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Mars on a Procurement Pathway to Net-Zero

Posted on February 1, 2024 by dishanth

Mars has published its open-source action plan to accelerate the drive towards achieving Net Zero emissions, including a new target to cut carbon in half by 2030 across its full value chain. The strategy also involves investing US$1bn over the next three years alone to drive climate action

The strategy incorporates an understanding of how supplier engagement, supply chain and procurement impacts their environmental footprint, as 80% of it comes from their inputs such as raw materials, packaging and logistics.

“The carbon footprint of our entire supply chain from farming through to the end of life of our packaging and everything in between is the same as that of a small country – Finland has almost exactly the same footprint,” explains Barry Parkin the Chief Procurement and Sustainability Officer at Mars Inc. “When we look at where our footprint was ten years ago, 70% or more of it is embedded in the goods or services we buy. So, procurement is therefore absolutely critical.”

This means the role of procurement, supply chain, and supplier engagement is integral to the company reaching their ambitious sustainability targets, and Parkin is acutely aware that means it is essential for them to do things differently. “Our job is to re-imagine and re-design supply chains so that they have a dramatically lower carbon footprint,” he says. “To put it another way, unless we change what we buy, or where we buy it or how we buy it we are not going to really change our carbon footprint. ”

Their roadmap involves removing approximately 15 million metric tons by 2030 and then another 15 million metric tons by 2050 when they reach net zero. Since 2015 Mars have already reduced emissions by 8%, whilst growing the business by 60%, showing that it is possible to decouple emissions from growth and success of a business.

Supplier relationships

As for any major organisation trying to address their sustainability strategy, it is impossible for Mars to make significant progress with their carbon footprint without the help and buy-in from their enormous supply networks.

“As a global company, we rely on suppliers across our value chain as essential partners in our journey to reach net zero,” says Parkin. “Like most companies, addressing our Scope 3 emissions is challenging because of their indirect nature and our lack of direct control or visibility. Only by working with our Tier 1 suppliers can we make progress with them on their own emissions and on their upstream emissions with our Tier 2 suppliers and beyond.”

Mars was a founding member of the Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition coalition, that is a dedicated body for instigating climate action through industry-wide supply chains. This allows companies like Mars to use their scale and influence to guide, mentor and train suppliers with emissions strategies and also celebrate their best practice.

This reflects the collaborative approach Mars is trying to adopt with all their stakeholders to reach their climate targets. “Suppliers that demonstrate substantial progress in reducing their environmental footprint are recognised and rewarded with additional business,” explains Parkin. “This metrics-driven strategy ensures that our suppliers have a significant role in our journey towards sustainability, aligning their efforts with our commitment to addressing the climate crisis.”

To achieve this relationship, Mars sets clear expectations for suppliers regarding emissions reduction, renewable energy adoption, and sustainable sourcing. They then incorporate those climate performance metrics into some of their biggest supplier’s evaluation criteria.

Recipe optimisation

For one of the global leaders in food products, pet supplies and confectionery, they are also able to leverage product design and ingredients into their net-zero strategy. Mars describes that as ‘optimising recipes’ and procurement is again integral in making that aspect of the plan a success.

“Our procurement team actively collaborates with suppliers to identify and source new ingredients in a way which lowers emissions and advances our sustainability goals,” says Parkin. “This collaborative approach helps improve our supply chain sustainability performance, including the procurement of ingredients that have a reduced carbon footprint.”

This approach of working closely with the suppliers who provide the ingredients, allows Mars to enhance their product offerings while at the same time finding new ways to reduce the emissions associated with the recipes.

Buying-in to the road map

Parkin is praising the positive reaction from their suppliers to the Net Zero Roadmap, but that is also because many of those partners have been on a sustainability journey with the company for a number of years, since setting out their first scope 3 targets for their full value chain back in 2017.

“Suppliers have expressed their appreciation for the transparency and specificity of our roadmap,” explains Parkin. “It has enabled them to better understand our expectations and how their contributions fit into the broader picture of achieving net zero emissions. The roadmap’s emphasis on collaboration and collective responsibility has resonated with our suppliers, fostering a spirit of partnership in our shared journey towards sustainability.”

The partnership allows procurement partners to take proactive steps in their organisations and strategies to address their emissions, and be part of a collective responsibility to finding both a sustainable future and a productive business relationship.

Aside from the influence such an ambitious net-zero strategy has on the culture and direction of a company like Mars Inc, it also creates a larger impression on other companies in their business ecosystem as other brands and businesses look to follow their lead.

Barry Parkin is aware of the value of that influence, and how their procurement and supply chain can help lead others to greater sustainable achievements.

“Global companies like Mars play an important role in shaping sustainability standards and advancing climate action at scale,” he explains. “Our influence extends across the globe, allowing us to inspire change on a wider scale. When companies set high sustainability standards, it encourages others in their industries to follow suit.”

