Rachel Richardson
Rachel is head of ESG at Macfarlanes and has oversight of the ESG practice at Macfarlanes. She provides strategic support on a wide range of ESG issues, in particular in the area of sustainable finance.
She is a technical expert in various areas of ESG, providing assistance to clients on ongoing reporting requirements, including TCFD reporting, UN PRI reporting, SFDR annual reporting, UK Stewardship code reporting and other ongoing reporting requirements.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- 2011
Experience
- Macfarlanes (2009 - Present)
Qualifications
- GDL (BPP Law School London (2007))
- LPC (BPP Law School London (2008))
Education
- University of Bristol (2006)
1 Contributions by Rachel Richardson
PRACTICE NOTES
EU ESG integration under AIFMD, UCITS and MiFID II: requirements, timelines, key concepts, ESMA guidance, 2025 CSA findings, and UK divergence
This Practice Note reviews the EU environmental, social and governance (ESG) — also termed sustainability — integration measures, which revised delegated acts under the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive 2011/61/EU (AIFMD), the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive 2009/65/EC and the recast Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II), and considers their industry impact. It also briefly highlights the UK’s departure in respect of these measures.
What were the ESG integration measures?
In August 2021, a package of measures (the Delegated Acts) appeared in the Official Journal of the EU; see Application of the ESG measures below, and they affected UCITS management companies, alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) and MiFID investment firms (together, managers). For practical guidance on managers, refer to Practice Notes: Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS)—essentials, UK regulation of alternative investment fund managers—essentials, and EU MiFID II and MiFIR—essentials. The Delegated Acts built on the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan, first issued on 8 March 2018. They followed the EU Sustainability Disclosure Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/2088) (EU SFDR) and the EU Taxonomy Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/852) (together, the Regulations), which apply to managers and mandate certain website and investor reporting...
Financial Services
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