ESG

ESG and Sustainability Regulations

These Regulations and Directives – with their abbreviations and jargons – can be classified today into four main categories:

• Financial regulations and reporting: Corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD); Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR); Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD); EU Taxonomy Regulation; and (upcoming) on the transparency and integrity of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating activities.

• Corporate governance: Directive on improving the gender equality on corporate boards

• Due diligence obligations in the supply chain: Deforestation-free products (EUDR); Conflict-Minerals; and the upcoming “CSDDD” (Corporate Social Due Diligence Directive)

• Market practices: Green Claims Directive

In addition to those EU-wide regulations, various countries in and outside the EU have implemented national laws to cover similar or related subjects, which may be applicable to foreign (such as Belgian) companies operating in those markets. 

Internationally, a series of soft-law standards and guidelines also regulate the field, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and their “National Contact Points” in charge of hearing complaints.

Liedekerke’s ESG Solutions team is here as your trusted partner to navigate the complexities of these regulations, making sure you take the right decisions, and assist with your compliance obligations.

Our Offer

Our ESG Solutions Team helps clients deliver on Sustainability

ESG and Sustainability, as new approaches to business practices, require the adoption of a holistic, integrated, approach to issues that often extend far beyond national borders.

Addressing ESG obligations requires both breadth and depth of expertise, national and international, about law and business operations.

This is why we have set up a team that excels on all key components:

• E (Environment): Liedekerke not only combines top-tier experts in both environmental law (Dominique Devos) and (renewable) energy law (Damien Verhoeven) and real estate, but also in international law and environmental impact of business activities abroad.

• S (Social): the sustainability transition requires a focus on both the conditions of workers and employees (internal) as well as affected stakeholders by the companies’ activities (external). Liedekerke boasts one of the leading employment law departments in Belgium, but also a team dedicated to international human rights able to address the risks of doing business abroad, including companies’ social license to operate (SLO).

• G (governance): our leading corporate law specialists guide clients through their decisions on corporate governance, conflicts of interests, checks and balances, diversity, and equity. We have ample experience with governance issues, be it a listed companies, smaller sized companies or start-ups.

 All those experts work together to help you deliver on your company’s ESG commitment and obligations.

Financial reporting and sustainable finance are key to the sustainable transition, and the ESG Solutions team relies on the robust technical expertise of our banking, capital markets, and corporate lawyers to ensure compliance.

In addition, and because sustainability is a world-wide issue, our ESG Solutions Team includes a group of international law experts, covering public and private international law, business & human rights, national and international litigation, and international contracts, to ensure ESG due diligence throughout the supply chain.

Sorting through the maze of ESG standards and regulations, our approach is pragmatic and solution-oriented to enable our clients to enable their businesses.

Our Relevant Experience

Sustainable finance and regulations

• Assisting a leading bank in implementing the MIFID2 sustainability preferences

• Assisting a well-known market player in assessing its greenwashing risks and identifying a strategy to mitigate and reduce such risks

• Assisting one of Belgium’s major infrastructure funds in implementing its SFDR policies

• Assisting a Belgian retail UCITS in its implementation of SFDR

• Assisting a Belgian leading asset manager in amending its existing prospectus in order to comply with SFDR

• Drafting of PAI statements for various financial institutions

• Assisting a start-up designing innovative EU Taxonomy, SFDR & EET reporting solutions

Foreign operations

• Assisting mining companies in the negotiations with foreign governments regarding their investments and operations;

• Assisting a large infrastructure investor in the negotiations of the environmental and social impacts of its investments in the DRC

Market practices

The ESG Solutions Team has also organized several client workshops on greenwashing and related risks.