He adds: “Companies like Mars have the resources, expertise, and innovation capabilities needed to pioneer sustainable practices and technologies.

“We can invest significantly in research and development, pilot groundbreaking initiatives, and implement sustainable solutions beyond the reach of smaller organisations. This proactive approach not only benefits the environment but also builds a positive reputation with environmentally conscious consumers and attracts like-minded partners.”

If a globally recognised brand like Mars can leverage their sprawling supply and procurement network for better environmental outcomes, it can only help to bring others on the same journey. “This ripple effect fosters industry-wide transformation, promoting a more sustainable future,” finishes Parkin. “If a business such as Mars can halve it’s footprint by 2030, that matters.”

Source Sustainability

Can we really fuel planes with fat and sugar?

Posted on January 9, 2024 by dishanth

As the politician next to him took out his phone for a selfie, Virgin Atlantic chairman Richard Branson peered into the camera, grinned, and did a double thumbs-up. The world’s first commercial airliner to cross the Atlantic using 100% biofuel had just landed in New York.

Virgin Atlantic’s Boeing 787 was powered not by fossil fuels, but plant sugars and waste fats – a form of so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF. A British Conservative MP posted his smiling selfie with Branson to the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, and declared the flight “a significant UK aviation achievement”. (The flight was partly funded by the UK government.)

But not everyone is so sure that this represents the future of flying. The biomass required to make biofuel can come from a broad range of sources – plant material, food waste or even algae. While biofuels release CO2 when burned, some consider them a sustainable option because they are renewable and biomass removes some CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows.

The problem is the sheer volume of biomass needed to power an industry as fuel-hungry as aviation. One academic paper published in August estimated that, if you were to grow sugar cane and use that to make biofuels for commercial jets, you’d need 125 million hectares (482,000 sq miles) of land – roughly equivalent to the surface area of the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Louisiana combined.

That’s a lot of land. And if you tried using waste sources of biomass alone, you wouldn’t have nearly enough to keep all the world’s planes in the air, say some experts. The airline industry is currently responsible for about 3.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, roughly the same as the entire country of Japan, which is one of the world’s highest emitters.

Proponents of SAF argue that the fuel could make flying much greener than it is currently. It’s just that scaling SAF production up is a gigantic challenge.

“What they’re doing is quite important, they’re just demonstrating that the flight is perfectly safe, there are no problems with the fuel,” says David Lee, a professor of atmospheric science at Manchester Metropolitan University, who studies the impact of aviation on the climate, and who was a co-author of the paper that investigated the feasibility of transitioning to SAF. By switching to SAF over fossil fuels, you can achieve carbon savings of around 70%, says Lee, though this depends on the specific source of biomass you choose.

Lee notes that international regulations don’t actually allow for flights using more than 50% SAF as fuel at the moment, so Virgin Atlantic’s hop across the pond required a special permit from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority.

It all adds up to a successful proof-of-concept. But it would be difficult to power more than one glitzy flight with 100% SAF today. “You just can’t get hold of the damn stuff,” says Lee. “If we want to do engine tests, we have difficulty purchasing the fuel.”

It’s an issue that Virgin Atlantic itself acknowledges. SAF accounts for just 0.1% of all aviation fuels consumed. The International Air Transport Association predicts that the airline industry will require 450 billion litres of SAF by 2050 – only 300 million litres were produced in 2022. However, to date, SAF has helped to fuel hundreds of thousands of flights – at least as part of a blend with fossil fuels. In the US, SAF production is estimated to reach 2.1 billion gallons (7.9 billion litres) annually by 2030 – well below President Biden’s target of producing 3 billion gallons (11.3 billion litres) of the fuel annually by that year.

Ramping up SAF production is difficult. In a Royal Society report published earlier this year, Lee and colleagues analysed the UK’s potential to produce its own SAF for commercial flights. “We concluded that there wasn’t really enough land,” he says. Around the world, competition for land is fierce. We will need an additional 70-80 million hectares of cropland by 2030 globally, estimates management consultants McKinsey & Company – that’s an area bigger than the state of Texas. The vast majority of this new cropland (70% ) is needed to grow crops for feeding livestock. Only 10% of the total area required would go towards biofuel production in McKinsey’s scenario.

Some SAF comes from waste fats, for example, from food production processes. Relying on such sources could, in theory, lessen the need for expanding crop cultivation just to make biofuels. But there’s far too little waste available, says Hannah Daly at University College Cork, in Ireland. Even if you gathered up all the biomass waste available in the Republic of Ireland, she says, it would only allow you to replace about 4% of fossil fuels consumed by the country. The calculation would be similar in other countries, she suggests.

“There’s substantial risk that that ‘waste cooking oil’ could be fraudulently relabelled virgin palm oil,” says Daly. “That could be contributing to deforestation.”

Some alternatives to SAF, including hydrogen fuel and electrification, are not currently viable options for large commercial flights.

