The REP Wrap: Google in deals to ‘eliminate superpollutants’
Your weekly summary of corporate sustainability news
Google has announced two new partnerships to “eliminate superpollutants and help the atmosphere”. The deals, with Recoolit and Cool Effect, aim to “prevent warming roughly equivalent to 1 million tons of CO2 in the long term” by “destroying” fluorinated gases from cooling systems in Indonesia and methane from landfills in Brazil. “We believe this is a key step toward limiting near-term warming,” said Randy Spock, Google’s carbon credits and removals lead. “And if we use the credits from these purchases to help neutralize Google’s emissions, we’ll either match them against shorter-lived emissions in our own footprint or replace them with longer-lived credits as their atmospheric impact expires.”
A fifth of shareholders have voted against the re-election of the director responsible for Woodside’s climate transition plan. At its annual general meeting this week, 19.45% of investors opposed Anne Pickard, who chairs the Australian Oil & Gas company’s sustainability committee. Last year, nearly 60% of Woodside’s shareholders rejected its transition plan, amid concerns over its credibility.
The UK’s 10 biggest supermarkets have made an environmental commitment every six days, on average, for the past decade. According to new research from charities Feedback Global and The Food Foundation, the sector is failing to deliver on the 600 commitments made between 2014 and 2024, which relate to everything from decarbonisation to land use and healthy diets. Many pledges aren’t backed up by measurable targets, the report finds, but the supermarket are overall on track to meet or exceed their Scope 1 and 2 targets.
The Indian government is calling for feedback on its planned taxonomy for climate finance. The ministry of finance said on Wednesday that the goal of the framework was to “facilitate greater resource flow to climate-friendly technologies and activities, enabling the country to achieve the vision of being Net Zero by 2070 while also ensuring long-term access to reliable and affordable energy”. The draft is open for comments until June 25th.
IKEA has named Lena Julle as its new chief sustainability officer. She has been serving as the Swedish furniture giant’s acting CSO since September, but will now take the position on a permanent basis.
TotalEnergies has applied for an environmental permit for a $16bn green hydrogen and ammonia project in southern Chile, according to a regulatory filing. Reuters reported this week that the project, run by Total’s Chilean subsidiary TEC H2 MAG, is expected to begin operations in 2030.
Iberdrola raised €750m in its first bond issued under the EU Green Bond Standard. The Spanish energy firm, which is a long-standing issuer of green bonds, said the deal was five-times oversubscribed. The order book hit €3.7bn – the highest demand Iberdrola has seen since 2021. It will have to spend the most of the proceeds on activities that are labelled green by the EU’s taxonomy.