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June 30, 2015

Reporting

Virgin Atlantic decouples profitability from carbon

Virgin Atlantic has cut its carbon intensity by 2 percent in the past year thanks to its growing fleet of fuel-efficient aircraft. The British airline said the results showed that “increased profitability and reduced environmental impact can go hand in hand”. The firm’s latest CSR report showed that emissions intensit, is now down by 10 percent since a 2007 baseline, putting Virgin Atlantic on track to meet its 2020 target of a 30 percent reduction. Virgin said the success can be attributed to a $7 billion investment in new fuel-efficient aircraft, including the Boeing Dreamliner, which is roughly 30 percent more efficient than the aircraft it is replacing. The aviation industry has committed to hold its carbon emissions steady after 2020 and cut net carbon emissions to half of the 2005 level by 2050. A recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that biofuels would be crucial in reaching these targets. (Edie)

Policy and Research

Climate change plans require urgent action, UK government warned

The UK must take urgent action to prepare for the impact of climate change, the government has been warned. Ministers should focus on the future risks of heatwaves and flooding, says the Committee on Climate Change in its latest report. The report looked at progress towards meeting carbon emission targets and how the UK is preparing for climate change risks. It said more needed to be done to keep emissions on track, despite the government’s insistence it remains committed to meeting its climate change target. Officials said measures were needed to address increased flood risk to homes and to protect farmland from declines in productivity and called for action to make homes and buildings safer during heatwaves.  The Committee also warned a decision to stop onshore wind farm subsidies early could potentially add £1 billion a year to bills and said the government has a duty to explain how it intends to replace the energy from wind turbines. (BBC)

Report: Major gap in sustainability adoption between large and small office buildings

More than 60 percent of large buildings in the USA qualify as “green”, compared to less than 5 percent of small buildings, according to a new study by American property company CBRE Group and Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The 2015 Green Building Adoption Index concludes this may afford owners of small buildings an opportunity to differentiate themselves by implementing energy-efficient practices. Minneapolis led the city ranking for the second consecutive year, just over 70 percent of all office space currently qualified as green, down from 77 percent in 2014. San Francisco, again in second place, significantly closed the gap and now boasts a 70 percent green building market, up from 67 percent in 2014. The overall results of the study show that the uptake of green building practices in the 30 largest US cities continue to be significant, but that the growth is slowing. (Sustainable Brands)

Responsible Investment

Impact investment funds providing healthy returns

Impact investing is holding its own against funds only concerned with financial returns, according to a new report by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and Cambridge Associates. The report, Introducing the Impact Investing Benchmark, found that market rate returns of 6.9 percent are attainable in impact investing. This compares favourably with the figure of 8.1 percent for the “comparative universe”. Although GIIN offers a choice of metrics regarding impact measurement, this report only considered the money that could be made through private equity and venture capital funds. Given that funds on average take between seven and 10 years before they provide a return, the report looked at 51 funds launched between 1998 and 2004. It found that impact investment funds remained robust in the face of global downturns at the beginning of the century and in 200 and concluded that this was due to the rapid growth in the number of funds raised during that period. (Pioneers Post)

Employees

China: Labour experts says Walmart workers have no collective bargaining power despite unionisation

Almost 10 years after Walmart was forced to accept unionisation of its stores in China, the US-based merchandising giant continues to deny basic collective bargaining rights to its Chinese retail workers, according to two union experts speaking at a conference on Walmart and labour. Walmart has succeeded in meeting the Chinese government’s demands that the company allow unions to be formally established, but this has not translated into any effective collective bargaining power for some 107,000 workers at the company’s 411 Chinese stores, says Han Dongfang, Executive Director of NGO China Labour Bulletin. Walmart’s chinese subsidiaries exercise effective control over a “yellow union,” he says, explaining that this terminology is used in Asia to describe an employer-dominated union that prevents the establishment of an independent union controlled by workers. As a result, Walmart workers in China are in much the same legal position relative to their employer as non-union employees in the United States or elsewhere, Han says. (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre; In These Times )

Image source: “Virgin atlantic b747-400 g-vbig arp” by Adrian Pingstone

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