Chelsea Baldino, senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation and her colleagues have calculated that SAF made from waste sources in the UK would only be able to meet a maximum of 15% of UK jet fuel demand in 2030. The ICCT also estimates that just 3.3-4.2 billion gallons of SAF could feasibly be produced domestically in the US by 2030, while in 2019, US airlines used 23 billion gallons of jet fuel.

“Biofuels providing the significant greenhouse gas savings needed to decarbonise jet fuel will not be available at scale,” she says. E-fuels – synthetic versions of fossil fuels made using renewable energy – will be “essential”, according to Baldino. E-fuels require a lot of energy to produce but they have the advantage of not introducing additional carbon into the atmosphere, as would be the case with newly extracted fossil fuels.

Josh Moos, an economist at Leeds Beckett University in the UK, lambasts Virgin Atlantic’s 100% SAF flight as “greenwashing”.

“The science would suggest that there really is no such thing as sustainable aviation,” he says. It would be better to reduce demand for flights globally, perhaps by placing a levy on frequent flyers or by increasing taxes on the airline industry, he argues. Moos acknowledges that such measures are “politically and socially unpalatable”, though both he and Daly suggest they might be necessary if we are to meet net zero goals.

A spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic says, “We are committed to achieving Net Zero 2050 and have set interim targets on our pathway to get there, including 10% Sustainable Aviation Fuel by 2030.”

She notes that the 100% SAF flight from London to New York relied entirely on waste biomass and that the demonstration was “an important step, but not the end goal” in the firm’s efforts to scale up its use of SAF in the coming years.

Some sceptics remain unconvinced. Daly, for one, points out that even if SAF does replace an increasing proportion of fossil fuels for aviation purposes, the overall benefit could be wiped out by the rapidly growing airline industry. Eurocontrol, a European air safety organisation, predicts that the annual total number of flights worldwide will reach 16 million by 2050 – an increase of 44% on 2019’s figure.

“I would love guilt-free flying myself – but it’s just not possible,” says Daly.

Source BBC

The Green Revolution: Sharing Leading the Way

Posted on November 2, 2023 by dishanth

The Green Revolution: Sharing leading the way

In a world grappling with pressing environmental challenges, the call for sustainable solutions has never been more urgent. One such solution gaining rapid momentum is the sharing economy, a model that not only promotes resource efficiency but also leads us on the path towards a greener planet. The sharing economy actively encourages the sharing, renting, and borrowing of goods, services, and spaces, fostering a sense of community while simultaneously minimizing our ecological footprint. In this article, we explore why sharing and the sharing economy are indispensable for the planet and how they can shape a more sustainable future.

Resource Conservation

At the heart of the sharing economy lies its ability to optimize resource utilization. Sharing goods ensures that their lifespan is maximized, consequently reducing the need for overproduction. A prime example is the success of car-sharing services. Instead of each individual owning a car that remains idle for most of its life, car-sharing platforms enable multiple people to use the same vehicle, thus decreasing the number of cars on the road and the associated resource consumption.

Reduced Waste

In a world plagued by excessive waste production, the sharing economy provides a remedy by discouraging unnecessary consumption. Sharing platforms offer individuals access to items they need temporarily, effectively reducing the demand for single-use products. Tools, appliances, or clothing can be shared within a community, eliminating the need for every individual to buy these items individually. This practice significantly reduces waste generation and lessens the environmental impact linked to manufacturing and disposal.

Energy Efficiency

The sharing economy also champions energy efficiency by encouraging the utilization of existing resources rather than the creation of new ones. Home-sharing platforms, for instance, enable homeowners to rent out their unused spaces, be it an extra room or an entire house. By making use of existing housing infrastructure, we optimise energy consumption in contrast to constructing new buildings. Furthermore, these platforms incentivise homeowners to invest in energy-efficient practices and technologies, such as renewable energy systems or energy-saving appliances, ultimately reducing carbon emissions.

Sustainable Lifestyles

Embracing the sharing economy fosters a shift in mindset from ownership to access. Instead of relentlessly pursuing possession, people begin to prioritize experiences and the efficient use of resources. This shift in consumer behavior can lead to a more sustainable lifestyle. When individuals recognize the value of sharing and collaboration, they become more conscious of their consumption patterns, opting for sustainable choices that benefit the planet.

Strengthened Communities

The sharing economy has a profound social impact as it brings people together and builds stronger communities. Sharing platforms often connect individuals living in close proximity, facilitating interaction and trust-building. When people collaborate, share resources, and support one another, a sense of belonging and shared responsibility develops. These communities often extend beyond the digital realm, fostering increased social cohesion and support networks.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The sharing economy has opened up avenues for innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly in sustainable sectors. It has given rise to new businesses and start-ups focused on sharing services, renewable energy, sustainable transportation, and circular economy practices. These ventures have the potential to create new jobs, drive economic growth, and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Leading the Way

Companies like RentMy enable people to “share” everything they own with others in their community. From paddleboards to canoes, DIY tools to garden equipment, musical instruments to cooking appliances, you can earn money from all the items that are just sitting around.

