, and speed R&D for sustainable products and packaging, freeing teams to focus on higher-value work while giving companies a competitive edge.
CSOs play a key role in minimizing AI’s energy footprint by influencing model size, infrastructure choices, sourcing strategies, and deployment approaches to balance performance with cost and environmental impact.
Strategic AI use can enhance cross-functional collaboration, improve client responsiveness, and create measurable business value, positioning sustainability as both a growth driver and innovation catalyst.
Advancing Sustainability in a Climate of Silence
MIT Sloan Management Review, July 14, 2025
Many U.S. companies are going quiet on sustainability and diversity efforts amid political pressure and fear of backlash, with terms like “DEI” nearly disappearing from corporate reports.
Advocates warn that narrowing sustainability to a short-term ROI frame undervalues its benefits, overlooks risks and opportunities, and reinforces myths that it hurts business.
Instead, leaders should broaden the case for action by including regulatory demands, societal needs, and long-term value, while connecting sustainability to purpose, resilience, and competitiveness in global markets.
Corporate Recycling Efforts Lag as UN Seeks Treaty on Plastic
Bloomberg, August 8, 2025
Major consumer brands, including Coca-Cola and Pepsi, are falling behind on recycled-content goals and have scaled back targets, citing a shortage of high-quality recycled plastic.
While $7.1 billion was invested in 2024 in recycling and bioplastics facilities, limited infrastructure and slowing new project announcements threaten progress; chemical recycling remains small-scale but can handle harder-to-process plastics.
Global treaty negotiations on plastic pollution are stalled, pushing individual countries like China, Canada, and the UK to adopt national policies to boost recycling and reuse.