Axa to divest its tobacco industry assets worth $2 billion
Axa, France’s largest insurer, says it will divest all of its 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) of assets in the tobacco industry. The Paris-based company says that owning them clashes with its position as a health insurer. The move comes exactly a year after Axa said it would sell its €500m of coal investments ahead of the Paris climate change summit. “We strongly believe in the positive role insurance can play in society,” Deputy Chief Executive Officer Thomas Buberl said. “This decision has a cost for us, but the case for divestment is clear: the human cost of tobacco is tragic; its economic cost is huge.” Alice Steenland, head of corporate responsibility at Axa, described tobacco as a “sunset industry”. The UK, France and Ireland have recently passed legislation requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging, while Australia introduced the measure in 2012. (Bloomberg; Financial Times*)
Strategy
Dow resets clean energy targets after meeting 10-year goal in just 12 months
One of the world’s biggest consumers of energy, chemicals giant Dow, has upped its green ambitions with new targets to source 750MW of clean energy by 2025, after meeting its original target of 400MW in just one year. To help deliver the target, Dow has announced a 10-year power purchase agreement for 150MW of wind power from NRG Energy. “Dow is proud to be the first company in the United States to power manufacturing sites with renewable energy at this kind of scale and that we’ve become one of the largest corporate purchasers of wind energy in America,” said Dr Neil Hawkins, Dow’s corporate vice president and chief sustainability officer. The company also revealed that a range of its insulation products including Styrofoam, Thermax, Froth-Pak and Great Stuff are now made using 100 per cent renewable electricity. (Business Green)
Health
Official advice on low-fat diet and cholesterol is wrong, says health charity
Urging people to follow low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having “disastrous health consequences”, a UK health charity has warned. The National Obesity Forum argues that saturated fat does not cause heart disease, while full-fat dairy, including milk, yoghurt and cheese, can actually protect the heart. The authors also argue that the science of food, including advice from Public Health England (PHE), has been “corrupted by commercial influences”. But other experts have dismissed the report. Prof Simon Capewell, from the Faculty of Public Health, defended PHE’s guidance, saying it “reflects evidence-based science that we can all trust. It was not influenced by industry.” By contrast, the National Obesity Forum report “does not indicate who wrote it or how it was funded. That is worrying,” he said. (Guardian)
Policy & Research
World humanitarian summit begins
World leaders convene in Istanbul this week in an attempt to reform the global humanitarian system and restructure the way the world responds to humanitarian crises, despite criticism that their summit is a photo-opportunity that will achieve little. The key commitments to which Ban Ki-moon hopes leaders will agree include better structuring of aid; more funding for local groups; greater respect for the rules of war; better planning for disaster situations and climate change and wider sharing of refugee populations. Herve Verhoosel, the summit’s spokesman said: “It’s the first time in 70 years of UN history that a summit has been organised to talk about humanitarian issues.” However there is criticism around the summit from aid and rights workers, with Médecins Sans Frontières calling it a “fig-leaf” for international failures, and Oxfam describing it as an “expensive talking shop”. (Guardian)
Report: Farming needs lead role in GHG cuts
The world’s farmers and food producers must do more to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten catastrophic global climate change, according to new research published in Global Change Biology journal. The study is a co-operation between scientists from 22 institutes or laboratories of global distinction, including the UN’s FoodandAgriculture Organisation and the International Rice Research Institute among others. Scientists calculate that cattlemen, rice farmers, shepherds, growers and livestock managers of all kinds must somehow achieve emission reductions equivalent to a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year by 2030. “Countries want to take action on agriculture, but the options currently on offer won’t make the dent in emissions needed to meet the global targets agreed to in Paris,” said Lini Wollenberg, an anthropologist and natural resource management specialist at the University of Vermont. (Eco-Business)
Image source: Transplanting rice by creawebpro / Public domain
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