RELX PLC (RELX): Análisis PESTLE [Actualizado en Ene-2025]

En el panorama dinámico de los servicios de información global, RELX PLC se encuentra en la encrucijada de la innovación y la adaptación estratégica, navegando por desafíos complejos que abarcan dominios políticos, económicos, tecnológicos y sociales. Este análisis integral de la mano presenta las fuerzas externas multifacéticas que dan a la trayectoria estratégica de la compañía, revelando cómo RELX transforma las posibles interrupciones en oportunidades para el crecimiento y la transformación digital. Desde las intrincadas implicaciones de Brexit hasta la implacable marcha de la inteligencia artificial, la resiliencia de la compañía surge como un testimonio de su capacidad para anticipar, adaptarse y sobresalir en un mercado global cada vez más interconectado y en rápida evolución.

RELX PLC (RELX) - Análisis de mortero: factores políticos

Implicaciones Brexit para servicios de información basados ​​en el Reino Unido y operaciones globales

A partir de 2024, Relx PLC enfrentó desafíos significativos debido al Brexit, con posibles impactos en sus operaciones con sede en el Reino Unido y el acceso al mercado europeo. Los ingresos totales de la compañía de los mercados europeos en 2023 fueron de £ 2.4 mil millones, lo que representa el 35% de sus ingresos globales.

Área de impacto Brexit	Medida cuantitativa
Costos potenciales de cumplimiento adicional	Estimado de £ 45-60 millones anualmente
Ingresos del mercado europeo en riesgo	Aproximadamente £ 850 millones

Aumento del escrutinio regulatorio sobre la privacidad de los datos y la gestión de la información

RELX PLC encontró desafíos regulatorios aumentados en la privacidad de los datos en múltiples jurisdicciones.

• Costos de cumplimiento de GDPR en 2023: £ 72 millones
• Inversiones legales de protección de datos: £ 38.5 millones
• Expansión del equipo de cumplimiento regulatorio: 127 nuevo personal especializado

Tensiones geopolíticas que afectan las estrategias de expansión del mercado internacional

Región	Inversión de expansión del mercado	Factor de riesgo político
Porcelana	£ 215 millones	Altas restricciones comerciales tecnológicas
Rusia	£ 43 millones	Limitaciones del mercado relacionadas con las sanciones
Oriente Medio	£ 167 millones	Inestabilidad geopolítica

Políticas gubernamentales que respaldan la transformación digital y la economía del conocimiento

RELX PLC alineado estratégicamente con las iniciativas de transformación digital del gobierno en los mercados clave.

• Subvenciones de innovación digital del gobierno del Reino Unido recibido: £ 12.3 millones
• Financiación de la transformación digital de la UE: 8,7 millones de euros
• Contratos de la base de datos de investigación del gobierno de EE. UU.: £ 87.6 millones

Inversiones totales relacionadas con los factores políticos e impactos potenciales en 2023: aproximadamente £ 456.4 millones

RELX PLC (RELX) - Análisis de mortero: factores económicos

Incertidumbre económica global que impacta la investigación y los mercados profesionales de la información

RELX reportó ingresos totales de £ 8.8 mil millones en 2022, con segmentos científicos, técnicos y médicos que generan £ 2.7 mil millones. La incertidumbre económica global ha afectado directamente los segmentos del mercado de la información.

Segmento de mercado	2022 Ingresos (£ mil millones)	Índice de crecimiento
Científico, técnico & Médico	2.7	7.4%
Riesgo & Inteligencia de negocios	2.2	11%
Legal	1.8	6%
Exposiciones	0.8	129%

Tasas de cambio fluctuantes que afectan los flujos de ingresos internacionales

En 2022, Relx experimentó impactos de traducción de divisas con aproximadamente £ 230 millones de efecto negativo sobre los ingresos. El mercado norteamericano representaba el 52% de los ingresos del grupo total.

Impacto en la moneda	Cantidad (£ millones)
Impacto negativo de traducción	230
Variación del tipo de cambio USD/GBP	1.23
Variación del tipo de cambio EUR/GBP	1.17

Adaptación del modelo de suscripción digital

Las suscripciones digitales aumentaron a £ 6.2 mil millones en 2022, representando el 70% de los ingresos del grupo total. El uso de la plataforma en línea creció un 15% interanual.

