Energy

Lebanon’s Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi (or Rai) greets supporters on February 27, 2021 at the Maronite Patriarchate in the mountain village of Bkerki, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon on February 27, 2021. Houssam Shbaro | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Lebanon’s most senior Christian cleric, Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, called for a meeting with Iranian-backed

In February, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) announced a $10.1 billion sustainability-linked revolving credit facility. The announcement send shockwaves through the market; it was the largest sustainability-linked loan (SLL) among publicly listed companies in the alcohol sector. By using a pricing mechanism that incentivizes improvement in areas aligned with the company’s 2025 sustainability goals, the loan

Corporate renewable deals got off to a sleepy but respectable start in 2021, with the largest contracts from U.S. companies reaching just shy of 2 gigawatts of capacity.  This represents a cooling from the fourth quarter’s blockbuster 7.3 GW but a steady climb from the first quarter of previous years — Q1 2019 saw 757

In this article LYC-AU MP A wheel loader operator fills a truck with ore at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California, January 30, 2020. Steve Marcus | Reuters The United States has made previous attempts to reemerge as a dominant player in a rare earths supply chain that is responsible for

Week in Review Stories discussed this week (9:58). Features Highlights from the mainstage of GreenFin 21 (22:35) In the first of two parts, we feature outtakes from two great panel discussions this week during the inaugural GreenFin event. Look for more coverage on the site and in this podcast next week. Meanwhile, let’s hear from: Rick

In this article SGRE-ES VWS-DK GE LONDON — If there’s one word that can be associated with wind energy, it’s “big.” From billion-dollar deals to vast wind farms capable of powering a million homes, the industry has undergone a massive expansion in the last few years. According to a recent report from the Global Wind

Date/Time: May 18, 2021 (1-2PM ET / 10-11AM PT) For companies on a journey to net-zero, examining the carbon footprint of buildings is a relatively easy first step. In fact, organizations can make real, actualized progress towards zero simply by reducing the carbon associated with the design and construction of their buildings. In this webcast,

In this article SHLX Electric vehicles will play a critical role in Royal Dutch Shell‘s efforts to cut emissions, according to a senior executive at the oil giant. “If you look at the decarbonization opportunities of this mobility sector, EV plays a crucial role,” said Huibert Vigeveno, downstream director at Shell, adding that the company intends

Date/Time: May 4, 2021 (1-2PM ET / 10-11AM PT) According to Project Drawdown, adopting end of life strategies for old refrigerants (e.g., CFCs, HCFCs, and HFCs) will prevent the release of 57.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) into the atmosphere. According to a recent MIT study, emissions from the remaining stocks of CFCs alone

In this article The Isles of Scilly are located in waters off the coast of south west England. Heritage Images | Hulton Archive | Getty Images A year-long research project that will focus on the potential of tidal, wave and floating wind technology in waters off the coast of England has secured support from Marine-i, a program

Agriculture sustainability improvements have long-term positive outcomes both for the planet and the farmer’s wallet, but the upstart costs can be a preventative obstacle. Some big food companies trying to address their Scope 3 emissions have started working to knock down those barriers for farmers.  In 2018, the Land O’Lakes Sustain program, now part of

Outdoor recreation retail co-op REI is asking its suppliers to double down on their climate strategies and social justice policies, and will require all existing partners to share their climate action plans by the end of this year. The expectations were included in the impact report REI released today along with the company’s 2020 financials.

Six years ago, after days of painstaking negotiations, world leaders managed to thrash out a deal on climate change. The result was the Paris Agreement, decided at the COP21 summit in Paris. Described by the United Nations as a legally-binding international treaty on climate change, the landmark accord aims to “limit global warming to well

Date/Time: May 11, 2021 (1-2PM ET / 10-11AM PT) Today’s corporate energy manager faces a challenging balancing act: how to accommodate cost and renewable energy goals, all within an organization’s risk tolerance.  The status quo “transactional” process of buying energy is not the same as the best practices of a well-managed energy portfolio. This webcast

This Earth Day, you might be thinking, “Hey, there’s a pandemic. Let’s sit this one out.” Probably no one would blame you. But journey back with me to last year, at the beginning of COVID-19, when the roads were clear and the air was pristine. If you were like me, it might have been the

The other morning, for the 100th consecutive day, I wrote three pages in my notebook. No specific agenda. No writing prompt. Simply three pages, handwritten with my Bic ReAction No. 2 mechanical pencil, about whatever came to mind. One hundred days in a row. Honoring the practice. These morning pages, as they’re known, have become

