SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT

UBS & peers to track environmental and social impact of financing

A group of banks, including UBS, Singapore's DBS, ABN Amro and Danske Bank, will team up with Harvard Business School to create a new way of measuring the environmental and social impact of their financing to guide decision-making. It marks the first time such measurements have been attempted on this scale in the financial sector. The ‘Banking for Impact’ group, which hopes to include other banks, will aim to devise a new reporting system that tracks the impact of lending not captured by traditional financial reporting by the end of 2022. For example, it is aiming to track whether money provided by the banks is ultimately used in a way that causes pollution, and to create rules on evaluating clients' impact in dollar terms. (Reuters)

CLIMATE CHANGE

Billions of pounds needed to protect Glasgow from climate effects

Nearly 2 million people living in the greater Glasgow area face severe disruption from climate heating unless billions of pounds are invested in protecting homes, businesses and transport links. A report from Climate Ready Clyde – a coalition of 15 councils, universities, the NHS and infrastructure bodies – estimates there is a funding shortfall of at least £184 million a year to protect against climate effects. This would need to cover the cost of retrofitting homes and offices for heatwaves, defending roads and rail links against flooding and storms, and planting 18 million trees to absorb higher temperatures and rainfall over coming decades. Failing to urgently mobilise additional finance could cost the region billions in lost income and emergency spending, and severely affect about 140,000 of the region’s poorest residents. (The Guardian)

COLLABORATION 

Businesses & trade groups call for global negative emissions drive

Leading UK businesses, trade associations, and investors have teamed up to issue a call for a rapid roll-out of negative emissions solutions. The coalition, including air capture technology firms Climeworks and Carbon Engineering, trade bodies the NFU and EnergyUK, energy giant Drax and business group CBI, has warned current investment in 'negative emissions' solutions must increase 30-fold if the world is to meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5◦C target. It estimates efforts to reduce global emissions must be matched by a push to deliver negative emissions capacity of up to 1.2Gt a year by 2025. It names direct air capture and storage, natural climate solutions such as afforestation, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage projects as technologies that could deliver negative emissions at scale, while creating 10 million jobs worldwide. (Business Green)

LAWSUITS

UK Government taken to court over climate impact of roads plan

The UK Government will be taken to the High Court this week by campaign group Transport Action Network (TAN) over its second Road Investment Strategy (RIS2), whose plans were formalised with Highways England in August 2020. TAN argues RIS2 would risk the UK’s ability to align with the Paris Agreement, its 2050 net-zero goal, and new commitment to ensure all major infrastructure projects are ‘nature-positive’. TAN argues the Department for Transport (DfT) has either pushed to convince others that the emissions impacts of road building and use are not “obviously material” to the UK’s climate accounting, or failed to properly assess the impacts of the proposed projects against the 2050 net-zero target and interim Carbon Budgets. The DfT has denied the allegations. (Edie)

SUSTAINABLE FASHION

Study shows greenwashed marketing common with fashion giants

A study of the websites of 12 of the biggest British and European fashion brands has found 60% of the environmental claims could be classed as "unsubstantiated" and "misleading". A report by campaigning organisation The Changing Markets Foundation, assessed Asos, Boohoo, Forever 21, George at Asda, Gucci, H&M, Louis Vuitton, Marks & Spencer, Uniqlo, Walmart, Zalando and Zara against their sustainability claims. Of all products assessed, 39% came with sustainability-related claims such as “recycled”, “eco”, “low-impact, or “sustainable”. The report assessed whether these claims stood up against the Competition and Markets Authority’s  guidelines on avoiding greenwashing, which include metrics like avoidance of ambiguity and not hiding or omitting important information, and found 59% did not, with H&M, Asos and M&S faring worse than the average. (Edie)