SUPPLY CHAIN

Unilever outlines plans to halve supplier emissions by 2030

FMCG giant Unilever has outlined plans to help suppliers representing two-thirds of its upstream emissions to decarbonise in line with climate science. Unilever’s headline climate commitment is to become a net-zero business by 2039, with an interim ambition to halve the impact of products, including its supply chain impacts, by 2030. Building on these commitments, the company launched the ‘Unilever Climate Promise for Suppliers’, where signatory suppliers commit to developing public targets to reduce emissions by at least 50% by 2030. Signatories of the Promise are required to share their baseline greenhouse gas footprint data with Unilever and to publicly report on decarbonisation progress. Unilever is hosting a programme that will more closely involve 40 suppliers from early 2022, with the programme scaled to reach 300 suppliers from 2023 onwards. (edie)

STRATEGY

Tesco extends net-zero target to supply chain and products

Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain, has committed to delivering net-zero emissions across its entire value chain by 2050, vowing to target emissions generated from the sourcing of raw materials, agriculture, and product manufacturing through to the emissions resulting from the end use of its products and food waste. Tesco said the goal would transform the mix of food on its shelves, noting that an increase of plant-based food would be required to meet its new emissions reduction goal. The new goal is in line with the Paris Agreement's target of keeping global warming below 1.5^oC. The company is now planning to encourage its suppliers to establish net-zero goals and science-based emissions targets of their own. Tesco had previously excluded products and supply chain emissions from its net-zero goal. (Business Green)

CLIMATE CHANGE 

SBTi says 80% of company climate targets not science-based

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a key organisations focused on aligning corporate environmental action with the global Paris Agreement to limit climate change, has stated that while companies are increasingly setting climate targets, the vast majority fail to align with climate science. SBTi’s research found that of the more than 4,200 companies in the G20 that have set climate targets, only 20% are science-based. Results were slightly better in G7 countries, where 25% of targets were science-based, with only 6% of G13 (G20 countries outside of the G7) reaching this benchmark. The report found that several G20 countries did not have any companies with science-based targets, including Argentina, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The UK was the best-performing country with 41% of companies’ climate targets being science-based. (ESG Today)

GIG ECONOMY

Uber to pay pensions to all its UK drivers, backdated to 2017

Ride hailing company Uber is to pay out millions of pounds in missed pension payments to UK drivers dating back as far as May 2017 under a deal with the retirement savings watchdog. Uber was forced to guarantee its 70,000 UK drivers a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay and pensions in March 2021 after a landmark supreme court ruling over their employment status. Couriers for the group’s UberEats food delivery service are not included in the deal. On Friday, Uber said its private hire drivers would now be auto-enrolled on to a scheme through which it would contribute 3% of earnings into a pension pot. The company called on rival operators to help create a cross-industry scheme so that drivers who worked across several apps would always benefit. (The Guardian)

EMPLOYEES

California governor legislates to protect warehouse workers

California Governor, Gavin Newsom, has signed a bill that limits warehouse employers like Amazon from setting productivity quotas, the first legislation of its kind in the US. The new provisions require all companies using warehouse labour to disclose productivity quotas to employees and government agencies and bar use of algorithms that prevent employees from taking rests and bathroom breaks, thereby endangering their health and safety, the governor's office said. The legislation ensures workers cannot be fired or retaliated against for failing to meet an unsafe quota. While no company was singled out in the statement, the New York Times reported that the bill was written partly in response to high rates of injuries at Amazon warehouses, which were nearly double that of the rest of the warehousing industry last year. (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

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