What's Happening in Sustainability? (Week Recap 16.05 - 22.05) 🌎

This week’s read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to this edition of Green Digest, where you will get updated about everything happening in the sustainability & ESG space in less than 10 minutes 🌎We go through tons of articles and data from the most reliable sources, filter & simplify them and serve them to you in bite-sized chunks every week. 🍀

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The week’s most important news:

🌏 The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that global temperatures are now more likely than not to breach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming within the next five years, with a 66% chance of temporarily reaching that threshold by 2027. This is partially due to an El Niño weather pattern expected to develop in the coming months. The WMO also found a 98% chance that one of the next five years will be the hottest on record. The report highlights the need for intensified global efforts to tackle the climate crisis. On the other hand, researchers say that the deadly floods in Emilia Romagna, Italy, which killed at least 14 people, are linked to the climate crisis. Years of severe drought in the region have reduced the soil's ability to absorb rainfall, and extreme amounts of water falling over a short period of time exacerbate runoff, causing excess water to drain toward the rivers, which respond by "overflowing, burrowing and changing their riverbeds." More than 20 rivers in the region have burst their banks, prompting a wave of 280 landslides. The floods have also devastated farmland, and up to 20,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.

🇺🇸 The Biden-Harris Administration has made nearly $11 billion in grants and loan opportunities available to rural energy and utility providers to bring affordable, reliable clean energy to their communities. This represents the largest investment in rural electrification since the 1936 Rural Electrification Act. The funding will support renewable energy systems, zero-emission and carbon capture systems, large-scale solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydropower projects, and energy storage. The U.S. Department of Energy has also announced $251 million in funding for 12 projects across seven states to expand carbon dioxide (CO2) transportation and storage infrastructure, reducing CO2 emissions from power generation and industrial operations. The projects will enable the capture, transport, and conversion or permanent storage of hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions every year to help mitigate the impacts of climate change.

🌎 Leaders of the G7 countries at the summit in Hiroshima announced their support for the International Sustainability Standards Board's upcoming sustainability and climate-related corporate reporting standards, as well as initiatives to ramp climate transition finance to developing countries. The G7 also committed to consistent, comparable, and reliable disclosure of information on sustainability, including climate, and called for an end to the construction of new unabated coal-fired power plants. The communique also included several energy transition-related announcements, including the goal to increase offshore wind capacity by 150 GW and to increase solar PV to more than 1 TW by 2030.

✅ Governments from Asia and the Pacific have also adopted 10 UN resolutions aimed at combating climate change and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The resolutions call for urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean energy technologies, and strengthen mitigation and adaptation strategies. The resolutions also acknowledge the unique challenges faced by least-developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing states in the region.

👀 Over 40% of Gen Z and Millennials have changed jobs or plan to do so due to climate concerns, according to a Deloitte survey of nearly 23,000 respondents across 44 countries. The report found that climate change is a major concern for these generations, with 60% feeling anxious about the environment and over 70% trying to minimize their impact. Around 55% research brands' environmental impact before accepting a job, and 50% are pressuring businesses to take action on climate change. The survey also found that 60% are willing to pay more for sustainable products and services.

💡 More interesting news:

• A report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) outlines a roadmap to reduce global plastic pollution by 80% by 2040 through eliminating unnecessary plastics, increasing reuse, boosting recycling, and replacing plastics with greener alternatives. The changes would bring benefits worth trillions of dollars between now and 2040 by reducing the damage caused by plastics to health, the climate, and the environment. The report estimates that the increased reuse of plastics could reduce 30% of plastic pollution by 2040, with more recycling cutting pollution by a further 20%. The careful replacement of plastic products with alternative materials could cut another 17% of pollution in 2040. ♻️

• Bankers and money managers in the US with job titles including "ESG" or "sustainability" earn on average 20% higher base salaries than colleagues of the same seniority without those labels, according to an analysis of salary data by New York-based data startup Revelio Labs. The demand for ESG professionals has increased due to the focus on ESG and sustainable investing in the finance sector, despite the political backlash against ESG in some states in the US. The analysis is based on publicly available data from online professional profiles, H1B documents, job postings, and self-reported salaries. 👀

• A new report by McKinsey highlights that the availability of land for solar and wind-based power may present significant challenges to achieving climate and energy transition goals in Europe. The report found that renewable energy deployment in Germany, France, and Italy will require land roughly equal to the entire size of Belgium and identified a series of regulatory and environmental constraints severely limiting the land available for solar and wind deployment in those countries. The report includes a series of recommendations for land-use stakeholders to ensure that land can be secured for renewable energy deployment. ⛔️

• A Parisian judge has allowed a lawsuit filed by environmental organizations against TotalEnergies to proceed, alleging that the company's "reinvention" campaign falsely portrayed its efforts to address the climate crisis. The lawsuit also targeted TotalEnergies' promotion of gas as a less carbon-intensive fossil fuel and biofuel as a low-carbon alternative. The judge declared that ClientEarth's voluntary intervention in the proceedings was inadmissible, but the organization is still supporting the lawsuit. TotalEnergies denies the allegations and claims that it is implementing its strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. 👀

🧐 What are companies doing?

