Executive narrativeChina’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) regime is best understood as:•a fast-formalising disclosure stack for capital markets and large enterprises•a mature, high-intensity environmental compliance and permitting system, and•broad consumer/competition-style controls on misleading commercial statements that are increasingly being used to police green messagingIn practice, the highest execution risk typically sits with operational E compliance (permits, monitoring data integrity and inspections) and with statement risk (listed-company disclosures, prospectuses, sustainability reports, product labels and marketing) rather than with a single, consolidated ESG law.Sustainability reportingIn the area of corporate and investor reporting, the recent focus has been on the sustainable reporting framework of stock exchanges and the national standard system led by the Ministry of Finance. The Shanghai Stock Exchange released the ‘Guidelines No 14 of Shanghai Stock Exchange for Self-Regulation of Listed Companies—Sustainability Report (Trial)’ in April 2024 and this guideline came into effect on May 1, 2024. This guideline transforms ESG into regulatory expectations for specific large, listed companies and companies with cross-border listing