1) 5 NGOs, namely Birdlife, WWF, ECOS, BEUC and t&e, have left the European Commission workgroup in charge of developing technical recommendations for the EU Taxonomy.
The reasons given for this decision are that the Commission has on several occasions ignored their work without scientific justification and that NGOs feel that politics has taken precedence over science.
This echoes the article written by BirdLife that we shared with you in the previous weekly.
Source: NGOs walk out of export Taxonomy group over lack of independence – Transport & Environment
Link to last week’s article: ‘EU green taxonomy – burning biodiversity’ – BirdLife
2) The European Banking Authority has recently gained the EMAS certification. The European Commission created EMAS, a top management tool, to help businesses and other organisations assess, document, and improve their environmental performance.This is the result of their sustainable efforts to reduce emissions and environmental footprint.
Their efforts include:
- Lowering greenhouse gas emissions, with a particular emphasis on transportation
- Increasing the efficiency of energy use
- Enhancing its recycling, segregation, and waste production
- Increasing the use of technological technologies and environmentally friendly public procurement to reduce its tangible effects
- Incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into its risk analysis, supervisory convergence work, and policy making
Source: EBA has been awarded top European standard for its Environmental performance
3) Despite widespread assertions that sustainability is at the core of their operations, greenwashing has developed into a “systemic problem” among UK banks, a study conducted over 150 banks revealed.
Even though 100% of UK bank executives say that sustainability is a core value of their operations, only 59% of banks actually implement such schemes.
Source: Greenwashing is a systematic problem at UK Banks
4) Investors worth $39 trillion are calling on governments to reduce the usage of fossil fuels and require businesses to implement science-based transition plans. This has been the most aspiring call for action according to officials. There also has been an appeal to address methane pollution.
This is the 13th appeal to be issued and is called the “2022 Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis” .
5) Microsoft and McKinsey collaborated to develop a solution for corporates that integrates sustainability data analytics from Microsoft Sustainability Manager and a decarbonisation plan using McKinsey Sustainability’s Catalyst Zero. This solution provides an effective and scalable technology to prevent significant barriers and challenges for companies working towards net-zero.
Source : McKinsey and Microsoft join forces to accelerate decarbonization transformations
#sustainablefinance #climatefinance #climatechange #greenfinance #sustainableregulations #netzero