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 Recap brings you the biggest headlines within the sustainability and ESG space that caught our attention during the week.
#1: New report exposes decades of climate deception by Big Oil: Last week, a new report by the Democratic staff of the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability provided a rare look behind the curtains of what they refer to as ‘decades of deception’ by major oil companies about climate change. The report suggests that oil companies have known that fossil fuels contribute to climate change since the 1960s, and shows how the same companies have worked to undermine this understanding publicly. The report includes detailed accounts of how Big Oil companies in the US have deployed changing tactics over time, initially denying climate science altogether and since shifting to disinformation and doublespeak via trade associations and partnerships with universities to downright obstruction of investigations. In one example which was also high-lighted by Financial Times last week, the report provides extensive details on BP’s response to Washington state climate change policies, where BP planned to spend between $2.5-4.5 mio. in “hard persuasion tactics”, another $2.5 mio. on a salmon hatchery to associate BP with “robust sea life” and $300,000 on “soft persuasion” with elected officials.
#2: The EU launches an investigation into 20 airlines for potential green-washing: In case you missed it, last week – on April 30th – the European Commission and EU consumer authorities sent letters to 20 airlines identifying several types of potentially misleading green claims and inviting them to “bring their practices in line with EU consumer law within 30 days”. The claims being questioned range from fees aimed at offsetting CO2 emissions, use of the term “Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF)” without clear environmental justification, ambiguous use of terms such as “green,” “sustainable,” or “responsible”, net-zero claims without clear, verifiable commitments and monitoring systems, lack of scientific proof for the reliability of airline CO2 emission calculators and inadequate information underpinning comparisons of flight CO2 emissions. The headline marks a new era of anti-greenwashing campaigns and legal action, both in a European and global context, as we have featured in previous Recaps.
#3: Global plastics treaty talks in Canada reveals deep divides: Last week marked the conclusion of a five-party meeting series under the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, which is set to conclude with a global plastic treaty later this year in South Korea. In what has been referred to as the “Paris Agreement for Plastics”, the talks are moving into the critical final stages, and, as a result, also becoming increasingly contentious. Turns out, not all parties are excited about a global treaty for plastics as the negotiations begin to move from “talk” to “action”: According to a post by the Danish NGO Plastic Change, who was present at the negotiations, the global fossil fuel and chemicals industry was heavily represented in Ottawa with participant lists showing 37% more industry lobbyists compared to the meeting last year. The industry is, perhaps not surprisingly, opposed to any types of wording in the final treaty that would limit plastic production outputs. As plastics are set to double by 2050 under the current policy trajectory, and as global companies such as Unilever are scaling back on their plastic commitments, a global treaty without wording on how we ensure that the production and consumption of plastics stay within the Earth’s ecological limits would, as the Rwanda delegates in Ottawa put it, fail to address the elephant in the room.
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