Today’s ESG Updates
- Tesla Pushes Self-Driving Cars into EU: Tesla is accelerating efforts to secure regulatory approval for its Full Self-Driving technology across European markets.
- S&P Global Maps Global ESG Compliance: S&P Global has launched a new dataset designed to help investors, lenders and corporations strengthen ESG due diligence and risk assessment processes.
- EU-China Trade Deficit Hits €1B per Day: Recent trade data indicate that the European Union’s trade deficit with China has exceeded €1 billion per day on average in recent months.
- OpenAI Prevails in Trade Secrets Dispute: OpenAI has secured a legal victory in a case involving allegations brought by xAI regarding the alleged transfer of proprietary information.
Tesla fails to push self-driving cars into the EU
Tesla has been marketing its safety studies to obtain approval from European authorities for the use of “Full Self-Driving.” This decision has caused more backlash than in the United States.
According to internal documents obtained by Reuters, one of Tesla’s selling points is the claim that FSD could “save 32,000 lives per year in the US.” For this comparison, Tesla looked at crashes that resulted in airbag deployment in its cars, compared with national averages. However, Tesla compared its new cars to the country’s 12-year-old average fleet.
FSD received approval from the Dutch Road Authority in April after conducting its own tests. It is currently guiding Tesla’s efforts to secure approval across the EU. The authorities in several countries stated that they didn’t base their decisions on “marketing claims or external statistics.”
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Further reading: Exclusive: Tesla presented misleading ‘Full Self-Driving’ safety data to European regulators
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S&P Global launches a dataset to verify UNGC compliance
A new initiative provides quick access to 16.500 companies and their alignment with the ESG. The main focus is the 10 UNGC (United Nations Global Compact) Principles across human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
The dataset will help banks and investors to assess the most important business metrics beyond returns and profit. It’s also a sign that, in the industry, a broad score that covers ESG entirely is no longer sufficient for the diligent. Professionals beyond the field of finance can use the dataset to monitor counterparties, suppliers, and business partners.
S&P Global’s dataset also combines two screening processes: one on corporate controversies and the other on business involvement and revenue from sources linked to breaches of one of the UNGC Principles. The dataset uses AI to identify and quantify potential risks, with the human research team verifying the results.
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Further reading: S&P Global Launches UN Global Compact Screening Dataset to Strengthen ESG Risk Oversight Across 16,500 Companies
Related Articles
Here is a list of articles selected by our Editorial Board that have gained significant interest from the public:
EU-China trade deficit is record-breaking
In April of this year, the EU’s trade deficit with China clocked in at €31,9B, more than a billion per day. This situation may be the main topic of discussion at this week’s meeting of European leaders.
There is speculation that the European Commission will refuse to introduce new tariffs. Instead, analysts believe the quotas on Chinese chemicals and hybrid cars might be introduced. The latter’s popularity has risen since the EU introduced tariffs on EVs in 2024. This is a great example of why the root problem has little to do with the exact products. Beijing has also alleged that a significant share of the surplus comes from European companies operating in China and exporting it back to the bloc.
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Further reading: EU trade deficit with China reaches record €1bn a day, data shows
xAI loses to OpenAI, again
xAI has lost a trade secret lawsuit to OpenAI, after a federal judge dismissed the case, barring the company from refiling. This follows an earlier version of the lawsuit from February, which was also unsuccessful. Musk’s team accused former employee Xuechen Li of revealing confidential Grok chatbot source code to its competitors during his recruitment. The judge ruled that xAI could not prove either the fact of stolen information or its disclosure. The ruling removes one of the topics of legal disputes between xAI and OpenAI in the battle for market share, talent, and AI development. For Musk, the decision is a new setback in his legal campaign against the company he helped create before becoming one of its most avid critics.
In the first half of 2025 alone, subsidence-related insurance claims reached £153 million, while more than a quarter of London properties could be affected by 2070 under a medium-emissions scenario.
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Further reading: US judge dismisses Musk’s xAI trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: A Tesla Cybertruck in Manchester Cover Photo Credit: Mylo Kaye
