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Introduction
In this week's CSR news, the G20 countries have not yet adopted ambitious trajectories for moving away from fossil fuels, and policies to reduce GHG emissions are not really having any significant effect... In short, the transition to action is complicated.
And yet, many solutions are being put in place, such as the green taxonomy, which helps companies to steer their CSR strategy, and the CSRD, even if it is challenged by the Draghi report.
Find out more about the top 10 CSR news stories of the week in this article.
CSRD and CSR regulations under heavy attack
On September 9, the Draghi Report was submitted to the European Commission, calling for a massive "simplification" of regulations deemed too restrictive for business competitiveness. The report is eagerly awaited, and raises the question of how to strike the right balance between CSR and financial performance.
Under pressure from American and Chinese competition, companies' competitiveness would face a "regulatory burden", claim European Commission officials in the report. This poses a direct threat to the CSRD, the CSDDD, the green taxonomy, the European Waste Regulation and the SFDR. These are all safeguards that provide a framework for the economic activity of European companies.
The simplification praised by the report would pave the way for deregulation, with the risk of deregulating practices that could severely hamper Europe's green transition.
20 years of ineffective climate policies?
An article published in the renowned journal Science reveals a profound lack of effectiveness in GHG emissions reduction policies over the last 20 years. 1,500 measures from 41 countries were identified and studied. The result: only 63 "have had a truly significant effect" on reducing emissions.
The researchers note that the only answer to this inefficiency is to combine measures: taken in isolation, these measures have very little effect on reducing GHG emissions.
Thus, combining bans, incentives and taxes in a single policy, applied to a given sector, would be the truly effective way to put an end to a superfluous accumulation of measures that lack real climate ambition.
How are French companies taking green taxonomy into account?
KPMG has published a study on the relationship between French companies and European green taxonomies. Focusing on 60 companies from 14 sectors affected by the regulations, the study examines their CSR strategies.
It appears that 55% of them claim to steer their CSR strategy "taking into account the European green taxonomy".. What's more, 87% feel that their sales, CapEx or OpEx "are aligned" with at least one objective contained in these taxonomies.
In other words, the European classification of economic activities according to their sustainability seems to have an important influence on the impact strategies of French companies. This reflects "a strong desire to make investments in a sustainable manner", says the study.
Is sobriety the only credible prospect for decarbonization?
The Institut Jacques Delors has published a decryption on energy sobriety. It questions the political value generally attributed to this notion. Indeed, sobriety is often invoked by public authorities in times of crisis, to temporarily justify austerity measures in the face of major imponderables and economic shocks, for example.
On the contrary, the report argues that sobriety should be made a "political object in its own right", as part of the long-term development of public energy policies.
To this end, they call for the potential benefits of sobriety to be measured, using evaluation and monitoring indicators that underline the value of a long-term sobriety policy. Indeed, such anticipations, which require heavy investment in sustainable infrastructures, "will remain lower than the cost of inaction".
Carbon credits: 37 Chinese projects written off by a major organization
Verra, the leading organization specializing in the trading and labeling of carbon credits, has removed 37 Chinese rice-growing projects from its certification register. Deemed too unreliable, this decision is bad news for an already fragile voluntary carbon credit market.
These rice-growing projects in China turn out to emit far more GHGs than advertised, and the Verra organization seriously questions the additionality of these offset projects.
There is therefore a risk that the carbon credit market will gradually "deflate", with demand falling by 56% in 2023. Gilles Dufrasne, of the NGO Carbon Market Watchspeaks of a "growing awareness on the part of companies", who are increasingly turning away.
Where do we stand with green bonds?
A bond that commits its issuer to financing environmentally-friendly projects is said to be "green". At the end of 2023, the green bond market was worth 1,834 billion euros. Having accelerated rapidly over the past 15 years, we can see that this market is financed by an increasingly diverse range of players.
Europe accounts for 41% of the global green bond market, with the euro accounting for 50% of issuance. France, Germany and Italy make up the top three European issuers in 2023, maintaining the continent's position as world leader in this field.
However, the banking sector, on the one hand, and utilities on the other, are players with a growing presence in this market. What's more, we're seeing the beginnings of a real geographical diversification of this dynamic, with emerging countries entering the fray: "In 2023, India, Brazil, Egypt and Turkey will have issued their first sovereign green bonds".
How do you measure your social impact?
While the measurement of a company's environmental performance is becoming increasingly reliable, the measurement of its social impact continues to suffer from a certain methodological vagueness. To date, there are several reporting approaches, "all of which can be perfected".
The "avoided costs" method has become established in France, and is used to describe actions that save the community money. However, this approach is not universally convincing, and tends to monetize initiatives whose raison d'être is their positive impact.
Thus, monetizing positive social impact initiatives can be an effective way of highlighting their social value. However, this is not an end in itself, but rather a way of highlighting their importance: "The risk would be to value only economic effects and not the sometimes predominant social effects", reads a study carried out by ESSEC and Impact Tank.
A timid G20 on fossil fuels?
NGOs have voiced their concerns about the weakness of the commitments made by G20 countries to adopt ambitious trajectories for phasing out fossil fuels. Yet this was a "crucial promise" of the last COP28.
We also learn that the draft declarations were originally intended to include the COP28 commitment to undertake a "just transition" away from fossil fuels. However, the Brazilian presidency of the G20 seems to have omitted it from its working documents.
For example, the Brazilian NGO Observatoire du Climat states that "the resistance of countries" to mentioning "fossil fuels and the need to move away from them is obvious". This is in line with the fears expressed by other NGOs and associations that the essential challenge of reducing the use of fossil fuels in energy systems is being given far too little consideration.
Methane emissions pose a serious threat to climate targets
The rate at which methane (CH4) emissions into the atmosphere are increasing has accelerated dangerously in recent years, according to a new global methane assessment published in the journal Environmental Research Letters by nearly 70 scientists from the Global Carbon Project.
The second most important greenhouse gas, methane is responsible for around a third of global warming. Its main difference from CO2 is its lifespan: just 9 years in the atmosphere. However, it is 80 times more damaging over 20 years.
The report identifies fossil fuels, agriculture and waste as the main sources of these record emissions. The year 2020, the most recent for which full data is available, shows 400 million tonnes of anthropogenic methane emissions.
Tech giants cut back on air travel
The NGO Transport & Environment has examined the ecological impact of business travel by tech giants. Of the 26 companies surveyed, only 7 have "clear objectives" in this area.
However, there has been an overall reduction of 49% in their emissions generated by business travel, compared to 2019. There are two factors to consider here:
These reductions are mainly due to a transformation in the modalities of professional interaction, via the advent of telecommuting and videoconferencing.
The biggest tech players, such as Google and Apple, have not set any specific reduction targets, and their results are almost twice as low as those of other companies.
As a result, "the adoption of clear strategies" is a preferred means of adapting to and mitigating climate change.
The sources
Novethic "Draghi report could 'kill' CSRD and European duty of care".
Youmatter "Only 4.2% of global climate policies are truly effective"
Youmatter "CSR news, Green taxonomy
Carenews "The Jacques Delors Institute publishes a decryption on energy sobriety".
Novethic "For the first time, some 40 carbon credit projects written off for inefficiency"
Youmatter "Should social impact be monetized to enhance its value?"
Sustainable news "Climate: NGOs worry about G20's lack of ambition on fossil fuels".
Le Monde "Methane emissions have never been so high, jeopardizing climate targets"
RSE magazine "Leading technology companies cut business travel emissions in half".
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