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Amazon’s Carbon Emissions Rose in 2021 Fueled by Pandemic Shopping
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Welcome back. Amazon's carbon emissions rose 18% in 2021, the company revealed this week, saying the pandemic-era shopping surge overpowered its efforts to limit its carbon footprint. Net sales surged nearly 22% in 2021, the company tells us, contributing to a slower decline in carbon intensity, a measure of emissions per dollar of sales, it says.
Amazon is less forthcoming when it comes to its scope 3 emissions. These indirect emissions related to a company’s activities but outside its operational control encompass everything from the electricity needed to power games consoles that Amazon sells, to the use of detergent to wash clothes someone buys from the site, to the disposal of packaging that products are delivered in. Whereas rivals such as Walmart and Target include scope 3 emissions in their sustainability disclosures, Amazon uses another metric under which reporting on scope 3 is optional.
For its e-commerce platform, Amazon reports emissions arising from the use of its own-branded goods and not those of the hundreds of thousands of other products sold on the site.
Click here to read the full story by Dieter Holger.
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Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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Investment Managers Can Narrow Income Inequity with ESG Action
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Focused ESG investing by investment managers can help reduce income inequality and increase workers’ access to employment benefits, while building stakeholder trust and long-term financial benefit. Read More ›
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Climate Bill Makes a Comeback
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The Senate bill turbocharging a clean-tech rally contains tax incentives to benefit battery, solar and wind projects in the U.S., similar to this big onshore wind farm near Glasgow, Scotland.
PHOTO: DANNY LAWSON/ZUMA PRESS
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Climate bill stands to give green-energy investors a lift. Industries that produce hydrogen using renewable energy and capture carbon could get the biggest boost from the proposed Senate energy and climate-spending package. The bill, revived last week after secret talks between Sens. Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer, would provide funding to producers of hydrogen—which is seen as a potential replacement for fossil fuels in some industries—with the most cash going to technologies that produce the least emissions,
reports The Wall Street Journal's Amrith Ramkumar.
Efforts to produce green hydrogen and to remove carbon from the atmosphere have for years failed to become economical and to reach the scale necessary to limit climate change.
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Most hydrogen is produced today from natural gas for uses in chemical refining and to make ammonia, a key input for fertilizers. Many of the larger fossil-fuel companies have proposed capturing the carbon from those operations to lower the emissions. Others hope to produce so-called green hydrogen by using machines called electrolyzers that run on renewable power to split water.
A separate permitting-reform bill is also part of the deal, aimed at speeding up the deployment of clean energy. Some scientists and clean-energy business advocates have said the country needs more streamlined permitting procedures to avoid hangups at federal and local levels that often block projects like high-voltage electric transmission, solar farms and mines that produce minerals critical to clean-energy technology.
A preliminary analysis by Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, shows the proposal could put the U.S. on track to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 31% to 44% below 2005 levels by 2030. That is an improvement from current policy that puts the country on track to reduce emissions by only 24% to 35%, the firm says.
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More than two dozen companies and business groups, including ChargePoint, DSM North America, Lightning eMotors, Panasonic, Proterra, Siemens, Rivian and Tesla, called upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to allow California and other states to set ambitious rules that will grow the market for clean medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, as well as the industries needed to support them. The waivers would allow California to implement a suite of heavy-duty vehicle regulations, including its Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule, which would set strong sales targets for electric trucks and vans in the coming years.
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Winter storms in Europe, flooding in Australia and South Africa and a high number of thunderstorms in the U.S. resulted in $35 billion of insured losses from natural catastrophes in the first half of 2022, according to Swiss Re Institute’s preliminary estimates. The record-high temperatures in many parts of Europe may lead to further losses caused by droughts and wildfires, the insurer says.
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A view of the Amazon river. Verra is among global organizations that set standards for projects, such as reforestation of the Amazon, and track the carbon credits associated with these projects.
PHOTO: FERNANDO VERGARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Verra, a nonprofit organization that runs the world’s biggest registry by number of carbon credits issued, said it is considering asking for records that identify people and accounts that track credits turned into crypto tokens, among other requirements, as it looks to rein in the market for its credits on crypto exchanges. There will be a 60-day period for market participants to weigh in before the rules are finalized. The rules are slated to go into effect this year.
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Some of the proceeds of the carbon-credit sales will be shared with the First Nation communities on Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. ALANA PATERSON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Indigenous peoples and loggers win cash, and a truce, from coveted carbon credits. Indigenous communities on a pair of islands off Canada’s west coast have been fighting for nearly four decades to stop logging in local rainforests, reports the Journal's Jacquie McNish. This spring, the communities had a double victory. Logging was stopped on a vast collection of forest stands and a major timber company agreed to pay them millions of dollars to protect trees left standing.
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Energy Crisis Threatens Green Transition
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Fears of a severe energy shortage are leading the German government to consider postponing the shutdown of nuclear reactors. PHOTO: LUKAS BARTH/GETTY IMAGES
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Many market watchers say that Europe’s green-energy plans are taking a back seat to efforts to tackle the effects of the war, higher inflation and post-lockdown strains on supply chains.