Inversión en IA y servicios de información basados ​​en tecnología

RELX invirtió £ 450 millones en tecnología y desarrollo de IA en 2022. El gasto en investigación y desarrollo de tecnología representaron el 5.1% de los ingresos totales.

Inversión tecnológica	Cantidad (£ millones)	Porcentaje de ingresos
Gasto de I + D	450	5.1%
Desarrollo de tecnología de IA	180	2.0%

RELX PLC (RELX) - Análisis de mortero: factores sociales

Creciente demanda de acceso digital y remoto a información profesional

Según el informe anual 2022 de RELX, los servicios de información digital representaron el 88% de los ingresos del grupo total. Las plataformas digitales de la compañía atendieron a 30,4 millones de investigadores y profesionales a nivel mundial.

Segmento de plataforma digital	Ingresos (2022)	Base de usuarios
Científico & Médico	$ 3.1 mil millones	15,2 millones de usuarios
Riesgo & Inteligencia de negocios	$ 3.4 mil millones	10.6 millones de usuarios
Legal	$ 1.7 mil millones	4.6 millones de usuarios

Aumento de énfasis en la toma de decisiones basada en datos en todas las industrias

Riesgo de Relx & El segmento de análisis de negocios generó £ 2.8 mil millones en ingresos en 2022, lo que representa un crecimiento orgánico del 9%, lo que indica una fuerte demanda del mercado de soluciones basadas en datos.

Industria	Tamaño del mercado de análisis de datos (2022)	Cuota de mercado de RELX
Servicios financieros	$ 24.3 mil millones	12.5%
Cuidado de la salud	$ 18.7 mil millones	9.2%
Legal & Cumplimiento	$ 15.6 mil millones	14.3%

Cambiar la dinámica del lugar de trabajo que requiere información flexible y soluciones de análisis

Relx invirtió £ 448 millones en tecnología y desarrollo de productos en 2022, centrándose en soluciones basadas en la nube y habilitadas para AI para admitir entornos de trabajo remotos e híbridos.

Expectativas crecientes de servicios de información personalizados y específicos

Las tecnologías de personalización de RELX permitieron un aumento del 22% en la participación del usuario en sus plataformas digitales. Los algoritmos de aprendizaje automático de la compañía procesaron más de 2.500 millones de puntos de datos en 2022 para entregar contenido dirigido.

Métrico de personalización	Rendimiento 2022	Crecimiento interanual
Compromiso de usuario	22% de aumento	+5.6%
Recomendaciones de contenido	2.500 millones de puntos de datos	+18.3%
Experiencias de usuario personalizadas	87% de satisfacción del usuario	+4.2%

RELX PLC (RELX) - Análisis de mortero: factores tecnológicos

Inversión continua en inteligencia artificial y tecnologías de aprendizaje automático

RELX invirtió £ 330 millones en tecnología y desarrollo de productos en 2022. Las inversiones de AI y aprendizaje automático de la compañía se centraron en mejorar las capacidades predictivas en plataformas científicas, legales y de gestión de riesgos.

Área de inversión tecnológica	Monto de inversión (2022)	Sectores de implementación AI/ML
Plataformas de investigación científica	£ 112 millones	Investigación académica y médica
Sistemas de información legales	£ 98 millones	Análisis legal y predicción
Soluciones de gestión de riesgos	£ 120 millones	Inteligencia de negocios

Análisis de datos avanzado y capacidades de modelado predictivo

RELX procesó más de 35 petabytes de datos en 2022, utilizando modelado predictivo avanzado en múltiples segmentos comerciales.

Plataforma de análisis de datos	Capacidad de procesamiento	Tasa de precisión predictiva
Plataforma científica de Elsevier	12 petabytes	94.3%
LEXISNEXIS Legal Analytics	8 petabytes	92.7%
Soluciones de gestión de riesgos	15 petabytes	95.1%

Mejora de ciberseguridad para proteger la información profesional confidencial

RELX asignó £ 45 millones específicamente para la infraestructura de ciberseguridad en 2022, implementando tecnologías avanzadas de cifrado y detección de amenazas.

