Green Agenda in Russia during Bitter Conflict with West

It would seem that the enormous political conflict with the West will become a death sentence to the ESG agenda in Russia. By 2021 the latter had become an absolute economic fashion and all but the main trend.

Promotion of green values was based primarily on the idea of preserving Russia as a part of the global economic space: “Since the EU and West are going this way, we have no other choice all the same.” Besides, exporters were waiting warily for the introduction of European transboundary carbon regulation (CBAM).

After February 2022, however, the agenda was radically rewritten. Western companies began leaving Russia en masse, economic relations with the West were drastically reduced, and the Russian economy began to be pushed violently from the global economic space, hemmed in by sweeping sanctions. All that was, to put it mildly, not the best background for talking about ESG. Especially because tasks of survival and stability under unprecedented pressure became the priority in the economy.

In late 2022, however, attempts to reanimate the ESG agenda already became obvious. The message is put across insistently that it is important to Russia regardless of the foreign policy situation. Asian economies that Moscow considers its main economic partners are said to follow the “green course” too.

The energy transition is cleverly embedded into the import substitution agenda: it is now propagandised as a way to achieve technological sovereignty. While earlier the “green pivot” was seen as an opportunity to attract Western investors and their technological solutions to Russia, now Keynesian reliance on domestic manufacture is discussed.

The new NESF report will reveal the reasons why the ESG agenda is so tenacious in Russia and evaluate its prospects, giving answers to the following questions:

Who are the main lobbyists for the green transition?

• Why energy conservatives cannot radically change the state’s energy policy?
• Position of state leaders on the ESG subject matter
• How a bureaucracy arose that saw the energy transition as an opportunity to create and control a new flow of cash
• Map of key regulators of environmental protection

What is the fate of climate policy?

• Outlook for Russia’s Low-carbon Development Strategy
• Sakhalin experiment progress
• Establishment of the National Register of Carbon Units

What is happening to environmental regulation?

• Improvement of environmental protection laws
• Environmental impacts and waste recycling

Why does business like non-financial corporate statements?

• The letters “S” and “G” versus “E” as a method to optimise costs

How is “green financing” getting on?

• Status on the market of ESG loans and green bonds

What does the ESG agenda look like in specific sectors?

What is happening to renewable energy and hydrogen projects?

• Situation with equipment localisation and with demand

How great is the potential of the policy of collecting and redistributing environment and climate money?

• Possible bureaucratic battles for the “green pie”

Contents of the report: