(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s corporate watchdog urged the country’s financial services industry to do more to crack down on greenwashing, after taking action in dozens of cases.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission handled 47 interventions between April 2023 and the end of June, including launching civil cases against Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd. and Mercer Superannuation Australia Ltd.
“Our surveillance indicates there is ample room for improvement and we strongly encourage product issuers and their advisers to focus on the quality of disclosures and the data underpinning them,” Commissioner Kate O’Rourke said Friday in a statement. “Sustainability-related information, like any other, should be accurate, based on reasonable grounds and be easily understood by investors.”
Australian pension fund Mercer was ordered to pay an A$11.3 million ($7.6 million) fine earlier this month in the regulator’s first federal court case in relation to greenwashing.
Issues addressed by the regulator over the 15 months included investments found to be inconsistent with disclosed ESG investment screens and policies, sustainability-related claims that weren’t reasonable or complete, and insufficient disclosures on methodologies, according to an ASIC report.
Australia is planning to introduce mandatory climate disclosures for listed companies and asset owners from January, and is also developing ESG labeling standards for products being marketed as sustainable.
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