The REP Wrap: Tech continues to struggle with decarbonisation
Your weekly summary of corporate sustainability news.
Amazon’s emissions are up more than a third since 2019, when it committed to becoming net zero. The online retailer saw a 3% drop in emissions, year-on-year, in 2023, buoyed by investments into renewable energy projects. However, its reported CO2ᵉ was around 51m tonnes in 2019 and nearly 69m tonnes last year.
Meanwhile, Google is no longer claiming to be carbon neutral, and is instead aiming to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. It confirmed in its latest sustainability report that it will stop buying low-cost carbon credits.
And fellow tech giant Microsoft is facing a shareholder resolution about its work developing technology that can facilitate fossil fuel production. Activist investor As You Sow is calling on it to disclose the risks associated with “providing advanced technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, to facilitate new oil and gas development and production”. It suggests those risks could include reputation, talent retention and competition.
The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on July 5, meaning it will enter into force on July 25. At that point, Member States will have two years to transpose it into national law, making the deadline July 2026. The first batch of companies will have to comply with the Directive by July 2027.
The UK’s new Environmental Secretary today announced that water companies in the country will need to change their articles of association to include the interests of customers and the environment as a primary business objective. The move comes after a number of British water firms were found to be discharging large amounts of sewerage into public waterways and seas. There are calls for entities in other sectors to be required to change their articles of association, too.
The US Department for Homeland Security has identified new “high priority sectors” for enforcement under rules relating to forced labour in China. Aluminium, PVC and seafood have been added to the list “due to higher risk of forced labour or state labour transfer of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”. Apparel, cotton, silica-based products and tomatoes are already on the list.
Environmental NGO WWF has developed an ‘independent science-based taxonomy‘ (ISBT) to counter what it claims are politically- and industry-influenced national frameworks for defining which business activities can credibly be considered ‘green’. Based on the EU’s taxonomy, with feed-in from Chief Sustainability Officers, academics and scientists, WWF claims the ISBT is “completely evidence-based and lobby-free”