BP has put its U.S. wind farm operation, one of the largest in the country, up for sale, marking the continued retreat of big oil companies from renewable energy investments while oil and gas projects offer them better returns. Over a decade ago, big oil companies including BP and Shell began to ramp up investment in renewable energy, but the uncertain outlook for government subsidies and prices in solar, wind and other clean energy areas, along with the re-emergence of strong prices for oil and opportunities to develop large gas fields, have since distracted their attention. (Reuters, The Times)
Corporate Reputation
SSE fined record £10.5m by Ofgem
SSE, formerly known as Scottish and Southern Energy, has been fined £10.5m by Ofgem, the UK energy regulator, for using misleading sales practices to lure consumers away from their existing supplier. In a damning report Ofgem said that SSE had failed consumers “at every stage of the sales process”, which had led to “prolonged and extensive mis-selling” by the power provider between 2009 and 2011. SSE’s breaches included informing customers that they would save money when in fact they were switching to a more expensive contract. The mis-selling relates to telephone, in-store and doorstep sales. (Financial Times*, Guardian, BBC)
Deutsche Bank faces new sex discrimination case
A former vice president at Deutsche Bank has accused the German bank of gender bias and pregnancy discrimination, the second such case against the bank in the past two years. Heather Zhao at Deutsche Bank alleged that a male supervisor discriminated against her, saying he would prefer to work with a man. After complaining to the human resources department, the supervisor retaliated by not awarding her a bonus that year, despite delivering more than $40m in funds to the bank. Claims were also made that she was discriminated again whilst pregnant and fired before returning from maternity leave. (Reuters)
EU states join forces to tackle Google
Europe’s largest data-protection authorities have launched a joint action against Google to force it to remedy alleged breaches of EU privacy rules by the search giant. The data-protection authorities from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands argue that Google's privacy policy does not meet Commission standards on data protection. A report, commissioned by the European Commission, said Google should do more to let users see what information was held about them, provide tools to manage this data and take more care to ensure it did not store too much data about users. (Financial Times*, BBC)
Environment
P&G achieves zero waste at 45 Sites
Procter & Gamble (P&G) have announced that 45 of their facilities across the world have now reached zero manufacturing waste to landfill status. Globally, P&G has ensured that 99 percent of all materials entering their plants leave as either finished a product or end up being reused, recycled or converted to energy. However in the 45 plants that have achieved zero waste status, through innovative technologies and creative reuses, the company has managed to find ways to divert that remaining one percent from landfills. One example of this is in Mexico, where paper sludge from a Charmin toilet tissue plant is turned into low-cost roof tiles used to build homes in the local community. (Guardian, Edie)
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