EU: Commission adopt RTS giving further clarity under the ESG Ratings Regulation

On 21 April 2026, the European Commission adopted the following two draft Delegated Regulations supplementing Regulation 2024/3005 (known as the ‘ESG Ratings Regulation’). ESMA consulted on the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) in May 2025 (see our earlier blog post).

Draft Delegated Regulation with regard to RTS specifying the measures and safeguards to be implemented by ESG rating providers to separate their ESG rating activities from their other activities. The measures broadly align with the draft measures published last year and provide the following:

• all ESG rating providers should put in place separate organisational structures and working environments for employees and other persons involved in the rating process from any of the activities listed in Article 16(1) of the ESG rating Regulation, and subject them to regular self-declarations attesting employees’ non-involvement in such activities. (Article 1)

• ESG rating providers engaged in investment services and/or insurance and reinsurance activities must implement additional technical and internal control measures. (Article 2)

• ESG rating providers that intend to provide benchmarks, or do provide such benchmarks, are to adopt additional specific safeguards ensuring that employee compensation remains unaffected by conflicts of interest related to benchmark activities, that ESG ratings are produced and offered independently of the provision of benchmarks, and that any actual or potential conflicts of interest are assessed and documented before entering into a contract for the provision of ESG rating activities (Article 3). 

Draft Delegated Regulation with regard to RTS specifying the elements of ESG rating products to be disclosed to the public and to users of ESG ratings, rated items and issuers of rated items.  The RTS targets the disclosures made under Annex III.1 and 111.2 of the ESG Ratings Regulation and has the ultimate intention of this regulation is to ensure that ESG rating providers disclose information in a comparable and consistent manner.  With this in mind the regulation:

• specifies that sequence and structure of disclosures made in accordance with Annex III.1 of the ESG rating Regulation (Article 2).

• requires a range of rating level disclosures around what is rated and what risks and impacts are measured (Article 3).

• requires disclosures on general methodology (Article 4) and specific methodology (Article 7), the limitations of data sources (Article 5), ESG rating providers’ organisational information (Article 6), and the processes that surround any determinations to revise methodologies) (Article 8).

What's next?

It is now the job of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to  scrutinise the Delegated Regulation. If neither object, both will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and enter into force 20 days after publication. They will both apply from 2 July 2026 to align with the ESG Ratings Regulation application date.

The original ESMA consultation also contemplates a RTS specifying the information that will need to be contained in an application for authorisation or recognition to operate in the EU as an ESG rating provider.  No comment has been made as to timing of the publication of this RTS, but no doubt it will follow in due course.