• Microsoft has signed a deal with Ørsted for the purchase of 2.76 million tonnes of carbon removal, one of the largest-ever carbon removal offtake deals by volume. Ørsted will capture and store biogenic carbon emissions generated at its Asnæs Power Station in Denmark over 11 years. Ørsted has also been awarded a 20-year contract for its "Kalundborg Hub" carbon capture and storage project by the Danish Energy Agency, with a planned capacity to remove and store over 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The project will establish carbon capture at two of its Danish power stations and is linked to the grid, the district heating system, and has its own harbors, enabling them to act as hubs for the handling and shipping of carbon and green fuels. Carbon captured will be shipped to the Northern Lights storage reservoir in the Norwegian part of the North Sea. 🍀

• NEOM Green Hydrogen Company (NGHC) has secured $6.1 billion in non-recourse financing from a consortium of 23 banks and financial institutions for its $8.4 billion green hydrogen megaproject. The project, developed by ACWA Power, Air Products, and NEOM, will build the world's largest green hydrogen plant, integrating up to 4 GW of renewable wind and solar energy to produce 600 tonnes per day of carbon-free hydrogen. The plant is expected to begin production in 2026 and will use renewable energy to produce up to 600 tonnes per day of carbon-free hydrogen. 🟢

• Morgan Stanley Investment Management has raised $500 million for its climate private equity strategy 1GT, aimed at investing in climate solutions companies that will eliminate 1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the date of investment through 2050. The strategy invests primarily in North American and European private companies across themes including mobility, power, sustainable food and agriculture, and circular economy. Half of the 1GT team’s incentive compensation will be tied to the achievement of the platform’s climate objectives. The strategy is classified as Article 9 under the EU’s SFDR regulation. ✅

• Holcim has ordered 1,000 electric trucks from Volvo to be deployed across its European operations by 2030, representing Volvo’s largest electric truck order to date. The order includes Volvo FH and Volvo FM heavy duty trucks, and deliveries are expected to start this year. Replacing 1,000 diesel versions of the Volvo FH with electric trucks and using green electricity would save up to 50,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. Holcim recently announced updated climate targets and aims to reach 30% of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks by 2030. 🚘

• Frontier, a public benefit company owned by Stripe, has committed to pay Charm Industrial $53 million to remove 112,000 tonnes of CO2 between 2024 and 2030. Charm converts excess organic material like corn stover into bio-oil, which it pumps into abandoned oil and gas wells to sequester carbon dioxide underground. This is Frontier's first deal with a carbon removal company and is exponentially larger than previous agreements. Charm was chosen for its ability to deliver results and has already removed 6,160 tonnes of carbon dioxide. 🟢

👀 Where is cash flowing?

💡 Renewable energy investment and asset management company Low Carbon has secured a £310 million finance facility with international banks ABN AMRO, ING, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Intesa Sanpaolo, aimed at enabling the construction of large-scale solar PV projects. The financing will allow the company to construct another 448MW of solar PV projects in both the UK and the Netherlands, bringing the company’s total pipeline under construction to around 1GW, enough to prevent 300,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. This funding will help Low Carbon meet its goal to create 20GW of new renewable energy capacity by 2030.

💡 Kyoto Fusioneering, a Japanese fusion-power engineering company, has raised $79 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round, bringing its total funds raised to $91 million. The funding will be used to accelerate R&D, recruit global talent, secure working capital, and expand business. The company plans to strengthen its business expansion in the US and UK, aiming to be at the forefront of the practical application and industrialization of fusion energy. The company's core products include in-vessel components of fusion reactors and fusion plant engineering.

🧲 Noveon Magnetics, the only US-based manufacturer of high-performance neodymium sustainable rare earth magnets, has closed a $75 million Series B funding round led by NGP and Aventurine Partners. The funding will accelerate the expansion of Noveon’s manufacturing facilities and enhance its position as a leading provider of critical rare earth magnets. Noveon’s San Marcos facility is on-track to produce approximately 2,000 tonnes of magnets annually by 2024. Noveon was recently recognized as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2023 for its unique, sustainable rare earth magnet manufacturing technologies.

🍀 Generate Capital has committed up to $250 million to green hydrogen development startup Ambient Fuels, which delivers custom-engineered solutions for green hydrogen projects aimed at supporting the decarbonization of heavy industry and transportation. The investment will support Ambient's pipeline of projects and help to fund green hydrogen infrastructure, which is viewed as a key building block of the transition to a cleaner energy future for sectors with difficult-to-abate emissions.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for making it to the end, your attention span is absolutely impressive 💪.

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