Tentshare and Camptoo do the same but for niched products like tents, camping equipment, and camper vans, allowing people to experience an adventure weekend without the significant upfront costs for all the equipment.

Then there’s Bike Club, a subscription service for bicycles that allows your child to upgrade each time they outgrow their ride. For adults, there’s Spinlister, which connects people who want to ride bikes with bike owners all over the world.

Next Steps

Without a doubt, the sharing economy is here to stay, largely because the benefits it offers are immense. It’s a sustainable choice, reducing the demand for brand-new products. It also promotes community, particularly those with a local focus. It can save and earn you money, with peer-to-peer lending offering an alternative to buying expensive equipment outright and also providing additional income to those renting out their assets.

But what truly drives this fast-growing economy is trust.

This is what allows someone to take a car ride from a stranger or rent a room in a house from someone they’ve never met.

How Do You Build Trust?

The article, aptly titled “The Decline of Serial Killers and the Rise of the Sharing Economy,” suggests that the internet has played a significant role in increasing trust between strangers.

Thanks to the fact that nearly all of us have a virtual identity these days, it’s challenging to go completely under the radar, reducing our fear of strangers.

This means we are more willing to engage with those we don’t know, seeing “strangers” as “peers.”

Businesses operating within the sharing economy are also employing various tactics to build upon this trust. For example, we encourage users to upload profile photos and write detailed profile descriptions that help identify them on a personal level.

We have also addressed concerns about the risk of damage. This has been a vital part of the development of RentMy. We provide extensive insurance protection for all those on our platform, allowing lenders to loan their items out risk-free, knowing that we will cover any damage or loss.

Final Thoughts

In a world increasingly aware of the environmental challenges we face, the sharing economy has emerged as a beacon of hope, leading the way towards a more sustainable future. It champions resource conservation, reduces waste, promotes energy efficiency, and encourages sustainable lifestyles. Moreover, it fosters stronger communities, fuels innovation and entrepreneurship, and ultimately drives positive change in our society.

Companies like RentMy, Tentshare, and Bike Club exemplify how individuals and businesses can play a pivotal role in this transformative movement. The sharing economy is not only here to stay but also set to thrive, offering a sustainable, community-driven, and financially rewarding path forward.

But, as we embrace the sharing economy, we must recognise that trust is its cornerstone. The internet has been a key enabler, reducing our fear of strangers and turning them into peers. Building trust involves transparency, identity verification, and addressing concerns, such as the risk of damage. At RentMy, we take these concerns seriously, offering comprehensive insurance protection to assure both sharers and renters.

Trust is the bridge that allows us to share with one another, and as we continue down this path, it’s a bridge that will only strengthen and lead us towards a greener, more interconnected world. So, as we take that car ride from a stranger or rent a room from someone we’ve never met, we are not just participating in the sharing economy; we are actively shaping a more sustainable, connected, and trust-driven future for all.

Source Happy Eco News

Honeywell & Recipharm to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Posted on August 24, 2023 by dishanth

Honeywell and Recipharm have partnered to utilize technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in respiratory care and to lessen its environmental impact
Technology giant Honeywell has announced a commercial partnership with global contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Recipharm to develop pressurised metered dose inhalers (pMDIs) that use Honeywell’s near-zero global warming potential (GWP) propellant.

Globally, as many as 646 million people suffer from either chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, both of which are often treated using pMDIs. However, pMDIs have a high global warming potential due to the use of hydrofluoroalkanes.

To counter this, Honeywell Solstice® Air is an alternative technology, proven to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pMDIs by up to 99.9%, in comparison to current inhaler propellants.

“As the first CDMO to partner with Honeywell for the use of Solstice Air, this collaboration significantly accelerates and simplifies our customers’ pathway to develop the next generation of low greenhouse gas pMDIs,” said Chris Hirst, president of Recipharm’s Advanced Delivery Systems business unit. “Our collaboration is supported by Recipharm’s investment in manufacturing with HFO-1234ze(E) cGMP at our Holmes Chapel, United Kingdom site, and the further development of the Bespak® valve range to ensure the required product performance.”

Honeywell: Using technology to create sustainable change

The business has invested more than US$1bn in research, development and new capacity for its Solstice technology. This technology can be used to improve the sustainability credentials of applications in refrigerants, blowing agents, aerosols and solvents, to name a few.

Consequently, the Honeywell Solstice technology has helped avoid the potential release of more than 326 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is approximately equal to the carbon emissions generated from 70 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles each year.

