What's going on in the world of ESG, CSRD, CSDDD, SDGs etc...
1. SUSTAINABILITY TECH ON AGENDA FOR 74% OF PUBLIC COMPANIES
Approximately three quarters of public companies report that they are likely to invest in new technology or tools to help improve their ESG disclosure capabilities over the next year, according to a Deloitte report.
The study also found that executives anticipate a series of benefits from enhanced ESG reporting. These are listed in order as (a) reduced risk, (b) increased efficiencies and ROI, (c) talent attraction and retention and (d) brand reputation.
“The creation of dedicated ESG teams, the rise in specialized roles, and investments in sustainability reporting, all indicate a strategic shift toward embedding sustainability into their core operations” according to Kristen Sullivan, Partner, Sustainability and ESG Services at Deloitte.
Reference: https://tinyurl.com/292dnywp
2. URSULA VON DER LEYEN LEANS ON THE GREENS TO KEEP HER JOB
At first it looked like an uphill battle. Ursula Von Der Leyen was short of the guaranteed votes to retain her job as EU Commission president. She looked right and left.
Faced with a choice of cosying up to the populist right or wooing the greens, she choose the environmental path with a green love-bomb of detail-free promises. She ended up with a comfortable majority.
There was a fuzzy pledge to lower energy costs by “moving further away from fossil fuels”, a promise to “significantly increase our funding for a just transition”, and a “vision for agriculture and food” that would cement “ long-term competitiveness.”
The game is not won by any means, but at least there is platform for green debate.
Reference: https://tinyurl.com/y5b2p99p
3. JD VANCE, TRUMP’S RUNNING MATE, HATES ALL THINGS CLIMATE
A favourite of Trump’s son Don Jr, who has moulded himself into a populist on the intellectual vanguard of conservatism, JD Vance is the personification of aggressive right-wing views on climate change.
He is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, especially in his home state of Ohio, where his 2022 Senate campaign received generous backing from the oil and gas industry.
“ESG is basically a racket to destroy what we still have – so that a few people on Wall Street can make some money.”
He also argued for additional exploitation of the three billion barrels of oil and gas in Utica Shale, a geological formation that runs under Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York.
We should be very afraid.
Reference: https://heatmap.news/politics/jd-vance-vp-esg
4. THE UK’S CLAMPDOWN ON CLIMATE PROTESTS VERY AUTHORITARIAN
Five supporters of Just Stop Oil who conspired to cause gridlock on London’s M25 were sentenced to jail terms (4-5 years) by a judge who said they “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.
They conspired to act, they did not act. They spoke on a Zoom call to recruit volunteers to support the action. They got four-plus years!
Michel Forst, UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, “Today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest in the UK. This sentence should shock any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.”
It is a dangerous precedent for peaceful protest in the UK. More Moscow than Harlow.
Reference: https://tinyurl.com/y7pt4w48
5. REPORT SHOWS HOW BIG MEAT AND DAIRY AVOID CLIMATE ACTION
Food systems are responsible for around a third of GHGs, with approximately 60% coming from animal agriculture, the largest source of man-made methane emissions.
Despite their huge negative impact on climate, biodiversity and human health, Big Meat and Dairy have largely been off the hook, regarding environmental regulation.
A new report from changing Markets Foundation reveals that the industry has borrowed heavily from the Big Oil playbook– Distract, Delay, Derail – to convince policymakers of agricultural exceptionalism.
This becomes particularly evident when downplaying the impact of methane emissions from the sector.
You are what you eat.
Reference: https://www.edie.net/set-zero-emission-vehicle-mandate-for-big-businesss-fleets-corporates-tell-eu
6. U.S. TO PHASE OUT FEDERAL PURCHASE OF SINGLE USE PLASTIC
President Biden's administration announced plans to phase out single-use plastics in all federal operations by 2035, as part of a broader effort to combat what it deemed a rising global crisis.
Since the US federal government is the single largest buyer of goods and services in the world, the decision could have a significant impact on global markets, spurring industries to develop new products and reducing the planet-warming emissions associated with plastic manufacturing.
Under the new goal, the federal government will phase out federal procurement of single-use plastics from food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.
Reference: https://phys.org/news/2024-07-phase-federal-plastics.html
7. HAVAS HAS B CORP CERT REVOKED AFTER LINK UP WITH SHELL
B Lab, the organisation behind B Corp, has revoked the B Corp status of four Havas agencies following an investigation.
Havas London, Havas Lemz, Havas New York and Havas Immerse are no longer certified B Corps, and other Havas entities will also be ineligible to certify going forward.
Certification has been revoked following an investigation into Havas after several groups, including Clean Creatives, lodged complaints after the group won Shell’s global B2B media account last year – a decision which Havas CEO has previously defended to Campaign.
B Corp cert is not that hard to earn or keep, but doing business with Shell is a no-no.
What is it they say? When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Reference: https://www.prweek.com/article/1881316/havas-b-corp-certification-revoked-following-shell-win
8. MORE U.S. STATES DRIVE CLIMATE RULES AHEAD OF SEC’S DECISION
California isn’t the only state moving ahead with a mandatory climate disclosure policy.
New York, Washington State, and Illinois will likely require companies doing business in their state with revenues of more than $1Bn to report their Scope 1, 2, and 3 verified by a third party - which is same as CA SB253.
The significance of all of these state-level policies is that they build a sense of inevitability to climate reporting in the US, regardless of what happens with the California and SEC rules.
In addition, with these states largely aligning their disclosure legislation to California’s, there will be less reporting fragmentation.
The companies who realise the inevitability of reporting sooner, will leave others behind.
Reference: https://tinyurl.com/55r82sek
9. WALL STREET SCRUBS THE ESG LABEL FROM JOB TITLES
In a meeting last week, a US executive told us that if they even mentioned ESG in any expense submission, the expense would be not approved. Company policy.
This is how it is these days for ESG in American finance. The label was hyped by Wall Street, attacked by Republican politicians, and is now being scrubbed from some finance products and job titles.
At stake are more than a few letters: The historic hurricane that battered the Caribbean and then Texas, and recent wildfires in California, show the gravity of the climate crisis. We need the financial community to be on board.
While Wall St. can’t handle ESG anymore, at least sustainability is acceptable, so there is hope that financiers will play a part.
Reference: https://www.investmentnews.com/industry-news/news/wall-street-is-scrubbing-esg-from-job-titles-255426
10. 1977: U.S. OIL COMPANY ARTICLE PREDICTED CLIMATE CRISIS
At this stage I think we have all known that Big Oil – just like Big Tobacco before them, and Big Meat and Dairy since – have always known the harm they were doing but didn’t want to tell us for fear of loss of profits.
A newly surfaced Marathon internal article from 1977, entitled “World Weather Watch” shows that they knew. It quoted J. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who warned industrial C02 emissions could melt the polar ice caps and pose threats to human civilization.
Whether it’s Marathon, Exxon, Shell or BP, we have seen a longstanding strategy from these companies of climate denial, disinformation and delay, while profits soar.
This is why current litigation matters.
Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/18/us-oil-marathon-petroleum-climate-change
