APCO Impact

The announcement of the 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP), the guiding policy blueprint for 2021-2025, provided a framework for the government to consolidate several widely known objectives, including a desire to decrease reliance on foreign supply chains in technology, accelerate consumption, and heighten food security. Alongside electoral reform in Hong Kong and the announcement of increased protections for companies and individuals facing sanctions, these goals will support the government’s projection of a confident China firmly on the path to “socialist modernization” – a crucial image for the Party’s 100th anniversary this July. The 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) enshrined many long-known government ambitions into tangible political objectives to be achieved by 2025. Following a year in which China was the only major economy to achieve economic growth, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced a growth target of “above 6 percent” for 2021.

With financial markets eager for more uniform standards and companies struggling to reconcile multiple ESG reporting frameworks and metrics, this moment could be an opportunity for regulators, companies and market participants to align on standards. —commenting that it’s time to move from the question of “if to “how” to obtain disclosures—announcing the release of its 2021 examination priorities that include a greater focus on climate-related risks and ensuring accuracy in ESG-related disclosure and creating a Climate and ESG Task Force in the Division of Enforcement. The announcement of the Climate and ESG Task Force suggests the SEC is looking to examine current voluntary reporting and call out practices where companies have not lived up to their ESG claims and commitments. The task force will likely assess ESG and sustainability related statements on the websites of public companies as examples, and look at proxy disclosure statements around risk management and how boards have discussed the material consequences of climate change to ensure that the investor interests are truly represented.

Israelis will cast their votes in national elections on Tuesday, March 23, for the fourth time in less than two years, with as many as 13 parties realistically expected to secure enough votes to enter the parliament (Knesset). The new election was triggered following the collapse of the short-lived Netanyahu-Gantz “unity government” in December 2020, perpetuating more than two years of political gridlock. This impasse has largely stemmed from fissures in the political system and broader society over the question of whether incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Israel’s longest serving premier but currently in the middle of a criminal trial over corruption allegations – should remain in the position, an issue that has eclipsed traditional Left-Right divisions in the political system.

Around the world, young activists have breathed urgency into the climate movement, shaken up public discourse about climate action, or lack thereof, and put climate change on national and international agendas. Young people have also been at the forefront of calling out the climate movement’s diversity problem and drawing attention to climate justice, which acknowledges that the impacts of a warming world are not felt equally among communities. In response, a slew of youth activists and youth-led groups, including Zero Hour and the Re-Earth Initiative, are tying climate disaster to issues of racism, colonialism and poverty, and prioritizing the protection of the world’s most marginalized populations. There’s often a disconnect between companies’ public sustainability ambitions and their non-public advocacy efforts.