In September, the European Commission injected some uncertainty into the future regulatory environment for ESG and Impact when it issued a public consultation on the implementation of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). By revisiting the use if the Article 8 and Article 9 categories that impact funds currently fall into, the review could potentially lead to significant changes for the industry. Private Equity partner Patrick Deasy also notes a divergence in regulatory approaches between the US and Europe: "The US approach to date has been to say that sustainability and impact are like any other investment strategy that sponsors are looking to promote to investors, so the important thing is that managers are fair, clear and not misleading. The EU, on the other hand, sees the regulatory regime as a means of coalescing capital into the climate impact space by providing a gold standard regulatory regime that investors can take a lot of comfort in." More on Private Equity International