Written by Anthony Walters – Clever‘s Head of ESG, ESG in 5 is a roundup of 5 key pieces of ESG news and performance, from the past week.
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Banking on a Greener Future, No Coal in the Financing Furnace
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H&M Threads a Green Loan Initiative with DBS for Fashion’s Carbon Cut
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Prime Sustainability: Amazon Delivers 100% Recyclable Packaging in Europe
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Maersk Sets Sail with Green Methanol
Market Recap
Although both markets were slightly down for the week, the MSCI ACWI index returned -0.67% compared to the -0.71% of the MSCI ACWI ESG Focus Index.
BNP Paribas Ends Financing for Metallurgical Coal Mining
Paris-based global bank BNP Paribas announced that it will no longer provides financing to projects dedicated to the extraction of metallurgical coal, adding a new element to its efforts to align its financing and investment activities with its net zero commitments. Metallurgical coal is a key ingredient in steel manufacturing, powering the blast furnaces used in the steelmaking process, and contributing most of the industry’s carbon footprint, with combustion of metallurgical coal responsible for over 3,000 megatonnes of CO2 in 2021, according to the Transition Pathway Initiative.
H&M Launches Green Loan Program to Finance Suppliers’ Emissions Reductions Initiatives
Fashion and design brands company H&M Group announced the launch of a new green loan program aimed at facilitating decarbonization in the fashion sector in partnership with Singapore-based financial services group DBS. Under the new program, the H&M’s suppliers will get access to financing from DBS, with “highly favorable” terms to suppliers with specific GHG emission reduction activities. In addition to the financing, suppliers in the program will also receive technical support from sustainability consultant, Guidehouse, to embark on factory upgrades to decrease their climate impact.
Amazon Achieves 100% Recyclable Delivery Packaging in Europe
Amazon announced that it has achieved 100% recyclable delivery packaging in Europe. The achievement includes all boxes, bags and envelopes across all items sold by Amazon, as well as third-party selling partners that use Fulfilment by Amazon.
The company outlined some of the sustainable packaging strategies it is piloting across Europe including padded envelopes made only with paper, reusable delivery bags, and incentives for selling partners to reduce their packaging. The company said that it uses an algorithm to ascertain the lightest packaging necessary to protect a product during shipment, which has saved more than 60,000 tons of cardboard annually. In its most recent sustainability report Amazon said it shipped only 40% of packages in cardboard, 49% in “flexibles” such as paper and recyclable plastic envelopes and bags, and 11% in their own containers.
Maersk Signs its Largest-Ever Green Fuel Deal to Drive Fleet Decarbonisation
Integrated container logistics company A.P. Moller – Maersk announced today a major fuel purchase agreement with China-based clean energy company Goldwind, for the offtake of 500,000 tonnes per year of green methanol, beginning in 2026. According to Maersk, the deal marks first large scale green methanol offtake agreement for the global shipping industry, and will enable low carbon operations for the company’s first 12 large methanol-enabled vessels.
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Sources.
Anthony Walters – Head of ESG at Clever Adviser Technology Ltd (Clever)
Market recap – Data sourced from FE FundInfo & Koyfin (quoted in Pounds Sterling).
BNP Paribas Ends Financing for Metallurgical Coal Mining by Mark Segal, ESG Today, 27/11/23
H&M Launches Green Loan Program to Finance Suppliers’ Emissions Reductions Initiatives, by Mark Segal, ESG Today, 27/11/23
Amazon Achieves 100% Recyclable Delivery Packaging in Europe by Susan Lahey, ESG Today, 23/11/23
Maersk Signs its Largest-Ever Green Fuel Deal to Drive Fleet Decarbonisation, Susan Lahey, ESG Today, 22/11/23 20/11/23
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