Shoppers wearing protective masks walk near the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021. Christopher Pike | Bloomberg | Getty Images The International Monetary Fund has revised its growth forecast upward for the Middle East and North Africa region, as countries recover from the coronavirus

Reprinted from GreenFin Weekly, a free weekly newsletter. Subscribe here. It started with intangibles. I spent about a decade of my life writing about corporate accounting before I began focusing on sustainability and sustainable finance. In between all the conversations on accounting for stock options and leases, one megatrend in corporate accounting beat them all:

Week in Review Stories discussed this week (5:05). Features Learning through simulation (16:30) Last spring, GreenBiz teamed up with leadership development firm WholeWorks on the “Leading the Sustainability Transformation” professional certificate program, organized as a simulation exercise. GreenBiz Senior Vice President and Senior Analyst John Davies drops by with a progress report. Making community investments count

Sports leagues are seeing the impacts and the surge of climate-responsible athletes using their platforms to promote positive environmental and social impact — it’s something for the history books. The golf industry, for one, is increasing its efforts to promote environmental sustainability and marketing to the general public its desire to embrace a more diverse demographic.

This article originally was published on World Resources Institute. In the aftermath of the 6.5 magnitude earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia, in 2016, disaster managers were able to able to identify which communities were at greatest risk due to rapid access to data. They used the open source InaSAFE platform to access real-time hazard data and

In this article ORSTED-DK SGRE-ES Owaki/Kulla | The Image Bank | Getty Images Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to pay around 1.375 billion euros ($1.63 billion) for a 50% stake in one of the world’s biggest offshore wind farms, Orsted’s 752 megawatt (MW) Borssele 1 & 2 facility. Managed by Norges Bank Investment Management,

For me, the most important element of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure and climate action plan is the administration’s conviction that “historically marginalized and polluted overburdened communities” should have a loud say in the policy decisions. It’s not just talk: The Biden bunch has committed to directing at least 40 percent of related investments toward those

Date/Time: May 6, 2021 (1-2PM ET / 10-11AM PT) From global automakers announcing billion-dollar investments in EVs, to the Biden-Harris Administration’s pledge to electrify the federal fleet, the time for electrification is here. Fleet operators and business owners will need to meet a new set of demands and complexities with battery-electric vehicles and infrastructure.  

For more than a decade, this has been the time of year — the run-up to Earth Day — when I’ve surveyed the public opinion polls, of which there have been many, to assess consumer and citizen trends on environmental issues, notably related to shopping. I started doing this in 2007 and, with a few

In the waning months of 2020, the European Union took ambitious steps to address the more than 12 million tons of electronic waste the bloc produces annually. Acknowledging that “Europe is living well beyond planetary boundaries,” a European Parliamen vote called for mandatory repairability scores for consumer electronics, amongst a host of other initiatives intended

Cargill’s new sustainability program, SeaFuther, expands its carbon reduction commitments from the terrestrial to the oceanic. The commitment focuses on Cargill’s aquaculture and aquaculture feed business, targeting a reduction in Scope 3 emissions of 30 percent by 2030, from a 2017 baseline.  As sustainable and environmentally friendly diets increase in popularity, the seafood market is

Week in Review Stories discussed this week (2:00). Features Getting together to buy renewable energy (19:45) Last month, life sciences company MilliporeSigma teamed up with Akamai, Synopsis and Uber to commit to buying 111 megawatts from an Enel Green Power wind-plus-solar project in Texas. We get the details from Greg Rizzo, director of origination-commercial office

During the 20th century, coal was a cheap and reliable source of electricity. Today it’s relatively expensive and highly polluting. The shift to cleaner, less expensive renewable energy is rapidly underway, and it’s happening faster than anyone expected. Our nation’s task now is to manage that transition in a just and sustainable way so that

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R), joined by national security advisor Jake Sullivan (R), speaks while facing Yang Jiechi (2nd L), director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Wang Yi (L), China’s foreign minister at the opening session of U.S.-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska on March

Date/Time: April 20, 2021 (1-2PM ET / 10-11AM PT) Loyola University Chicago, in partnership with its Quinlan School of Business and School of Environmental Sustainability, presents a discussion of the impact of sustainability on people and communities, and the measures business can take. Speakers from supply chain, workforce development, and food insecurity will discuss training