Inversión de ciberseguridad	Cantidad	Medidas de seguridad
Actualización de infraestructura	£ 25 millones	Protocolos de cifrado avanzados
Sistemas de detección de amenazas	£ 12 millones	Monitoreo en tiempo real
Capacitación de seguridad	£ 8 millones	Programas de ciberseguridad de empleados

Desarrollo de plataformas basadas en la nube y soluciones digitales integradas

RELX amplió las soluciones basadas en la nube, con el 78% de las plataformas digitales migradas a la infraestructura en la nube a fines de 2022.

Plataforma en la nube	Porcentaje de migración	Base de usuarios
Elsevier Research Nube	85%	2.3 millones de investigadores
Lexisnexis Legal Cloud	72%	1.7 millones de profesionales legales
Nube de gestión de riesgos	78%	1.5 millones de usuarios comerciales

RELX PLC (RELX) - Análisis de mortero: factores legales

Cumplimiento de GDPR y regulaciones internacionales de protección de datos

RELX gastó £ 88 millones en medidas legales y de cumplimiento en 2022 para garantizar el cumplimiento de la protección de datos. La compañía mantiene el cumplimiento de GDPR en 25 países europeos. En 2023, RELX implementó 147 protocolos específicos de protección de datos en sus plataformas digitales.

Regulación	Estado de cumplimiento	Inversión (£)
GDPR	Cumplimiento total	88,000,000
CCPA	Cumplimiento verificado	42,500,000
Pipeda	Cumplimiento certificado	35,200,000

Gestión de derechos de propiedad intelectual en plataformas de información digital

RELX presentó 672 nuevas solicitudes de patentes en 2023. La cartera de propiedades intelectuales de la Compañía incluye 4,289 patentes activas a nivel mundial. Los gastos legales para la protección de IP alcanzaron £ 62.3 millones en 2022.

Categoría de IP	Número de patentes	Regiones de protección
Plataformas digitales	1,847	América del Norte, Europa
Información científica	1,562	Global
Tecnologías de gestión de riesgos	880	Múltiples jurisdicciones

Navegar por los complejos marcos legales transfronterizos para servicios de información

RELX opera equipos de cumplimiento legal en 37 países. La compañía invirtió £ 53.4 millones en infraestructura legal internacional en 2023. La cobertura de cumplimiento legal transfronteriza incluye 52 entornos regulatorios diferentes.

Estrategias legales de protección de patentes e innovación continua

RELX asignó £ 74.6 millones para innovación legal y estrategia de patentes en 2023. La compañía mantiene un equipo de innovación legal dedicado de 124 profesionales especializados en tecnología y derecho de propiedad intelectual.

Estrategia legal de innovación	Inversión (£)	Tamaño del equipo
Desarrollo de patentes	41,200,000	76
Protección tecnológica	33,400,000	48

RELX PLC (RELX) - Análisis de mortero: factores ambientales

Compromiso de reducir la huella de carbono a través de la transformación digital

Relx comprometido a reducir las emisiones de carbono absoluto en un 33% para 2025 desde una línea de base de 2016. En 2022, la compañía logró una reducción del 35% en las emisiones de carbono en comparación con los niveles de 2016.

Año	Reducción de emisiones de carbono	Emisiones totales de carbono (toneladas métricas CO2E)
2016 (línea de base)	0%	189,000
2022	35%	122,850

Prácticas sostenibles en entrega de información digital y computación en la nube

RELX utiliza electricidad 100% renovable en las operaciones globales. En 2022, la compañía obtuvo 309,000 MWh de energía renovable, que representa el 97% del consumo total de electricidad.

Métrico de energía	Datos 2022
Adquisición total de energía renovable	309,000 MWh
Porcentaje de electricidad renovable	97%

Apoyo a la investigación ambiental y los servicios de información centrados en la sostenibilidad

Relx proporciona Investigación de sostenibilidad y servicios de datos A través de plataformas como Scopus y Science Direct, que albergan más de 26 millones de trabajos de investigación científica relacionados con temas ambientales.

