CLIMATE CHANGE

Antofagasta adopts TCFD recommendations for its climate reporting

Antofagasta, the matrix company of Antofagasta Minerals and FCAB, has become Chile’s first corporation to adopt the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Antofagasta’s response to the TCFD recommendations, created with the support of sustainable business consultancy Corporate Citizenship, will help the company’s mining operations to adapt better to the risks faced by climate change and strengthen resilience to enhance operational competitiveness. The company has been recently adopting measures to mitigate the climate impact of its operations, including a commitment to reach net-zero by 2050 or earlier, and to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% by 2025 from 2020 levels. Antofagasta’s TCFD announcement comes as the UK’s FCA set out its proposals to extend the climate-related disclosures rules to asset managers, life insurers, FCA-regulated pension providers and companies with a standard listing, which includes Antofagasta. (Timeline; AIMA)

COLLABORATION

Leading cosmetics firms to develop environmental impact scoring

Five leading cosmetics companies – L'Oréal, Unilever, Natura & Co, Henkel, and LVMH – have partnered to develop an industry-wide environmental impact assessment and scoring system for cosmetics products. The founding companies will establish a consortium – open for all cosmetic companies to join – that will work to design the scoring system, aimed at meeting growing consumer demand for greater transparency of products’ environmental impact. The group will work with experts to develop a common methodology for measuring the environmental impact of a product throughout its entire lifecycle, a database of environmental impacts of ingredients and raw materials used in formulas and packaging, a tool for every brand to use to calculate the impact of their products without expert help, and a scoring system that is easily used by consumers to compare products. (Business Green)

SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT 

GSK to invest in renewable energy and redesign GHG-emitting product

Global healthcare company GSK has announced a series of climate-focused initiatives, including £50 million of investments in renewable energy and carbon reduction at its US and UK manufacturing sites. Investments include a project for two new wind turbines and a 20 MW solar farm through a new 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with partner, The Farm Energy Company. It is also investing to move electricity consumption at its New York manufacturing facility to 70% solar power by the end of 2021. The company additionally aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its rescue metered dose asthma inhalers, which currently account for almost half of the company’s carbon emissions, through an R&D programme that assesses a lower GHG propellant, with potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its inhalers by 90%. (ESGToday)

LOBBYING

Livestock industry lobbying UN to support more meat production

Livestock groups have lobbied the UN to support more intensive meat and dairy production before the high-profile UN Food Systems Summit takes place this week in New York, documents seen by The Guardian reveal. Leading up to the summit, discussion groups – known as clusters – worked to produce position papers offering sustainable food system solutions. Earlier this summer, 11 new members were added to the “sustainable livestock” cluster, including a farm animal welfare NGO and environmental scientists. The addition sparked a letter of complaint to the UN from some of the original livestock industry members, describing the new members as wishing “to further an ideological anti-livestock stance”. The summit has received criticism for its original members being heavily weighted towards industry interests, and for failing to include more critical voices from the beginning. (The Guardian)

EMPLOYEES

Apple faces employee unrest and complaints of secretive culture

Technology giant Apple is facing employee unrest, with hundreds of accounts of verbal abuse, sexual harassment, retaliation and workplace discrimination recently submitted to an employee-activist group known as #AppleToo. More than 500 current and former Apple employees have submitted such accounts to #AppleToo over the last month. The group has begun posting some of the anonymous stories online and encouraging colleagues to contact state and federal labour officials with their complaints. Their issues include workplace conditions, unequal pay and the company’s business practices. A common theme is that Apple’s corporate secrecy has created a culture that discourages employees from speaking out about their workplace concerns. Accounts also highlight that their complaints about problematic managers or colleagues are frequently dismissed, and workers are afraid to criticize how the company does business. (New York Times)