The REP Wrap: UK parliament calls for supply chain due diligence rules
Your weekly summary of corporate sustainability news.
The UK’s Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded this week that it had “found evidence that goods which are produced or part-produced with forced labour are being sold to consumers in the UK”. The parliamentary inquiry warned that “the UK is now falling behind international partners in its approach to addressing forced labour in supply chains”. It called on the government to introduce mandatory human rights due diligence requirements for the supply chains of businesses trading in the UK, and to ban the import of goods produced using forced labour.
The UK also confirmed this week that companies will be allowed in the future to use carbon removals to meet their targets under its national Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). In a document published this week, the ETS Authority said that, in a bid to help meet the country’s net-zero goals and to scale the removals market, carbon-removal allowances would be permitted from 2029.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked the US court to made a decision on a lawsuit challenging its climate disclosure requirements, despite withdrawing its defence back in March. The securities regulator was responding to a court order from April, in which the SEC had been asked to clarify several points, including whether it intended to “reconsider the rules”.
The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that Greenpeace and other environmental groups can pursue a case against oil and gas company Eni and two of its biggest shareholders: the Italian state, and development bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. The NGOs allege Eni used “lobbying and greenwashing” to pursue the further expansion of its fossil fuel activities, despite knowing the risk oil and gas posed to the climate. On Monday, the court rejected a motion to dismiss the case.
The politician in charge of climate negotiations for the European Parliament has filed a motion to reject the current 2040 proposal altogether. Far-right MEP Ondřej Knotek was tasked with overseeing the development of Parliament’s official negotiating position this month, but has published a report arguing that decarbonisation should be a “secondary priority” for the bloc, and there should be more focus on resilience and adaptation.
Influential central banking group the Network for Greening the Financial System has published guidance on how to integrate climate adaptation into transition plans. The guidance, which covers financial institutions, governments and companies, is expected to feed into ongoing work on the subject by the G20.
Shell, Aker BP and Enbridge have reportedly quit an advisory body for the Science-based Targets initiative (SBTi). The trio were part of a group shaping SBTi’s net-zero energy standards, but the FT claims they left when it became clear fossil fuel expansion would not be allowed. In April, SBTi put the project on hold, saying it wanted to focus on sector-agnostic and financial standards instead.