Plataforma de investigación	Documentos de investigación ambiental
Escopus	15.2 millones
Ciencia directa	11.8 millones

Iniciativas corporativas para reducir la distribución de información en papel

RELX ha implementado estrategias digitales primero, reduciendo el consumo de papel en un 44% desde 2016. La compañía ahorró aproximadamente 14,500 árboles a través de iniciativas de transformación digital en 2022.

Año	Reducción del consumo de papel	Árboles guardados
2016	Base	0
2022	44%	14,500

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Social factors

Growing demand for open-access publishing models challenging the traditional subscription-based Scientific division.

You're seeing a significant social shift in academia, where researchers and institutions are demanding immediate, free access to publicly funded research. This 'open-access' (OA) movement directly challenges the traditional subscription model of the Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) division, which includes Elsevier.

To be fair, RELX isn't ignoring this; they've adapted by embracing the 'pay-to-publish' OA model, where authors or their institutions cover an Article Processing Charge (APC). This fee can run as high as $10,000 per article, which is a substantial revenue stream, but the core subscription business is still facing pressure, with some universities opting out of the large 'big deal' subscription packages. Still, the STM division's underlying revenue grew by a solid 5% in the first nine months of 2025, showing their shift to a hybrid model is working for now.

Here's the quick math on how critical this segment remains:

Division	H1 2025 Underlying Revenue Growth	Primary Social Trend/Driver
Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM)	+5%	Open-Access Publishing Pressure
Legal	+9%	Remote Work & AI-Driven Efficiency
Risk	+8%	Demand for Digital Fraud & Identity Solutions

Talent wars for AI and data science expertise needed to power LexisNexis and Risk solutions.

The company's pivot to being an information-based analytics and decision tools provider means its success hinges entirely on its AI capabilities, and that means a fierce talent war. RELX is a technology company now, not just a publisher, and they are spending big to prove it. The company allocates approximately $1.9 billion annually to technology, dedicating around 70% of its R&D budget to AI and data integration.

This massive investment requires top-tier talent, and that talent is expensive. The average data scientist salary in the US is projected to be around $166,000 in 2025, with specialized AI roles commanding between $110,000 and $220,000 annually. Plus, mid-level data scientist salaries saw a 2.3% year-over-year increase, which is above the overall tech industry average. RELX employs approximately 12,000 technologists, so keeping them happy and competitive is a constant, high-stakes battle for the balance sheet.

Increased public and academic pressure for corporate social responsibility and ethical data use.

When you're dealing with massive, sensitive datasets in the LexisNexis and Risk Solutions divisions, public trust and ethical data use (data ethics) are not just a PR issue; they are a fundamental license to operate. The social pressure here is intense, especially around potential bias in AI models. You defintely need a clear, public framework to manage this risk.

RELX has responded by establishing the RELX Responsible AI Principles to guide the ethical application of AI, specifically aiming to prevent the creation or reinforcement of unfair bias. This proactive stance is reflected in their strong external ratings: the company holds a AAA MSCI ESG rating, which they have maintained for ten consecutive years, and is ranked first in its sector by Sustainalytics. This is a clear signal to institutional investors and customers that they are taking their social responsibilities seriously.

Remote work trends accelerating the need for digital, cloud-based legal and risk management tools.

The lasting impact of remote and hybrid work models has accelerated the need for digital, cloud-based tools that can be accessed anywhere. This trend is a huge tailwind for RELX's core business segments. Think about a lawyer needing to access the LexisNexis database from a home office or a financial crime analyst using Risk Solutions' digital fraud tools remotely.

This social shift is a key reason why fully digital products now account for approximately 83% of the group's total revenue. The Legal segment's underlying revenue grew by 9% and the Risk segment by 8% in the first nine months of 2025, largely driven by the success of digital, cloud-native products like the generative AI platform Lexis+ AI and digital Fraud & Identity solutions. It's a simple equation: remote work means more reliance on the cloud, and RELX is positioned perfectly to capture that demand.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Technological factors

Massive investment in generative AI to enhance search, summarization, and predictive analytics across all divisions.

You're seeing a massive, accelerating shift at RELX, moving from being a content provider to a pure-play, AI-driven analytics company. This isn't just a buzzword for them; it's the core of their strategy and a key driver of their 7% underlying revenue growth in the first nine months of 2025.

