The French beauty brand revealed last week that it has cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 56 percent against a 2005 baseline, even though it is increasing production by 26 percent during the same period. The achievement is the latest step in the company’s plan to become a “carbon-balanced” by 2020. To hit this target, L’Oreal aims to slash emissions 60 percent by 2020, increasing its use of renewable energy and boosting the energy efficiency of its sites. The firm also reported that 74 percent of its new or revamped products have a positive environmental or social impact, up from 67 percent a year earlier. “We have continued to dissociate our growth from our environmental impact, proving that economic performance is clearly compatible with a commitment to protecting the climate,” said the brand’s chief executive Jean-Paul Agnon. However, Agnon admitted there are areas where the brand still needs to make more environmental progress. (Greenbiz)
Policy
Saudi Arabia approves ambitious plan to move economy beyond oil
Saudi Arabia has approved an ambitious strategy to restructure the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy, involving diversification, privatisation of massive state assets including the energy giant Aramco, tax increases and spending and subsidy cuts. King Salman bin Abdulaziz announced cabinet backing for the Saudi Vision 2030 plan in a brief televised announcement. Elements of the long-heralded 15-year blueprint include the creation of a $2tn Saudi sovereign wealth fund, as well as strategic economic reforms called the National Transformation Programme. The kingdom would sell off about 5% of Aramco, which will become a holding company with subsidiaries listed via an initial public offering. Social factors are a key driver for the new policy. With half the Saudi population under 25, job creation is vital if the kingdom wants to avoid the social unrest that has fuelled Arab spring protests across the region. “The vision is a road map of our development and economic goals,” the prince said. It is unclear whether the economic shake-up will lead to the kind of social changes many believe are needed to truly modernise the country. (Guardian)
Environment
Grim forecast for paper giant’s wood supply raises deforestation fears
Asia Pulp & Paper’s (APP) plans to operate a giant mill in South Sumatra have brought the company’s no-deforestation commitment into question. The new mill would increase demand by 73 per cent and require nearly quadruple the fiber its plantations in South Sumatra have produced in the past, according to an exhaustive report into APP’s expansion plans released this week. The report, published by a dozen environmental organisations, offers compelling evidence that APP does not have access to enough plantation wood to supply its mills with the fiber needed to operate at full capacity without either resuming deforestation or importing additional supply from abroad at great cost. Lafcadio Cortesi, Asia director of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and one of the report’s co-authors said he was“concerned that the new mill will create added pressure to maintain and expand the system of industrial agriculture on drained peatlands that caused Indonesia’s devastating fires last year.” (Eco-business)
Grauer’s gorillas may soon be extinct, conservationists say
The Grauer’s gorilla has been a source of continual worry for conservationists. Now researchers have an updated gorilla head count and according to findings its populations have plummeted 77 percent over the last 20 years, with fewer than 3,800 of the animals remaining. “We suspected that the Grauer’s gorilla had declined because of all the insecurity in the region, but no one had an idea of how much they’d declined by,” said Andrew Plumptre, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Albertine Rift Program in Central and Eastern Africa. The instability of the region and the artisanal mining sites, which Wildlife Conservation Society has counted at least 240 more within protected areas and proposed protected areas, are major threats for these animals. The researchers plan to set up microcredit schemes to help people living in poverty to set up businesses and create alternative employment opportunities for people from local communities who are involved in mining. Some Western companies like Motorola, Nokia, BlackBerry, HP and Intel already work with a group called Solutions for Hope to acquire conflict-free minerals. Dr. Plumptre imagines updating the conflict-free mineral listing to include a “bushmeat-free” or “conservation-friendly” validation. (New York Times)
Climate Change
Climate Change brings hard times for tea
Slow changes in the annual monsoon season may be reducing yields in one of the world’s most important crops, and gradually watering down the tea in China according to a report released on the Climate journal. Scientists in the US have used a new approach to examine harvests in southern Yunnan and other regions of China, and have identified a decline that could only be linked to the retreat of the monsoon, along with greater levels of downpour. For the moment, wine harvests in areas of France and England may have benefited from earlier springs and warmer summers. But tea, the most consumed beverage after water, is of vital economic importance to 80 million rural people in China and at least three million in India. The report identified a set of incremental changes that seemed to affect harvests. Rebecca Boehm, one of the report’s authors, said: “If monsoon periods continue to be longer and produce heavier daily rainfalls that could reduce tea yield and quality, then there needs to be changes in management techniques, such as possibly planting tea varietals that are more tolerant of increased precipitation, or managing soil in ways to increase water-holding capacity.” (Eco-business)
Image source: Mount dempo tea plantation by Achmad Rabin Taim / CC BY 2.0
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