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg protests with her placard reading “School strike for climate” as part of her Fridays for Future protest in front of the Swedish Parliament Riksdagen in Stockholm on October 9, 2020. JONATHAN NACKSTRAND | AFP | Getty Images LONDON — A statue of the climate activist Greta Thunberg that has been

From cardboard boxes delivered to our doors to home appliances, nearly everything comes from industrial processes. Those processes use a lot of energy and largely come from fossil fuels; one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from industry. To achieve net-zero economy-wide emissions by 2050 and limit global warming, industrial emissions must drop while still

Welders work on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve pipeline on June 1, 1980, in West Hackberry, Louisianna. Begun under President Ford to reduce the threat of oil embargoes, the SPR crude oil is stored in huge underground salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico, a natural choice due to the proximity of many refineries and distribution

When I returned to the office after having my first child, I noticed for the first time that all of the offices and conference rooms either had windows or non-locking doors, which left me without any safe spaces for pumping. Fortunately, I work for a supportive company that requested modification from building management to convert

Well before Jan. 20, when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office, they made it clear they would start their terms with a clear policy agenda that addressed seven areas: COVID-19 climate change racial equity economic recovery health care immigration restoring America’s global standing All of these policy areas

This article originally appeared in the State of Green Business 2021. You can download the entire report here. As the circular economy ramps up, we’ve seen impressive innovation in materials, products, models and processes — but innovation on how we treat people has been notably absent. However, as companies, cities and countries alike adopt a more

Net-zero commitments may have ricocheted across banking sector over the last 18 months, but big banks’ attestations of climate concern did not stop many from expanding financing for the world’s top fossil fuel firms during the pandemic year. That is according to the latest edition of the Rainforest Action Network’s annual fossil fuel financing tracker,

When we talk about infrastructure, we usually mean big, heavy stuff: roads; bridges; seawalls and the like. But as Democrats turn their attention to infrastructure measures potentially costing trillions of dollars, that focus needs broadening. Often the most cost-effective infrastructure is not made of concrete or steel, but soil. To see what I mean, check

The Taiwan-owned MV ‘Ever Given’ (Evergreen) container ship, a 400-metre- (1,300-foot-)long and 59-metre wide vessel, is lodged sideways and impeding all traffic across the waterway of Egypt’s Suez Canal, on March 27, 2021. AHMAD HASSAN | AFP | Getty Images The owners of the massive ship blocking the Suez Canal aim to refloat the vessel

The grid faces twin challenges: It needs to become resilient and clean. Alone, either would be daunting. Together, with the right policy support, they might just be urgent enough to get something done.  This week, the Biden administration announced a major infrastructure package, with clean energy and updates to the U.S. electrical grid playing a

Texas had a rough winter in 2021. In mid-February, with temperatures dropping to the single digits, demand for electricity hit a record high throughout Texas. Supply ran short, causing the state’s electric grid operator to implement rolling power outages. At the height of the crisis, more than 4.5 million customers lost power. The freak winter

Week in Review Stories discussed this week (4:22). Features A new wave for ocean adaptation? (19:30) Oceanographer John Englander chats with Senior Editor Deonna Anderson about his upcoming book, “Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward.”   BSR’s take on resilient business strategies (36:55) A new guide from the nonprofit BSR

Unilever has become one of the first multinational companies in the world to publish a corporate net-zero action plan for oversight by its shareholders, as it prepares to put the climate strategy to an advisory vote at its upcoming AGM in early May. The consumer goods giant this week unveiled its strategy for achieving net-zero

The behemoth cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal and blocking traffic in one of the world’s most important maritime trade chokepoints isn’t set to break free just yet.   The Ever Given, a 220,000-ton mega ship nearly a quarter-mile long with a 20,000 container capacity, ran aground after being blown by strong winds while entering

As discussions over the Biden administration’s $3 trillion infrastructure vision take shape, one principle central to the president’s ideas to help America “build back better” after COVID-19 is ensuring that investments shaping a clean economy are firmly rooted in social and environmental justice.  What better way to actually do that than by more intentionally including

Jeff Landry, Louisiana attorney general, speaks during a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images Fourteen states filed suit on Wednesday against President Joe Biden‘s moratorium on new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and waters. A coalition of

Interest in corporate sustainability metrics has skyrocketed in the last few years, particularly in the financial industry. With it has come a surge in demand for information related to these activities, one accommodated by existing reporting standards and frameworks produced by organizations such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB),