Today’s ESG Updates
US Anti-ESG Sentiment Spills into Canada: Trump-era anti-ESG pressure is nudging Canadian institutional investors and asset managers to align climate governance with more cautious U.S. norms.
What Europe’s Heatwaves Could Learn From the Gulf: Decades of Gulf state investment in cooling infrastructure, from chilled walkways to reflective building materials, offers lessons for a Europe grappling with record heat.
UK Restaurant Kitchens Turn to Induction Cooking to Beat the Heat: Chefs are ditching gas hobs for induction to cut kitchen temperatures by up to 10°C, slash energy bills, and reduce emissions during repeated summer heatwaves.
U.S. anti-ESG sentiment spills into Canada
Anti-ESG sentiment from the Trump administration is putting pressure on Canadian institutional investors to align climate governance with the U.S., according to a report from the Institute for Sustainable Finance and the Canada Climate Law Initiative. While “Canada has not imported the U.S. culture war over sustainable finance,” per co-author Julie Bernard, the report identifies three channels of cross-border influence: U.S. asset managers voting on Canadian company proposals, Canadian pension funds holding U.S.-restricted assets, and delegated portfolio management to U.S. managers.
Large U.S. managers have sharply cut climate proposal support. BlackRock backed just 4% of environmental and social proposals in 2024, down from 47% in 2021, with early spillover already visible as Canadian energy investors oppose climate disclosure proposals despite notable minority support. Still, 93% of Canadian institutional investors report continuing to incorporate ESG since the 2024 U.S. election, and Canada’s distinct legal framework offers relative resilience, though a paused mandatory climate disclosure proposal shows the system isn’t fully insulated.
Featured ESG Tool of the Week:
Klimado – Navigating climate complexity just got easier. Klimado offers a user-friendly platform for tracking local and global environmental shifts, making it an essential tool for climate-aware individuals and organizations.
What Europe’s heatwaves could learn from the Gulf
The Dubai Mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Photo credit: Mostafa Meraji
As Europe grapples with record heat and a scarcity of air conditioning, Gulf states offer decades of experience adapting to extreme temperatures. Dubai’s shopping malls double as air-conditioned running tracks, hosting an early-morning “Mallathon,” while Abu Dhabi and Qatar have built chilled outdoor walkways using evaporative cooling and shading. Experts like University College London’s Oscar Brousse say Europe should study these approaches, though researchers caution that outdoor cooling carries real costs; evaporative systems only work well in dry climates, and University of New South Wales professor Matthaios Santamouris called cooling outdoor spaces “fundamentally unsustainable” given the energy required.
More promising, Santamouris argues, are “supercool” reflective building materials, which have cut surface temperatures by up to 15°C in Riyadh and could suit Europe too. Indoor district cooling, which chills buildings via piped water, has also expanded significantly across the UAE. Still, U.S. climate-tech firm AtmoCooling says European interest in outdoor cooling tools is rising fast, particularly for agriculture and urban areas, even if wholesale adoption of Gulf-style infrastructure remains limited.
UK restaurant kitchens turn to induction cooking to beat the heat
A woman working in a commercial kitchen.
Photo credit: Rohan G
UK restaurant kitchens, sweltering through repeated summer heatwaves without a legal maximum working temperature, are increasingly switching from gas to induction cooking, which is a change that can cut kitchen temperatures by up to 10°C. Chefs including Jeremy Pang of School of Wok say induction can match gas for heat and flavour, reaching 350-400°C while remaining easier to control, quieter, and free of the pollutants linked to asthma from gas cookers.
The financial case is strong too: a Global Cooksafe Coalition report found one gastropub cut energy use by nearly two-thirds, saving £9,000 annually and an estimated £65,000 over a decade, while also slashing emissions and cleaning time, with one Australian restaurant cutting cleaning from 24 minutes to 21 seconds per cooktop. Chantelle Nicholson of Apricity, which won a Michelin Green Star, called electric alternatives “clearly the way forward.” Electrify Britain’s Camilla Born urged the government to cut electricity costs to accelerate the shift away from gas.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: Piggy Bank