| There is a conversation happening in boardrooms across the Gulf right now, and it is long overdue. On one side of the table sits the marketing team, eager to position the company as a sustainability leader. On the other, the legal team, quietly flagging the regulatory minefield that same positioning could create. For too long, these two functions have operated in parallel — one building the brand narrative, the other managing risk. ESG is the issue that finally forces them into the same room. | ||
| The UAE has made that convergence non-optional. Federal Decree-Law No. 11 of 2024 on the Reduction of Climate Change Effects came into force on 30 May 2025, and the full compliance deadline lands on 30 May 2026 — barely seven weeks from today. Every entity operating in the UAE, public or private, mainland or free zone, must measure, report, and demonstrate plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Non-compliance carries fines ranging from AED 50,000 to AED 2,000,000, doubled for repeat offences within two years, with potential licence suspension and regulatory blacklisting on the table. | ||
| And before anyone asks: no, the current geopolitical climate has not paused this. The deadline is immovable. There has been no announced delay, no softening of enforcement, no grace period linked to regional tensions. If anything, the UAE’s positioning as a post-COP28 sustainability leader makes retreat from this law politically untenable. The legislation is a signal of national identity, not a discretionary policy lever. | ||
| This is where the marketing-legal divide becomes dangerous — and it is a divide I have spent my career straddling. Having trained in both communications and law, I have sat in rooms where the marketing team writes a line that makes the lawyers wince, and rooms where legal drafts a disclosure so dense it might as well be invisible. A sustainability report is simultaneously a compliance document and a brand asset. When marketing drafts the company’s ESG narrative without legal review, the result can be aspirational language that crosses into misrepresentation. When legal drafts the disclosures without marketing input, the result is often impenetrable jargon that fails to communicate genuine progress to investors, partners, and the public. | ||
| The risks cut both ways. Overpromise in your sustainability communications and you face greenwashing liability — an area where regulators globally are sharpening their teeth. But undercommunicate your ESG efforts and you miss a competitive differentiator in a market where government procurement, sovereign wealth fund mandates, and international partnerships are increasingly gated by sustainability credentials. | ||
| The companies that will navigate this well are the ones treating ESG communications as a joint output. Legal ensures the claims are defensible, the data is auditable, and the disclosures meet the requirements of the Decree-Law. Marketing ensures the story is coherent, the positioning is strategic, and the reporting actually reaches and resonates with the audiences that matter. Neither function can do this alone. | ||
| This is not a theoretical problem. Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions data must be measured, inventoried, and reported annually. Records must be maintained for a minimum of five years. External assurance will be required as mandated by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. These are legal obligations with teeth — but the way a company frames, presents, and contextualises that data is a brand decision with commercial consequences. | ||
| The organisations that treat ESG as purely a compliance exercise will meet the minimum threshold and gain nothing. The organisations that treat it as purely a marketing exercise will eventually get caught. The ones that get it right will be those where the General Counsel and the CMO are not just aligned, but actively co-owning the output. | ||
| May 2026 is not a drill. The law is live, the fines are real, and the reputational stakes are higher than the regulatory ones. The question is not whether your company needs to act — it is whether your marketing and legal teams are acting together. | ||
THE SIGNAL |
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THE QUESTION |
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| If your sustainability report landed on a regulator’s desk tomorrow and a journalist’s desk the day after — would both be satisfied with what they read? | ||
SOURCES & FURTHER READING |
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| — UAE Climate Change Law — PwC Middle East | ||
| — ESG Is Now Enforceable in the UAE — Kayrouz & Associates | ||
| — From Voluntary to Mandatory: UAE Climate Law — The Sustainable Times | ||
| — UAE ESG Risk Revolution: Mandatory Climate Reporting 2026 — ASC Global | ||
| — ESG Reporting in UAE 2026 — ExSolution Consultancy | ||
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| The views expressed in this newsletter are Jonathan Ashton’s own personal perspectives and do not constitute legal or professional advice. | ||
| Common Ground is published weekly. If this was shared with you, subscribe on LinkedIn to receive it directly.
(Image: JoJo Martin, Pexels.com) |