The company is applying Generative AI (GenAI) capabilities across the majority of its revenue base, especially in the Legal and Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) segments. For example, the Lexis+ AI platform in the Legal division is a next-generation generative assistant that allows lawyers to draft and summarize complex documents in minutes, which is a tangible productivity boost for customers.

Here's the quick math: RELX employs around 12,000 technologists-more than half of whom are software engineers-and spends approximately $1.9 billion annually on technology to power this innovation. That's a serious commitment to staying ahead of the curve. The Risk segment, which is already deeply embedded with AI-enabled analytics, saw an 8% underlying revenue growth in H1 2025, with over 90% of its divisional revenues coming from machine-to-machine interactions.

Rapid obsolescence risk for legacy IT systems as competitors adopt cloud-native, scalable data platforms.

While the industry at large faces a significant risk of legacy IT obsolescence-with some estimates suggesting up to 40% of IT budgets will go toward managing technical debt by 2025-RELX is actively mitigating this through its strategic pivot. Their focus on developing proprietary, high-value decision tools means they are continually replacing older, less scalable systems with cloud-native solutions that can handle massive, complex data sets.

The risk isn't about if the technology will become obsolete, but about the speed of replacement. Their high capital expenditure, which was 5.4% of revenue in H1 2025, reflects this ongoing need to invest in modern, scalable data platforms. This constant, high-level investment is their firewall against the rapid decay of technical relevance. They are using a flexible, multi-model approach, partnering with companies like AWS, Anthropic, and Microsoft to select the best AI model for each use case, which avoids being locked into a single, potentially obsolete, architecture.

Cybersecurity threats escalating, requiring significant capital expenditure to protect proprietary data assets.

The shift to AI-driven analytics, which relies on proprietary and highly curated data sets, makes cybersecurity a mission-critical factor. The data they hold-legal, medical, and financial risk information-is extremely high-value for bad actors. Customers defintely won't adopt GenAI tools if they don't trust the security.

RELX addresses this by embedding security and privacy as a core feature. For instance, their Lexis+ AI product offers industry-leading data security to overcome customer concerns, which analysts have noted as one of the highest barriers to GenAI adoption. Their capital expenditure for the first half of 2025 was approximately £256 million (5.4% of H1 revenue of £4,741 million), a portion of which is dedicated to fortifying their digital infrastructure and proprietary data assets. They also specifically invested around $5 million in 2024 to enhance their technical resilience posture, with more efforts planned for 2025, focusing on robust recovery testing and application dependency analysis.

Technological Investment Focus (H1 2025)	Key Metric/Value	Strategic Impact
Annual Technology Spend	Approx. $1.9 billion (£1.5bn)	Funds AI development and platform modernization.
H1 2025 Capital Expenditure (CapEx)	5.4% of revenue (up from 5.0% in 2024)	Indicates increasing investment in IT infrastructure and data security.
Technologists Employed	Approx. 12,000	Scale of internal expertise for AI and software development.
Risk Segment Revenue from Machine-to-Machine	>90%	Shows deep technological integration and automation in a key growth area.

Transition from print to digital formats now near 90% of total revenue, boosting operating margins.

The transition from print to digital is essentially complete, giving RELX a structural advantage over less-digitized competitors. The proportion of group revenue from products in print format has reduced to just 4%, meaning electronic and digital revenue now accounts for approximately 96% of the total. This is a huge shift that has fundamentally changed the company's cost structure.

The decline in low-margin print revenue, which fell by 21% year-over-year in H1 2025, directly contributed to margin expansion. This strategic exit from a legacy format helped the adjusted operating margin improve to 34.8% in H1 2025, up from 34.1% in H1 2024, flowing straight to the bottom line. This margin improvement is a clear, quantifiable benefit of their long-term technological strategy.

• Digital revenue is now approximately 96% of total.
• Adjusted operating margin improved to 34.8% in H1 2025.
• Print-related revenue is now largely complete as a transition.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Legal factors

Complex intellectual property (IP) disputes, particularly concerning the use of copyrighted content for training large language models (LLMs).

