Regulation database | The PRI's global policy work

PRI’s regulation database documents financial and corporate policies and regulations which support, encourage or require responsible investment practice. The 2026 update tightens the focus to cover 11 sustainable finance policy categories. It now provides a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of policy frameworks across 15 key financial markets.

Government and policy maker interest in sustainable finance and investment has grown dramatically since the start of this century. The current landscape reflects a growing maturity of the policy mix and higher sustainability ambition, against the backdrop of implementation challenges and cross-market fragmentation.

Expanded scope and complexity of sustainable finance policy reform

In previous editions, PRI’s regulation database clearly demonstrated that sustainable finance policies and regulations had grown significantly worldwide, both in number and in sustainability ambition. In our 2026 update, we shift our focus from monitoring this exponential growth to understanding the comprehensiveness of policy reform across a set of key markets.

Since 2015, sustainability-related corporate and financial policy adoption has accelerated across both advanced and emerging economies. The database now covers 340 policy instruments across 15 jurisdictions, which support, encourage, or require responsible investment practices.

The global expansion of sustainable finance policy is driven by a growing understanding of the relevance of sustainability factors to financial authorities’ mandates and objectives – such as financial stability, market efficiency and integrity, and investor protection. Policymakers and regulators have been revising old and designing new policies to address the range of challenges investors face in pursuing responsible investment practices across different levels of sustainability ambition:

Level 1 - Managing exposure to sustainability-related risks

Policies helping investors and corporates to identify, monitor, and address the impacts of sustainability-related risks have been issued in every jurisdiction covered by the database, and remain most common. Transparency and governance requirements have evolved, driven by global standardisation and interoperability efforts. Corporate sustainability disclosure landscape has transformed, driven by a widespread jurisdictional uptake of ISSB Standards, as well as prudential and regulations covering impact disclosure, governance oversight.

Level 2 - Addressing the drivers of sustainability-related risks

Policies guiding and supporting investors to consider how their investments impact investee entities are growing and maturing globally. More than 50 taxonomies worldwide support investors and issuers to identify sustainable activities and assess alignment. Enabling frameworks for effective stewardship, human rights and environmental due diligence regulations, and policies clarifying fiduciary duties have grown significantly in Europe and are also on the rise in the Asia Pacific region.

Level 3 - Supporting governments in driving the economy-wide transition

Whereas some financial authorities have explicit objectives to support national efforts to transition the economy, sustainable finance policy increasingly integrates this dimension. As part of a whole-of-government approach, regulations that connect to national transition strategies and sectoral transition roadmaps or pathways are growing. The elements of this ambition level include efforts to align responsibilities across the investment chain, facilitate capital flows in line with existing transition goals, and promote global alignment. Multiple jurisdictions have developed requirements, guidelines and guidance on transition finance and transition planning, in collaboration with real economy policy makers.

Despite significant progress, the global policy landscape remains fragmented in coverage and implementation of sustainable finance policies, with differing compliance obligations and regulatory expectations for investors and corporates. Reflecting policymaker agenda, signatory feedback and PRI’s strategy, the PRI sets annual policy priorities with country-specific policy focus areas and recommendations to support responsible and sustainable investment ecosystems.

Cumulative number of sustainable finance policies and regulations issued across 15 key financial markets

Policy_Regulations_database

This data was updated in November 2025 using a methodology which is available to read in full. Please be aware this database was developed using large language models (LLMs), and while we have made best efforts to ensure its accuracy, it should not substitute for your own due diligence.

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View the Regulation Database on the Collaboration Platform

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