The sustainability space in the EU and beyond is moving at unparalleled speed, driven by seismic shifts in the regulatory space and bold actions taken by investors, companies and civil society in response to growing societal challenges. To keep up with the daily influx of sustainability news crowding your LinkedIn feeds, the Raison Round-Up brings you the five biggest headlines within the sustainability and ESG space that caught our attention during the week.
France is cracking down on fast fashion: Technically, this piece of news hit last week, but in case you missed it: As the first country in the world, France has approved a pioneering bill to curb the adverse environmental impacts fast fashion with a unanimous vote in the lower house of the French parliament. The bill, if adopted into legislation, would introduce financial penalties of up €10 per garment by 2030, prohibit advertising by certain fast fashion companies (hint: Shein) and make fashion companies document the harmful environmental impacts of their garments to consumers. There are many unanswered questions on how such regulations would work – see for instance this piece by Vogue – but there is no doubt that it signals a new era for fashion companies, with greater levels of scrutiny to the fundamental business model.
The ink was barely dry on the new SEC rules until … Following the adoption of the new and somewhat watered-down SEC rules on climate disclosures as we reported in our weekly round-up just two weeks ago, the new rules are already facing challenges in the highly politicised U.S. environment on ‘anything ESG’. Since its adoption, ESG news reported this week that a lawsuit as been filed by ten U.S. states aimed at blocking its implementation, describing it as “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law”. On the other end of the spectrum, the environmental organisation Sierra Club is suing the SEC for having allowed the final rules to be overly weakened.
One step closer to an EU agreement on packaging waste: Late last week, the EU Parliament’s representatives reached a provisional political agreement on a proposal to tackle the increase in packaging waste within the EU. The proposal covers the full packaging life-cycle, and requires, among other things, that all packaging is recyclable, a ban on forever chemicals (incl. PFAS), that substances of concern are minimised and that labelling requirements are harmonised to improve consumer information. The proposal has not been without dilemmas and contention, including concerns over unintended consequences from reuse targetswhich could risk favouring materials such as plastics over other packaging materials.
Lawyering up against greenwashing claims: 2024 seems to be the year where everybody has finally had it with greenwashing, and where climate activists are moving from civil protesting and campaigning straight to the court room. Following law suits against meat moguls such as Danish Crown in Denmark and Brazilian-based JBS by the state of New York over sustainability claims, a fresh ruling from the Dutch courts this week determined that KLM acted illegallywhen claiming customers could “fly sustainably”. The ruling comes in the context of the EU Parliament’s March 12th adoption of the Green Claims Directive, which promises further consumer safeguards against greenwashing. (And in the meantime, when in doubt of what can be considered “sustainable”, we suggest starting with the EU Taxonomy… )
Today (March 22nd) is World Water Day: As climate change intensifies, so does the pressure on global water resources. But whereas climate is fundamentally a global issue, the water challenge is highly contextual and localised. Check out these stories from around the world on the significance of access to clean water to communities who do not have it. Meanwhile, on this day, we’d like to celebrate the start-ups like WAYOUT – one of the investments made by our friends at Climentum Capital– who is working relentlessly to address the global water challenge.
Happy World Water day and weekend to all!
See on LinkedIn