“Honeywell is making great strides to offer patients who rely on pMDIs a lower greenhouse gas solution to meet their medical needs,” said Laura Reinhard, Vice President and General Manager of Honeywell Foam and Industrial Products. “Through our collaboration with Recipharm, the increased use of near-zero GWP propellant used in pMDIs will help reduce the environmental impact of the life-saving medical treatments patients need, without sacrificing performance.”

Source Sustainability

Allbirds touts world’s first net-zero carbon shoe

Posted on March 28, 2023 by dishanth

The US-based footwear and apparel brand has not yet launched the shoe, called M0.0NSHOT, for purchase, but has provided key information on how design and material innovation have resulted in a net-zero shoe.

Some parts of the shoe’s lifecycle do emit carbon, such as transporting the components and the finished pair. However, as all of the key components are certified as carbon negative, Allbirds claims that the emissions which have been created are ‘inset’ across the lifecycle of the shoe.

The shoe’s upper is made using a carbon-negative merino wool from the New Zealand Merino Company, for example. The Company uses regenerative farming methods to enable the soil to draw down carbon. It has been certified as carbon-negative by Toitu Envirocare, a third-party carbon certification business, with carbon sequestration outweighing emissions.

Other carbon-negative elements of the shoe include bioplastic eyelets made using methane-based polymers and sugarcane-based foam midsoles. Allbirds has been using carbon-negative, sugarcane-based foam for soles since 2018 and calls this material SweetFoam. The new shoes include a next-generation version of this material, called .

Additionally, the shoes will be housed in sugarcane-derived, carbon-negative packaging which has been light-weighted to minimise emissions from transportation.

Allbirds’ co-founder and co-chief Tim Brown said: “Creating a net zero carbon shoe that is commercially viable and scalable is the culmination of our entire back catalogue of work. M0.0NSHOT isn’t a silver bullet for the climate crisis — it’s a proof-point that, when we take sustainability seriously and are laser-focused on carbon reduction, we can make incredible breakthroughs.”

The brand’s head of sustainability Hana Kajimura added: “We believe this will revolutionize the path to net zero, and act as rocket-fuel for the entire industry. We could spend decades debating the finer points of carbon sequestration, or we can innovate today with a common sense approach.”

Allbirds has not yet confirmed when the M0.0NSHOT shoes will go on sale and specifics like how many pairs will be available and the markets they will be sold in. However, it has pledged to open-source information relating to the design of the shoes and the carbon accounting methods used, in a bid to help other brands in the sector innovate to reduce emissions.

Allbirds’ director of materials innovation, Romesh Patel, was a guest on the edie podcast last year, discussing the brand’s ongoing work to scale lower-carbon and more circular materials. You can stream that episode here.

Fashion scorecard

The average pair of shoes comes with a life-cycle carbon footprint of 14kg of CO2e, and more than 20 billion pairs of new shoes are manufactured globally each year. Many shoe designs bear a high carbon footprint due to their use of leather and/or synthetic, fossil-based glues, foams and materials.

This week, a new scorecard from Stand.earth assessed 43 apparel and footwear companies on their work to descarbonise their value chains. None of the brands received a top grade, and two-thirds received one of the two lowest grades.

One key focus was the use of energy in supply chains, with the conclusion being that many big-name brands, despite publicly stating net-zero ambitions, are doing little to transition suppliers off of coal and on to clean energy. Stand.earth’s methodology also covered emissions from shipping, the use of low-carbon and more durable materials, and whether brands were advocating for renewable energy policies.

Brands to have scored one of the two lowest grades include Walmart, Target, Primark, Amazon, Under Armour, Armani, Guess, Chanel, Prada, Boohoo, Shein and Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing.

Allbirds only managed to secure a ‘D+ grade. It scored highly for its clean energy procurement and commitments but lost marks elsewhere. The top-scoring company overall was H&M Group, closely followed by Levi’s and Puma.

“Failure by brands to support the transition to renewables, while at the same time increasing energy consumption, will further entrench fossil fuel infrastructure in the Global South where their supply chains are focused, and lock in harmful health and climate impacts for decades to come,” warned Stand.earth campaigner Seema Joshi.

“Brands need to transition to renewable energy in their supply chains, and be more transparent about who their suppliers are and where they are located. The fashion industry has a responsibility to show progress engaging with suppliers to support a just energy transition, including through financing and training, and advocating to governments to meet the increased demand for renewable energy.”

Source edie

Encirc and Diageo turn to hydrogen to create net-zero glass bottles by 2030

Posted on December 20, 2022 by dishanth

Encirc will build new furnaces at its Elton plant in Cheshire that will utilize green electricity and low-carbon hydrogen that will help reduce emissions from glass bottle manufacturing by 90%.

The hydrogen will be supplied by Vertex Hydrogen, a partner of the government-backed HyNet North West cluster and when combined with carbon capture technology could deliver net-zero glass bottles by 2030.

The furnaces are expected to be fully operational by 2027 and will produce up to 200 million Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Gordon’s and Tanqueray bottles annually by 2030.

