What's Happening in Sustainability? (Week Recap 21.03 - 27.03) 🌎

This week’s read time: 4 minutes

Welcome to this edition of Green Digest, where you will get updated about everything happening in the sustainability & ESG space in less than 5 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:

👟⭐️ Allbirds has announced the creation of the world's first net zero carbon shoe, called "M0.0NSHOT", which has a carbon footprint of 0 kg CO2e, compared to an industry average of 14kg. The shoe includes a carbon-negative regenerative merino wool upper, a new superlight foam with 80% bio content, and bioplastic eyelets made from microorganisms. Allbirds plans to open-source its toolkit for the new shoe to enable other companies to develop low-carbon shoes, and will officially reveal the shoe in June 2023, with availability in spring 2024.

🇪🇺 The European Commission has proposed a new set of rules, the "Directive on Green Claims," aimed at protecting consumers from greenwashing. The rules require companies to substantiate and verify their environmental claims and labels, with minimum requirements for businesses to ensure the reliability of their voluntary environmental claims. The rules also address the proliferation of private environmental labels, with new schemes approved only if they demonstrate greater environmental ambition than existing ones. Smaller companies with fewer than 10 employees and less than €2 million in revenue will be exempt from the obligations of the new proposals.

🍀 Microsoft has signed an agreement with California-based climate tech company CarbonCapture to purchase carbon removal credits generated through its Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. DAC extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or for permanent removal when combined with storage. The new agreement follows the launch of CarbonCapture's "Project Bison," a new DAC project in Wyoming aimed at permanently removing and storing five million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year.

What else is happening? 🧐

• The European Central Bank (ECB) has published its first climate-related financial disclosures for its corporate sector and non-monetary policy portfolios, indicating progress towards the decarbonization of the Eurosystem’s €385 billion of corporate securities holdings. The disclosures provide information on the portfolios’ carbon footprint and exposure to climate risks, as well as on climate-related governance, strategy, and risk management. The carbon intensity of the Eurosystem portfolio has declined significantly over the past few years, with tonnes of CO2 per million of Euro of revenue falling by 30% between 2018 and 2022 to 262 tCO₂e. 🇪🇺

• BlackRock has announced its Engagement Priorities for 2023, which will focus on key themes such as climate change, sustainability, and financial resilience. Despite political pressure, BlackRock will continue to engage with companies on climate strategy and emissions targets while also stressing that it does not tell companies what to do. The investment manager's focus on climate change is based on its role as a fiduciary to clients, and it encourages companies to disclose short-, medium-, and long-term targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. BlackRock also focuses on disclosures regarding land use, water, and biodiversity, as well as human capital management and human rights impacts. ✅

• The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned of potential enforcement action against administrators of ESG benchmarks, citing “the potential for widespread failings” including poor quality of ESG-related disclosure and the use of outdated data or ratings. The regulator’s preliminary review found that the overall quality of ESG-related disclosures made by benchmark administrators was poor, with issues including a lack of detail on ESG factors considered in benchmark methodologies and failure to fully implement ESG disclosure requirements. The FCA has directed administrators to address these issues and warned of enforcement action if they fail to do so. 🇬🇧

Where is cash flowing? 👀

• Amogy, a transportation decarbonization startup, has raised $139 million to fund the commercialization of its emissions-free ammonia-to-power technology. The Brooklyn-based company aims to reduce over 5 billion metric tons of CO2-eq emission by 2040 using its solution, which utilizes liquid ammonia in a hybrid fuel cell system to power electric motors. The funding will support organizational development, manufacturing, and bringing the first product to market in 2022. The Series B funding round was led by SK Innovation, with participation from Temasek, Korea Zinc, Aramco Ventures, and others. 🍀

• Private equity and venture capital investor EQT Group has invested €100 million in Munich-based startup IntegrityNext, which provides a software platform to help companies build more transparent and sustainable supply chains. The investment will support the company's growth and expansion across Europe, as the market for supply chain sustainability solutions is expected to see strong growth in the coming years due to new regulatory frameworks and growing stakeholder pressure to address sustainability issues. ⭐️

• Girasole Energies, a French solar energy producer, has raised €96 million from Mirova, a subsidiary of Natixis Investment Managers, to support its growth and accelerate its portfolio of photovoltaic power plants. Girasole Energies designs, finances, builds, and operates photovoltaic power plants on artificial land made available by customers. Its goal is to exceed 500 MWp in operation by 2028. 💡

• L'Oréal has invested in a new venture led by biotechnology company Genomatica, aimed at developing and commercializing bio-based sustainable alternative ingredients for cosmetics, personal care, and cleaning products. The venture also includes Unilever and Kao Corporation as founding investors. 🍀

More interesting news💡:

• The InvestEU Investment Committee has approved guarantees worth up to €150 million to support green and sustainable investments in the municipal, transport, and energy sectors in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will mobilize over €1.1 billion in financing to help these countries reach their full green potential. The funds will also support private companies facing rising costs of newer technologies, higher perceived risks, and a lack of available financing in a broad range of industrial and infrastructure projects. 🇪🇺

• The Biden administration has announced $250 million in funding through the Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies (AFFECT) program to help federal agencies implement and advance net zero building projects. The funding will be used for energy and water efficiency upgrades, electrification, on-site clean energy generation, and sustainable design. 🇺🇸

• Chipotle Mexican Grill has announced its 2023 ESG goals, which will be tied to executive incentive compensation. The goals include using more locally-sourced produce, improving diversity, and reducing waste to landfills. The company's 2021 metric tying executive compensation to ESG goals includes categories such as Food & Animals, People, and the Environment. The goals for 2023 include purchasing at least 37.5 million pounds of local produce, improving the retention rate for diverse employees, and increasing the number of restaurants participating in composting programs. ✅

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

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