🍃The Sustainability Top 10: amid all the chaos, some data points reaffirm the sustainability value case and the existence of common ground
Welcome back 🖐,
We have a lot to cover in this maxi edition green-tea drinkers or, should I say, sinister people? (as the new US Energy Secretary might affectionately refer to you... 🙄). Here are The Green Tea's Top actionable, innovation, and hot sustainability stories this week!
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Latest Trends & Strategy
1. (G&A) Despite all the chaos, according to this survey, most CEOs see sustainability as an opportunity, not an additional cost. However, there are important regional differences among the USA, Europe and China. read here
2. (Trellis) And in a very complex and evolving environment, this report shares how to set a sustainability strategy for 2025 that could stand the test of time. read here
3-4. (Trellis/Sustainable Brands) USA politicians my want to divide and polarize by demonizing words like climate change but there might be more common ground among the population than we think: survey finds stark contrast in Republican and Democrat climate views, but there is one important area of common ground: depletion of natural resources. And another survey shows that US voters support policies that reduce single-use plastics.
With plastic straws back in the Federal government, I couldn’t help imagining a White House intern going rogue… (but seriously, paper, plastic or whatever material, why are we still using straws? Let’s drop the straw)
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Taking Action
4. (Trellis) Big brands join forces to tackle small plastic waste. read here
5. (Trellis) Microsoft pivots on renewable energy: company will invest more in “long-term, higher-impact” carbon removal projects, clean electricity procurement and emerging technologies to reduce operational emissions. read here
On the Social (War) Front…
6. The Wall Street Journal shares some data analysis on the impact of DEI among S&P500 companies. Their conclusion is that DEI policies have not helped much in changing the overall labor force in those companies. However, this analysis could be misleading as it is only from 2020 to 2023 which is not very long in hiring terms. It would have been helpful to see the info on just new hires which would have probably shown a more significant impact on diverse hiring than this data seems to suggest.
Regardless, some companies seem to have made little or no progress at all (one example of this in the article is Meta) which suggests their previous support of DEI and their dropping of it now were purely performative.
Source: Wall Street Journal (U.S. Labor Department and DiversIQ)
7-8. While the heat has been on companies implementing DEI policies (labeled as woke and/or leftist), some companies (or their CEOs) have gone to the extreme in their support of far-right policies and they are also paying a price particularly when these views (or actions) are not aligned with their customer base.
The most obvious example so far has been Tesla which has seen precipitous sales drops in the US (-12% in California versus 2023 in a slightly growing EV market) and particularly in Europe (e.g. in Germany, -60% in January versus 2023, in an EV market growing +54%). This is likely elicited by Musk’s more recent views and apparent Nazi nods (how could we forget about the salute and his closeness with AfD) and his inevitable association with Tesla cars.
The numbers are shocking although not totally surprising given the leanings of the company’s customer base. If they persist, these levels of sales drops could put Tesla in a precarious financial position given the car industry high fixed costs and that this side of the business is the majority of the current Tesla operations. The irony is that this is a company that used to acknowledge the clear dangers of climate change and was a pioneer in EVs, but it is hard to tell what the company stands for now.
Remember your customers are watching 👀 particularly if you go toxic on them.
Green Innovation
9. (ESG Today) Entrepreneurial motivation: if a 16 year-old can do this, imagine what you could do! Carbon removal startup founded by 16-year old raises $3.5 million to eliminate 1.5 million tons of CO2. read here
10. (ESG Today) Cleantech startup MacroCycle raises $6.5 million to “upcycle” plastic waste into new products. read here
Reporting and Regulatory Corner
+. (NYTimes) As predicted by The Green Tea months ago, SEC moves to kill climate disclosure rule. read here
+. (G&A) EU pledges “far-reaching simplification” in sustainability reporting. read here
+. (ESG Today) However, not everyone is happy with the potential EU reporting changes: €6.6 trillion investor group warns against rolling back EU sustainability reporting regulations. read here
+. (ESG Today) And SBTi pushes back timeline for new corporate Net Zero standard. read here
A Changing World…
+. (Reuters) Meanwhile, January extended a run of extraordinary heat, in which 18 of the last 19 months saw an average global temperature of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. read here
+. (Financial Times) At a time when the USA has become an unreliable partner on climate with policies that are polar opposites every few years, it seems like a China-Europe climate partnership could be the most viable way forward for continued global action. The USA president wants to be king, but it is a shame that he is abdicating leadership in green technology which will be a key ingredient in the economy of the future and determining what kind of planet we live on.
What did you think of this edition of The Green Tea?
Warm regards / saludos,
Julio