Ralph Lauren Corporation has announced that it will evolve its approach to climate as part of its ongoing commitment to decarbonisation. It will retire its 2040 net zero goal in favour of setting rolling five-year GHG reduction milestones, with a near-term focus on its current SBTi-validated 2030 goal to reduce emissions by 30% from its FY20 baseline.
Close to 100 countries – including nearly 40 Heads of State and Government – have announced, committed to finalising or set out their commitment to implementing their new climate targets ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil this November. The announcements came at a Climate Summit convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil on the margins of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly.
The European Parliament has given the green light to new measures to prevent and reduce waste from food and textiles across the EU. For context, each European generates 132kg of food waste and 12kg of clothing and footwear waste per year. The updated legislation will introduce binding food waste reduction targets, to be met at national level by 31 December 2030: 10% from food processing and manufacturing and 30% per capita from retail, restaurants, food services and households.
Polar Night Energy has built an industrial-scale sand battery in Pornainen for Loviisan Lämpö’s district heating network. The new sand battery delivers 1MW of thermal power and offers a storage capacity of 100MWh, making it 10 times larger than the Sand Battery launched in Kankaanpää in 2022.
In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, which reinforce climate obligations on States under existing treaties, conventions and protocols. It may open the way for countries to enforce climate obligations on other nations. This is a major step forward for decarbonisation, the acceleration of renewables and a renewed focus on Industrial Revolution 5.0.
A map showing clean energy projects supported by government has been published by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. It supports the government’s clean energy mission to deliver clean power by 2030 and accelerate progress towards net zero. This map includes projects being supported by the National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy.
Even the accountancy profession is talking about communications. Time and again it proclaims that financial and non-financial reporting (especially in relation to climate and nature impacts) should be integrated; but increasingly it says that this integration – and the outcomes of business strategy underpinned by green credentials – should be communicated. But it rarely is.
Campaign group Clean Creatives has put forward a way for the marketing industry to exit fossil fuel relationships while taking up the opportunities available to them from emerging high-growth industries such as renewables, the circular economy and healthcare.
Hot on the heels of the UK Government’s commitment to the most significant programme of investment in homegrown clean energy in the UK’s history, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, has talked through what energy transformation means for the UK in coming years.
The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken. This is the stark warning set out in ‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’ by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) in collaboration with climate scientists.
Anyone who has read the article “Why well-off Brits who think collapse is coming still stay silent” will recognise the scenarios it calls out. Those silent Brits are familiar to us all: they know the planet is hurtling towards existential crisis but they do not use their voice to influence others while they live comfortably within a system that cannot endure (and they know it).
Severe climate impacts can come from nowhere. Their effects can cascade across society, and create a bigger problem than the sum of their individual parts. These impacts are similar to those resulting from pandemics or traditional security threats. That is why we need to plan for climate like we plan for security – at the national level, supranational level and across continents.
AMR (anti-microbial resistance) is a world health issue. Many believe there cannot be too much investment in and coordination globally on this issue. Standards and regulation – across the use by humans and animals of antibiotics and antifungals – are one thing; but are they the only way forward?
The jury is out on whether the old adage ‘you can manage what you can measure’ will come up trumps for Britain’s bug life; but a scheme for measuring the bug population is making citizen scientists of many people in the UK, and proving a valuable entry point for them to understand the catastrophic impact of nature loss.
The UK and the EU have agreed a substantial cooperation agreement in relation to trade and free movement. Included in the package are two energy and emissions trading arrangements.