archive2023

Around two-thirds of enterprise Net Zero targets lack integrity, according to a study by the New Climate Institute. Highlighting the lack of progress, in February 2023 the Carbon Disclosure Project revealed that of the 18,000 organisations that had disclosed climate transition plans, only 0.4 per cent were credible. In a bid to improve reporting and credibility the Scope 3 Maturity Benchmark has been created by Proxima in collaboration with the Scope 3 Peer Group, a community that includes many of the world’s most recognisable companies who have chosen to work...

The ISSB has set out new global baseline rules for firms to disclose how climate change affects their business. In February 2023 the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) agreed on all the technical content of its initial standards ahead of their expected issuance at the end of Q2 2023. The ISSB has already announced a package of reliefs and guidance to support use of the new standards, enabling companies to scale up their approach to using them over time. The initial IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, S1 and S2, will become...

ESG requires more than environmental action, it also includes action on the societal impacts of business and industry. The ‘S’ in ESG involves a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and sustainability initiatives with a heightened focus on the employee experience, a positive workplace culture, and socially responsible practices. Los Angeles-based TMT recognises the need to develop programs to harness employee enthusiasm and offer opportunities to keep its teams connected and engaged on its journey to improve inclusivity and environmental awareness. The company prioritises diversity and sustainability as much as...

Oil industry executives should contribute to the recovery of nature devastated by the impact of pollution from their industry’s products. That’s the opinion of former oil researcher and consultant Dr Jeremy Leggett, now founder and CEO of leading UK rewilding project Highlands Rewilding. Passionate about bringing people together in the fight against the climate and biodiversity crisis, Dr Leggett believes oil industry executives should invest “guilt” money in rewilding and fund nature recovery at scale. “As the earth’s atmosphere warmed, like most I didn’t take much notice of it for...

Only six countries met WHO air pollution targets last year: Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland and New Zealand. Lahore in Pakistan is the city with the worst air pollution in the world according to a new global survey by IQAir. The 5th Annual World Air Quality Report reveals alarming details of the world’s most polluted countries, territories and regions in 2022.  Data from more than 30,000 air quality monitoring stations across 7,323 locations in 131 countries, territories and regions was analysed by IQAir’s air quality scientists and based on WHO...

Improving organisations’ sustainability credentials is becoming essential across all industries to avoid claims of greenwashing. More and more stakeholders are also putting pressure on companies to cut their emissions. Now more than ever, organisations need to make a concerted effort to reduce their impact on the planet if they want to meet the expectations of their customers, employees and stakeholders. “For many businesses that are starting to embrace sustainability, it is difficult to know where to start and despite genuine efforts, businesses can fall into the trap of greenwashing by...

Sustainability reports convey companies’ commitments but rarely the real, challenging work that goes into meeting these ambitious targets. To give sustainability campaigns substance they should be supported by business drivers, sustainability goals and marketing prowess, Don Hoyt Gorman, content strategist at The Frameworks suggests. Large companies face a profound challenge with their commitments to social and environmental change. We’re all familiar with greenwashing and empty promises: storytelling without substance. But companies that are genuinely doing the work are also struggling: they’ve got the substance but they don’t know how to tell the...

Inadequate data and inconsistent standards are the biggest obstacles to progress in reaching ESG targets, according to a new study. UK executives cite inadequate data as a top barrier holding back ESG progress while under one third of surveyed consumers feel they have enough data to make environmentally sustainable purchasing or employment decisions. A new global IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study, “The ESG ultimatum: Profit or perish,” of executives and consumers reveals that while environmental sustainability remains a top priority for consumers and business executives, inadequate data is a...

When asked to think about the topic of e-waste and recycling, our brains are likely to conjure up the image of mountains of surplus food or seas of single-use plastics, probably because this is what is often shouted about the most within the media. But what about other equally important waste streams such as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)? Over the last eight years, there have been an estimated 420.3 million metric tons of e-waste produced around the world and this figure is predicted to double by 2050. Given...

A new open-source software application reduces IT carbon footprint by 30 per cent by shutting down unused IT resources. The application, kube-green, was created by Mia-Platform’s senior tech leader Davide Bianchi to limit CO2 emissions for cloud-based applications as well as save costs. On average, kube-green can reduce CO2 emissions from IT infrastructures by 30 per cent. Early adopters are now beginning to report significant savings from using the application.   “We pay a lot of attention to using resources in a sustainable way,” said Lorenzo De Francesco, IT manager at fintech Step4Business. “Through...