UBS Group has reportedly cut its environmental, sustainability, and governance (ESG) team in Asia by half, bringing the total to just three people according to statements from insiders made to Bloomberg.

Citing “people familiar with the matter”, the news agency reported that the layoffs included Esther Tsang and Fang Zhu, both executive directors in UBS’s Hong Kong office, as well as Samantha So, an associate director in Hong Kong, and Umadevi Dassaye, an associate director in Singapore.

A UBS spokesperson told Bloomberg: “Our ambition to position UBS as a leader in sustainability remains unchanged. We are embedding sustainability across the group to strengthen delivery, enhance productivity, avoid duplication and support our clients and businesses at scale.”

UBS has engaged in a worldwide reduction of its ESG staff since acquiring Credit Suisse in 2023. Bloomberg, again citing a person with knowledge of the matter, reported that the bank’s worldwide ESG team has shrunk from over 100 employees to just 35 in the nearly three years since the takeover was completed.

Following the acquisition, the Financial Times reported that UBS had set an internal goal to cut 85,000 jobs by the end of its Credit Suisse integration. This was intended to complete in 2026 and would see UBS cut thousands of duplicated roles inherited from Credit Suisse.

In August 2025, however, the bank submitted figures to the Swiss regulators that showed it was falling well behind on this target. UBS cut 14,000 employees since 2023, but slowed the pace of its internal eliminations to just 1,300 per quarter in 2025.

The same month UBS exited the Net Zero Banking Alliance, part of a mass exodus by financial organisations including Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.

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