This week: A better Black job market; 17-year wait for a permit; carmakers' new EV gold rush

Welcome back. A continuing review of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol—a widely used guideline for calculating greenhouse-gas emissions—could significantly change the carbon footprint metric of the energy that companies buy, so-called scope 2 emissions.

Shifting to renewables is a very popular way for companies to cut their scope 2 emissions and make progress toward their decarbonization targets. Cutting Scope 1 often requires more fundamental changes to equipment or industrial processes, while reducing scope 3 emissions means working along the value chain, usually with a long line of suppliers and customers.

In contrast, lowering scope 2 emissions requires a relatively simpler switch to cleaner energy sources. That can be done using a combination of methods, including putting up solar panels or wind turbines, installing batteries, signing long-term purchase agreements of clean energy or buying renewable-energy certificates to offset the fossil-fuel energy actually used.

Why it matters

The change is important because so many companies are switching to cleaner energy sources, which often involves multiyear or even decades-long commitments. Even though no decision has yet been made to change the guidelines, it is important to be aware of the possibility because of its potential to change the carbon-return on investments being made now.

Key takeaways

Companies considering new clean-power arrangements might want to consider how the more-granular requirements by location and time of day might affect their footprints, to future-proof those investments for that type of change in the protocol.

Another takeaway: You can still make your voice heard. The GHG Protocol review is continuing. The secretariat is digesting the more than 1,400 survey responses it has received but it plans to conduct more surveys, convene technical experts and seek more feedback on proposals before making changes.

Tell me what you think: Send me your feedback and suggestions at rochelle.toplensky@wsj.com or reply to any newsletter. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up here.

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The tightest job market in generations is transforming the employment prospects for Black Americans in ways that could be more long-lasting than in past economic expansions, write The Wall Street Journal's Sarah Chaney Cambon and Gwynn Guilford.

As the U.S. debt-ceiling drama continues, an overhaul of permitting is one of the areas being discussed, a possibility this newsletter highlighted three weeks ago. The 17-year long saga of the 'fast-tracked' SunZia project—a massive power line and wind farm in the Western U.S.—drives home why a permitting revamp would be such a boon to the transition.

The specter of an eventual electric-vehicle battery shortage is pushing car companies to get more directly involved in the mining business, one that is largely foreign to them and introduces new risks, write the Journal's Mike Colias and Scott Patterson.

The effort reflects a belated realization by auto executives that the mining sector—despite the promise of huge demand—hasn’t mobilized to unearth enough of these battery minerals.

• Morgan Stanley raises $500 million for its 1GT strategy to cut the equivalent of one gigaton of CO2 emissions by 2050.
• Big energy companies are retreating from higher-polluting and riskier projects, but a bunch of smaller businesses are rushing in.
• The fight to protect the Joshua tree is complicating a housing push.
• The French president courts Elon Musk's green investment.
• Cancel that brainstorm. It turns out giving workers alone time could yield more innovation. 

More consolidation lies ahead for private equity and other managers of private capital as firms scramble to amass fee-generating assets.

Renewable-energy companies are taking up a growing share of industrial real estate, providing a boost to warehouse operators amid sagging demand for e-commerce business.

Corporate venture-capital investors are writing bigger checks to fast-track the growth of artificial-intelligence startups.

Companies outside the tech sector are facing an uphill battle in trying to recruit Big Tech’s laid-off software developers, engineers and data scientists, recruiters say.

As investors and regulators seek more information on companies’ country-by-country levies, tax executives have concerns about the high costs and challenges of such data collection.

• The return of EV battery swapping (Bloomberg)
• New federal methane regulations could create up to 35,000 jobs in Texas (Texas Climate Jobs Project)
• Analysis of how much damage climate change has added to extreme weather could influence litigation, insurance claims and policy (Scientific American) 
• Energy storage farm could replace Hawaii's last coal-fired power plant (AP)
• Robots to build solar farms faster (Canary)
• Peanut butter helps a project to reintroduce critically endangered marsupial in Australia outperform (Guardian)
• Europe's emissions have fallen to below lockdown levels (Bloomberg)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business covers environmental, social and governance issues. Send comments to Bureau Chief Rochelle Toplensky at rochelle.toplensky@wsj.com and follow her on Twitter @RToplensky.