CIRCULAR ECONOMY

John Lewis Partnership & Hubbub launch £1m fund for circular economy

The John Lewis Partnership, owner of Waitrose & Partners and John Lewis, has launched a £1 million fund to be administered by environmental charity Hubbub that will provide grants of up to £300,000 for innovative projects that can help deliver a circular economy. The ‘Circular Future Fund’ is open to charities, start-ups, academic bodies, social enterprises, and Community Interest Companies. It will provide grants of between £150,000 and £300,000 to innovative projects in the textiles, food, household products, technology, and services sectors that rethink waste streams, shift consumer mindsets, or develop new business models that can enable circular resource flows. It looks to support projects with a "measurable impact" and a "clear legacy", with grants set to be administered from May. (Business Green)

ANIMAL WELFARE

Supermarkets ignoring environmental damage in fish supply chains

An analysis covering 33 major European food retailers has found that three-quarters have a "near-total" lack of strong policies to safeguard the environment and improve animal welfare in their fish supply chains. The report deems 76% of the retailers to have a “near-total lack” of “substantive policies” to tackle the most pressing environmental and ethical issues in the supply chain, especially in eliminating wild-caught fish from fish feed. On transparency and communications, 27% of retailers do not include a producer or farm name on their on-pack labels, do not report on any fish welfare indicators and do not publicly provide information on the composition and origin of fish feed. Marks & Spencer was the highest-scoring UK retailer, while Asda, Lidl GB and Iceland rounded out the bottom three UK retailers.  (edie)

SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT 

Euro zone banks are still missing European Central Banks' climate risk goals

The European Central Bank (ECB) has said no big euro zone lender meets its climate risk management goals. The ECB, which outlined its climate and environment risk-related expectations last year, has noted banks are being slow in adopting them with the supervisor repeatedly calling on lenders to pick up the pace. According to the ECB, only one-third of banks have plans in place that are broadly adequate, and half won’t have completed implementation of their plans by the end of 2022. Banks have made progress regarding management bodies, risk appetite and operational risk management, but fail in areas like internal reporting, market and liquidity risk management and stress testing. The ECB plans a full review of banks' preparations along with the climate stress test in the first half of 2022. (Reuters)

POLICY

Singapore targets 2 million tonnes of carbon capture potential by 2030

Singapore is aiming to realise at least 2 million tonnes of carbon capture potential by 2030 as part of a broader effort to make its Jurong Island oil refinery hub more sustainable. Singapore is aiming to create a testbed for the technology for capturing carbon dioxide emissions through storage or for reuse, which is still in development, on Jurong Island, where the likes of Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil own petrochemical plants. Both Shell and Exxon have flagged their interest in building carbon capture and storage facilities in Southeast Asia. Singapore's Economic Development Board also set a 2030 target for the energy and chemicals sector to increase the output of sustainable products by 1.5 times from 2019 levels. (Reuters)

ENERGY

UK Government unveils subsidies for domestic flights, despite backlash

Just weeks after cutting air passenger duty for short-haul flights, in a move broadly dubbed hypocritical in light of national net-zero targets, the UK Government has announced up to £4.3 million in additional funding for domestic flight routes. The new funding will support flights between London and Newquay and London and Dundee. It will be allocated over a two-year period. The Government has justified the decisions by stating that they will be “a major boost for regional links” creating “hundreds of jobs”, and that the flight routes will be in place only while work continues to improve transport connectivity by other modes, including rail. However, the move will likely be extremely unpopular across the UK’s green economy, in light of the UK’s net-zero target and position as COP26 host. (edie)

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