The two companies previously worked on a process that used waste-based biofuel-powered furnaces to reduce the carbon footprint of the bottle-making process by up to 90%. In total, 173,000 bottles were made using 100% recycled glass during a trial period.

Diageo committed to achieving net-zero operational emissions within a decade and to halving its indirect (Scope 3) emissions within the same timeframe, as part of a new ten-year strategy.

The 2030 strategy is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and commits Diageo to deliver a ‘Decade of Action’ on environmental sustainability, inclusion and diversity and responsible drinking.

Diageo’s chief sustainability officer Ewan Andrew said: “We are really excited to be a part of this world leading announcement which forms part of our commitment to halve our Scope 3 carbon emissions by 2030.

“All renewable energy options are important to us and we’d like to see Government and industry further accelerating the direct supply of green energy as a mainstream option. Ultimately, we look forward to a world where people can enjoy their favorite drinks from zero carbon glass bottles.”

On carbon, Diageo’s headline target is a commitment to achieve net-zero operational emissions through a mix of energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy procurement and generation.

Also included in the strategy is a commitment to halve indirect (Scope 3) emissions. Diageo will support smallholder farmers with training programmes on low-emission methods and trial regenerative farming practices – some of which purport to help land sequester more carbon than farming work emits.

Ten green bottles…

Encirc has worked with other beverage giants to help reduce emissions. Last year, it worked with Molson Coors, which owns brands such as Carling and Coors Light, to introduce low-carbon bottles across the UK.

Encirc manufacturers the bottles using up to 100% recycled or waste glass – called cullet. The process had previously used 75% recycled or waste content. Production is also powered by renewable energy and sustainable biofuels which has helped deliver a reduced carbon footprint for each bottle of up to 90%.

The bottle manufacturer has also worked with the likes of Carlsberg to reduce the carbon impact of their bottles.

The manufacturer is also part of Net Zero North West – a group of businesses backing a project to develop a “cluster plan” to prepare the North West and North East Wales to remove more than 40 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year and creating thousands of new jobs.

Encirc’s managing director Adrian Curry said: “This will be a major step in our goal of producing net zero glass by 2030. With support from the Government and key partners, Encirc and Diageo we believe it will be possible to have this first-of-its-kind furnace up and running at the beginning of 2027.”

Source edie

UK Plc gets first look at ‘gold standard’ for net-zero transition plans

Posted on November 10, 2022 by dishanth

The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) was launched by the Treasury this April, then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak used his platform at COP26 to pledge that large businesses in high-emission sectors would be subjected to new net-zero disclosure requirements from 2023. The requirement is around net-zero transition plans, which support long-term corporate emissions goals with interim milestones and outline the necessary steps to change business models and investment. Plans should also detail how workers will be supported and the need for upskilling and reskilling addressed.

Today, the TPT has published its first proposal for a ‘gold standard’ for net-zero transition plans. It was asked to draw up such a standard to ensure that disclosures are meaningful, unified, and would deliver the emissions reductions they tout.

The proposal consists of a framework, recommending how companies should develop plans and the key elements they should include; and an implementation guidance document. The guidance includes advice on when, where and how to provide net-zero transition plans.

The TPT is proposing that companies should have to publish one transition plan next year, then an update in 2026. In 2024 and 2025, information material to the plan should be included in financial reporting, it is recommending.

Regarding the content of a ‘gold standard’ plan, the TPT recommends that organisations should state high-level ambitions to mitigate emissions as well as top-line plans on climate adaptation. This information should be built upon with a list of actions to be taken in the short, medium and long-term and plans to finance these actions.Organisations should also clearly set out how their governance is set up for the net-zero transition.

There are also close ties to TCFD-aligned reporting in the TPT’s proposal. It wants to see businesses assessing the material risks it causes to the natural environment and to communities, and the opportunities it could bring about by reducing and eliminating these harms.

The guiding principles of the proposed framework are “ambition, action and accountability”. Ambition involves “preparing for and contributing to a rapid and orderly economy-wide net-zero transition”. Action involves bolstering long-term goals with interim milestones and making sure financial flows enable their deliver. Accountability covers governance.

The Bank of England’s executive director for financial sustainability Sarah Breeden said that the resources published today “will be key in building out the transition infrastructure necessary for supporting the financial sector to allocate capital efficiently, enabling the real economy transition to net zero.”

Breeden said: “Climate change poses risks to the stability of the financial system and to individual firms. Actions taken by the private sector today will determine the size of future risks which is why it is crucial financial and non-financial firms develop and disclose robust transition plans with a focus on concrete short-term action.”

There is no word yet on which month in 2023 net-zero transition plan disclosures are set to become mandatory, and which businesses will be covered by the mandate. Some firms, including Centrica, SSE and British American Tobacco have already published net-zero transition plans on a voluntary basis.