The core of RELX PLC's business-especially its Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) and Legal divisions-is built on proprietary, copyrighted content, so the rise of Generative AI creates a significant legal risk and a major business opportunity. The company is investing $1.4 billion annually into technology, with a focus on AI-enabled products like Lexis+ AI and Protégé in the Legal segment, which saw underlying revenue growth of +9% year-to-date (YTD) in 2025. This growth is directly tied to leveraging large language models (LLMs).

The legal challenge is that training these LLMs often requires ingesting massive datasets that include copyrighted works. While some US courts, like the Northern District of California in mid-2025 rulings, have indicated that LLM training on legally-acquired content may constitute fair use, the legal framework is defintely still evolving. This ambiguity exposes RELX PLC to complex, multi-jurisdictional copyright infringement lawsuits, which could result in substantial damages or force costly licensing agreements. The company's stance, as articulated to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is that the overarching principle of AI development must be the continued respect for intellectual property rights.

Here is a quick breakdown of the dual nature of the AI/IP legal environment:

• Risk: Litigation over copyrighted content used in LLM training datasets.
• Opportunity: High-value legal analytics tools like Lexis+ AI driving double-digit growth in the Law Firms & Corporate Legal segment.
• Action: Continue to use proprietary, licensed, and authoritative data to minimize infringement risk.

Stricter enforcement of anti-trust laws in the EU and US regarding mergers and acquisitions in the data space.

Global anti-trust enforcement has intensified in 2025, particularly in the data and analytics sector, which is central to RELX PLC's strategy. Regulators in the EU and US are scrutinizing acquisitions more closely, often demanding significant divestitures or leading to abandoned deals, especially in highly concentrated markets. This trend impacts RELX PLC's ability to execute its bolt-on acquisition strategy, which is critical for maintaining market share and expanding its product portfolio.

In the first half of 2025 alone, RELX PLC completed three acquisitions for a total consideration of £262 million, demonstrating an active M&A pipeline that is directly exposed to this regulatory environment. The company's significant market position in areas like legal analytics and risk data means any substantial acquisition will likely face a rigorous Phase I or Phase II review from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) / Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Commission (EC).

Acquisition Activity (H1 2025)	Financial Metric	Value
Number of Acquisitions Completed	Count	3
Total Consideration Paid	GBP	£262 million
Net Debt at 30 June 2025	GBP	£7,443 million
Net Debt/EBITDA Ratio (H1 2025)	Ratio	2.2x

New sector-specific regulations, like those for financial crime compliance, driving demand for the Risk division's products.

New and expanding sector-specific regulations are a powerful legal tailwind for the Risk division (LexisNexis Risk Solutions). The tightening regulatory environment, particularly around sanctions, anti-money laundering (AML), and fraud prevention, is forcing financial institutions and large corporations to invest heavily in compliance solutions. This is a clear, near-term opportunity.

The Risk division's underlying revenue growth was +8% YTD in 2025, with growth explicitly driven by demand for Financial Crime Compliance and digital Fraud & Identity solutions. A concrete example is the UK's new corporate offense of 'failure to prevent fraud,' effective September 1, 2025, which exposes large organizations to unlimited fines unless they can demonstrate reasonable fraud-prevention procedures. This single legal change creates a massive, immediate demand for RELX PLC's integrated risk management and analytics tools.

Ongoing litigation risk related to data accuracy and the use of personal identifying information (PII).

Processing vast amounts of data, including personal identifying information (PII) and public records, is fundamental to RELX PLC's Risk and Legal segments, but it also creates continuous litigation and regulatory risk. Changes in data privacy legislation, such as the ongoing evolution of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), mean the compliance goalposts are constantly moving.

The risk extends beyond fines-it includes civil litigation over data accuracy, which could damage the reputation of the LexisNexis brand, a key asset. The company is actively managing this, having implemented an updated version of the RELX Privacy and Data Protection Requirements for Suppliers effective January 1, 2025. Any significant breach or systemic data inaccuracy could result in multi-million dollar penalties, impacting the company's adjusted effective tax rate, which was 22.5% in the first half of 2025.