Clean-energy supporters say the Ukraine war and high fuel prices could help accelerate the continent’s green transition. But the evidence shows otherwise:
Shell PLC said last week that it was going ahead with a big natural-gas development in the North Sea that had previously been rejected by U.K. regulators on environmental grounds.
French energy giant Schneider Electric SE said it is experiencing delays of up to a year for its renewable-energy projects in countries such as Spain, the Netherlands and the Nordics, largely because of supply-chain issues and higher transport costs.
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Europe’s coal-buying frenzy means windfall for producers. Europe is weaning itself off Russian coal and turning to Colombia and a host of other countries from South Africa to Australia with an urgent appeal: Sell us more coal. A commodity that was fetching $134 a metric ton at the start of the year is now selling for up to $400 a ton, leading coal producers to try to crank up production and creating a windfall in coal-mining communities.
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Nuclear power plants could stay open, says Germany. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said for the first time that his government could postpone the planned closure of its remaining nuclear reactors.
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Join us at the WSJ Pro Sustainable Business Forum on Oct. 13, where we will discuss the critical sustainability issues facing business executives today. With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission due to introduce stringent reporting requirements, the forum will explore the practicalities of reporting and standards, and many other topics. Register for discounted tickets here.
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Robinhood first publicly disclosed the investigation and settlement with the NYDFS a year ago in paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. PHOTO: MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Robinhood’s crypto unit fined $30 million by New York’s top financial regulator. The New York State Department of Financial Services imposed a $30 million fine on the cryptocurrency trading unit of online brokerage Robinhood Markets Inc. for alleged violations of anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity regulations, in the department’s first crypto enforcement action, writes WSJ Pro's Mengqi Sun.
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Before Mr. Floyd’s murder, says Chelsea Crowder-Luke, a vice president in JPMorgan’s private-banking division, she would limit frank conversations about race to group texts or huddles with her Black colleagues. MCKAYLA CHANDLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Black professionals say workplaces have changed since George Floyd—but not enough. In the two years since the murder of George Floyd sparked a national reckoning over racial divisions, some Black professionals describe a more open atmosphere at work, one in which they feel more comfortable being themselves within their professional lives, writes the Journal's Ray A. Smith. In many cases, they say, employers like Verizon have helped, by organizing forums in which Black staff shared the psychological toll of hiding much of their true selves at work, and the sense of loneliness that can come with being one of a few Black faces in the room. Many of their non-Black colleagues, they add, have shown
a willingness to listen and even speak up on their behalf.
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Since 2015, WSJ Pro has published its annual Women to Watch in Private Equity list to highlight the accomplishments of outstanding women in the field. We're accepting nominations for senior deal professionals, rising star deal professionals, and limited partner or fundraising professionals for this year's class. For more information and to submit your nominations before Aug. 8, click on this link.
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Shell to Proceed With Jackdaw Natural-Gas Project as U.K., Europe Seek New Supply
Shell said it is moving forward with plans to develop its Jackdaw natural-gas project in the North Sea as U.K. and European authorities continue to push for increased energy security following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The project could have mixed implications for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, as potentially detrimental ecological impacts and greenhouse-gas emissions could bring negative environmental implications, while improved energy security for its customers could provide a boost to its social profile.
U.K. officials reversed a decision to block the Jackdaw project due to environmental concerns in June, with protesters at Shell's annual shareholder meeting in May focusing their attention on the project. However, with natural-gas supplies under pressure from reduced inflows from Russia and countries facing rationing of gas consumption, authorities granted the go-ahead for the $1 billion project, which could account for more than 6% of North Sea gas by 2025, according to Shell’s estimate. In response to the environmental concerns, Shell said it had amended the plan of the project in order to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
This is a sample of exclusive analysis of sustainability news from the Journal’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) research analysts, whose work is primarily published by Dow Jones Newswires to help institutional investors and wealth managers integrate ESG factors into portfolio models, risk management programs and financial advice. The commentary by our research analysts is independent of the news coverage by reporters at the Journal. For more information about Dow Jones Newswires, click here.
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Wildfires are becoming a year-round challenge for businesses nationwide, but companies can take proactive steps— from scenario planning to site design—to minimize the risks they face, experts said. (WSJ)
Catastrophic climate change outcomes, including human extinction, are not being taken seriously enough by scientists, a new study says. (BBC)
Hundreds of airstrips have been secretly built on protected lands in Brazil to fuel the illegal mining industry, including 61 in the Yanomami Indigenous territory. (The New York Times)
The environmental, social and governance (ESG) approach to investment is broken. It needs to be streamlined and stripped of sanctimoniousness. (The Economist)
A Berkeley, Calif., startup that automates solar panel installation has raised $44 million in a funding round co-led by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures. (Bloomberg)
New satellite images from the European Space Agency have illustrated the extent of dwindling water levels in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, a month after it reached its lowest water level ever recorded. (The Guardian)
Australia's Greens party threw its support behind the government's climate change legislation, clearing the way for a bill enshrining a pledge to cut carbon emissions by 43% by 2030, but said it would oppose new fossil fuel projects. (Reuters)
New Zealand’s government on Wednesday released its first-ever climate adaptation plan, which includes the possibility of moving some communities to higher ground. (Associated Press)
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