Commenting on the TPT’s publications, EY UK & Ireland’s managing partner for sustainability Rob Doepel said: “Fundamentally, implementation of the Disclosure Framework (pending consultation) will force the hand of businesses to produce and implement rigorous net-zero plans to deliver on the bold pledges and promises they have made to date.

“Not only is this a huge step towards making the UK a net-zero economy but is a significant step towards the world’s progression to net-zero, elevating the UK into a leadership position in the global economy on holding companies to account on action. Other G20 countries are likely to stand up and take notice of the UK’s progressive approach and it could well create a ripple effect where other countries follow a similar path.

“The guidance suggests that businesses should produce a “maximalist” plan covering not only their own decarbonisation plans, but how their plans fit into the UK and the world’s transition to net zero. TPT guidance goes further than TCFD requirements and potentially a long way beyond what many businesses have considered in their net zero planning to date.”

Source edie

Surviving to thriving in the low-carbon economy

Posted on October 5, 2022October 17, 2022 by dishanth

Climate change presents complex challenges for businesses, so how can sustainability teams move from surviving to thriving in the low-carbon economy?
At the end of July, the UK government’s net-zero strategy was found to be ‘unlawful’ in the High Court, marking the latest high-profile litigation case to find in favour of climate activists. This sort of action is neither new nor unique and the impact of cases like this reaches beyond constitutional reform and far into the business world.

The low-carbon economy is complicated. Litigation is just one test that can await businesses as they face down the very real and very current challenges presented by climate change. The risk of inaction can lead to customer attrition, supply-chain breakdown, reputational damage, direct legal action and, ultimately, serious financial impact. It has never been more important for companies to move the marker from merely surviving amidst these complex challenges to unearthing the opportunities and thriving as a business.

Taking in the view
Often overlooked, transition risks, business-related risks that follow social, economic and political trends related to a low-carbon and more climate-friendly future, are, by their very nature, more near term – presenting a significant challenge for businesses, now. We live in a fickle, fast-moving world. Consumer sentiment ebbs and flows on the rising tides of popular opinion; investors decide which companies dive, survive and thrive; and reputations can be wiped out with one extreme event. Often presented as a cost-prohibitive challenge, climate action actually gives companies an opportunity that business leaders can’t afford to miss.

Analyses carried out by Risilience found that the valuation of businesses failing to take climate action could be eroded by as much as 30% over the next five years, depending on company profile and how aggressively they tackle climate change. As climate-related legislation increasingly takes hold across the globe; from the proposed European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) to the UK’s International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the temptation to view climate change as a problem for tomorrow’s enterprises has been eclipsed by the reality that it is a very real problem for businesses today.

A look ahead
Detailed analysis for where these pressures are likely to erode the value of the business shows where new opportunities can be found. The low-carbon economy is competitive and plays to the changeable nature of consumers, who can be highly discriminating and prone to switching brands according to how sustainable they believe the company to be –an opportunity for early movers to gain market share. We can take the lesson from the nineties when early changemakers saw the Internet economy coming.

Today we have the green economy, which is gaining momentum, so the choice is whether to grasp the opportunities that it creates or wait until it erodes your business model and, ultimately, the bottom line. Key actions involve upgrading manufacturing technology in processing plants to reduce emissions; substituting raw materials and suppliers for lower-emission alternatives; changing transportation and distribution fleets to electric vehicles and shortening the distribution footprint.

Finally, companies are finding that motivation and changing attitudes in their management and wider workforce are key to bringing about internal change from within an organisation. Internal incentivisation, shadowcarbon pricing and mandating changing practices, such as updating corporate travel policies, are all ways to instil a culture that seeks to prioritise climate action at both the strategic and operational levels of the business. To develop a comprehensive strategy, each of these initiatives needs to be evaluated for the volume of emissions that are saved relative to the costs and effort required, in terms of capital investment budget and operational change; and the resulting benefits and opportunities that the initiative provides for reducing risk.

A net-zero planning framework is essential and starts from a detailed understanding of the business and where its emissions come from, combined with detailed analyses of the costs and benefits each proposed initiative, respectively, requires and delivers, as part of an integrated strategy.

Data for a fresh perspective
A successful net-zero strategy is founded on three elements; climate-change science, business transformation and technology. When combined, and driven by data, all three provide sufficient visibility and operational efficiency such that the business can progress and thoroughly prepare for all risks that lie ahead. This same data will also be needed to seek and acquire buy-in from the top to ensure the value of acting, and fiscal damage for failing to, are highlighted to decisionmakers and budget holders in the business.

In addition, as we know, actionable insights are essential for driving momentum and evolving strategies. Organisations should seek risk analytics to shape their net-zero journey and truly understand the internal and external pressures that come from their customers, competitors, board and legislators –challenges that don’t lie in the future but sit very much in the here and now.