RELX PLC (RELX) - PESTLE Analysis: Environmental factors

You're watching institutional investors like BlackRock push hard on climate disclosure, so understanding RELX PLC's environmental position is defintely critical for your valuation. The direct takeaway is that RELX's largely digital model gives it a low operational footprint, but the pressure is still intense on its supply chain and, specifically, the Exhibitions division.

Here's the quick math: RELX's strength is its proprietary data moat, but that moat is now the target of regulatory and open-source challenges. Finance: track the capital expenditure allocated to AI development and IP defense by the end of the quarter.

Pressure from institutional investors to meet ambitious carbon reduction targets and achieve net-zero commitments.

Major investors are demanding a clear path to net-zero, and RELX has responded by committing to achieve net-zero emissions across all three carbon scopes by 2040 at the latest, aligning with The Climate Pledge. This is a significant long-term commitment. In the near-term, the company's new carbon reduction targets were validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in 2024 as consistent with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. This validation signals a serious intent, not just greenwashing.

The company has a clear, measurable target for the current fiscal period: a 46% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 (location-based) carbon emissions by the end of 2025, benchmarked against a 2015 baseline. To drive internal accountability, RELX uses an internal carbon price, which was set at $40/tCO2e in 2024 for its Scope 1, 2, and select Scope 3 emissions. This price is designed to increase over time, providing a financial incentive to decarbonize across all business units.

Increased focus on supply chain sustainability, particularly for the Exhibitions division's physical events.

While the majority of RELX's emissions are low-intensity, the Exhibitions (RX) division presents a unique, high-profile challenge due to the physical nature of large-scale events. RX has a direct problem with event logistics, travel, and material waste. The company is actively addressing this by partnering with peers on the Net Zero Carbon Events initiative, which aims to develop methodologies to quantify and reduce the events industry's emissions.

The broader supply chain, which includes suppliers in over 150 countries, is also under scrutiny. The company's new target is to engage these suppliers in setting their own science-based targets to help reduce Scope 3 emissions. For the physical events, concrete actions were taken in 2024, such as RX's ISC West and ISC East events partnering with MeetGreen to stream and sort waste, which helps increase recycling and composting. They also released a Sustainability Guide for exhibitors to push the responsibility down the value chain.

Disclosure requirements for climate-related financial risks (e.g., TCFD, ISSB) adding complexity to reporting.

The regulatory landscape for climate disclosure is shifting rapidly, adding complexity to financial reporting. RELX has been a long-time supporter of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and has expanded its TCFD disclosure in the 2024 Annual Report. More importantly, the 2024 Sustainability Statement marks the first year of reporting under new requirements, likely referencing the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) which are key to global alignment with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) framework.

This means you are seeing a more granular, forward-looking view of risk. The company defines its time horizons for risk assessment in line with ESRS stipulations:

• Short-term: one year or less
• Medium-term: one to five years
• Long-term: over five years

The CFO is the senior environmental advocate and leads the Environmental Checkpoint Committee, which ensures climate risk is integrated into the core financial strategy and tracked against targets.

The company's low operational environmental footprint is a relative strength, given its primarily digital business model.

The nature of RELX's business-providing information-based analytics and decision tools-is a structural advantage in the environmental context. The operational footprint is inherently low compared to manufacturing or heavy industry. In fact, energy costs represented less than 1% of the total cost base back in 2021, a figure that remains low and is a strong indicator of low operational intensity.

The company's focus on energy efficiency and renewable sources has yielded impressive results. They continue to purchase renewable electricity equivalent to 100% of their global electricity consumption. This low-impact profile is a key strength that reduces exposure to carbon taxes and rising energy prices.

Environmental Performance Metric (2024)	Value	Context
Net-Zero Target Year (All Scopes)	2040	Aligned with The Climate Pledge.
Scope 1 + Scope 2 (Location-based) Emissions	15,879 tCO2e	Low-intensity footprint for a global company.
Scope 1 + 2 Emissions Reduction (Since 2010)	80%	Significant progress toward internal targets.
Renewable Electricity Purchased	100%	Equivalent to global electricity consumption.
Internal Carbon Price (2024)	$40/tCO2e	Applied to Scope 1, 2, and select Scope 3 emissions.
Waste Sent to Landfill Reduction (Since 2018)	95%	Demonstrates strong waste management efforts.