Source Sustainability

Samsung pledges to become carbon neutral by 2050

Posted on September 22, 2022 by dishanth

Samsung has made a commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions for the whole company by 2050 and will spend US$5bn to do so
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics has announced an environmental strategy to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The company intends to spend more than KRW7tn (US$5bn) over the next seven and a half years to achieve that goal. This money will go towards reducing process gases, conserving water, expanding electronic waste collection and reducing pollutants.

By reaching net zero direct and indirect carbon emissions, Samsung Electronics expects to reduce the equivalent of about 17 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) emissions based on 2021 figures.

“The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The consequences of inaction are unimaginable and require the contribution of every one of us, including businesses and governments. Samsung is responding to the threats of climate change with a comprehensive plan that includes reducing emissions, new sustainability practices and the development of innovative technologies and products that are better for our planet,” said Jong-Hee Han, Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics.

Developing technologies for a better planet
The company plans to develop new technologies to reduce process gases — a byproduct of semiconductor manufacturing — and install treatment facilities on its semiconductor manufacturing lines by 2030.

Samsung Electronics has also joined RE100, in an effort to reduce indirect carbon emissions from power consumption, and aims to match electric power needs with renewable energy by 2050 for all operations globally.

The company will implement low-power technologies in major models of seven consumer electronics products — smartphones, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, TVs, monitors and PCs, with the goal of lowering power consumption levels by an average of 30% in 2030 compared to products with the same specifications in 2019.

To ensure accountability, Samsung Electronics will have its efforts objectively verified by designated organisations. Its performance will be assessed via participation in the Samsung Institute of EHS Strategy’s certification system and verified by a Carbon Reduction Verification Committee that includes third-party experts.

Source Sustainability

Future cities could be 3D printed – using concrete made with recycled glass

Posted on March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 by dishanth

3D printed concrete may lead to a shift in architecture and construction. Because it can be used to produce new shapes and forms that current technologies struggle with, it may change the centuries-old processes and procedures that are still used to construct buildings, resulting in lower costs and saved time.

However, concrete has a significant environmental impact. Vast quantities of natural sand are currently used to meet the world’s insatiable appetite for concrete, at great cost to the environment. In general, the construction industry struggles with sustainability. It creates around 35% of all landfill waste globally.

Our new research suggests a way to curb this impact. We have trialled using recycled glass as a component of concrete for 3D printing.

Concrete is made of a mix of cement, water, and aggregates such as sand. We trialled replacing up to 100% of the aggregate in the mix with glass. Simply put, glass is produced from sand, is easy to recycle, and can be used to make concrete without any complex processing.

Demand from the construction industry could also help ensure glass is recycled. In 2018 in the US only a quarter of glass was recycled, with more than half going to landfill.

Building better

We used brown soda-lime beverage glass obtained from a local recycling company. The glass bottles were first crushed using a crushing machine and then the crushed pieces were washed, dried, milled, and sieved. The resulting particles were smaller than a millimetre square.

The crushed glass was then used to make concrete in the same way that sand would be. We used this concrete to 3D print wall elements and prefabricated building blocks that could be fitted together to make a whole building.

A building envelope prefabricated using the 3D printing process. Mehdi Chougan, Author provided

If used in this way, waste glass can find a new life as part of a construction material.

The presence of glass does not only solve the problem of waste but also contributes to the development of a concrete with superior properties than that containing natural sand.

The thermal conductivity of soda-lime glass – the most common type of glass, which you find in windows and bottles – is more than three times lower than that of quartz aggregate, which is used extensively in concrete. This means that concrete containing recycled glass has better insulation properties. They could substantially decrease the costs required for cooling or heating during summer or winter.

Improving sustainability

We also made other changes to the concrete mixture in order to make it more sustainable as a building material, including replacing some of the Portland cement with limestone powder.

Portland cement is a key component of concrete, used to bind the other ingredients together into a mix that will harden. However, the production of ordinary Portland cement leads to the release of significant amounts of carbon dioxide as well as other greenhouse gases. The cement production industry accounts for around 8% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the environment.

Limestone is less hazardous and has less environmental impact during the its production process than Portland cement. It can be used instead of ordinary Portland cement in concrete for 3D printing without a reduction in the quality of the printing mixture.

3D printed layers of a wall element. Mehdi Chougan, Author provided

We also added lightweight fillers, made from tiny hollow thermoplastic spheres, to reduce the density of the concrete. This changed the thermal conductivity of the concrete, reducing it by up to 40% when compared with other concrete used for 3D printing. This further improved the insulation properties of the concrete, and reduced the amount of raw material required.

Using 3D printing technology, we can simply develop a wall structure on a computer, convert it to simple code and send it to a 3D printer to be constructed. 3D printers can operate for 24 hours a day, decrease the amount of waste produced, as well as increase the safety of construction workers.

Our research shows that an ultra-lightweight, well insulated 3D building is possible – something that could be a vital step on our mission towards net zero.

Source The Conversation