Here is today’s sustainability news, research and analysis for technology partners, renewable energy and green IT services companies, management consultants, CIOs, chief sustainability officers (CSOs) and c-suite members.
A. Sustainable Technology, Talent, Partnerships and Green IT Alliances
1. Chief Sustainability Officers List: Our database of chief sustainability officers now spans 415 CSOs.
2. Corporate Sustainability Reports: Our database of annual sustainability reports from businesses, universities and government agencies worldwide now spans 313 organizations.
3. Advisory Board - Climate Management Software: Tokutaro Nakai has joined Persefoni's Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB). Nakai previously was Japan's vice minister for the environment.
4. Partnership - IT Consulting and United Nations Guidance: Global IT consultancy Thoughtworks and the United Nations have co-created the Responsible Technology Playbook -- which provides "practical guidance on ways for UN teams to adopt responsible practices" in sustainability, data and artificial intelligence (AI), and five other areas.
5. Partnership - Green Software and Not-for-Profits: The Tech for Good Alliance, a social-good initiative organized by the Scottish Tech Army, is partnering with GoCodeGreen -- a carbon diagnosis and decisioning platform. The effort seeks to "take a leap towards optimizing the ecological footprint of the technology and software solutions delivered to not-for-profit organizations," Digit News reported. MSP software veteran Alistair Forbes is CEO of the Scottish Tech Army. Eric Zie is CEO and founder of GoCodeGreen.
6. Toyota and Tesla: Toyota Motor is the latest automaker that will adopt Tesla's NACS charging standard in North America, SeekingAlpha reported.
7. Electric Vehicle (EV) Laggard: Suzuki Motor Co. ranked last while other Japanese carmakers fared poorly in Greenpeace’s latest assessment of their progress in phasing out fossil fuels and shifting to electric cars, Bloomberg reported.
8. Gartner Supply Chain Research: Roughly 70% of sustainable procurement leaders consider addressing modern slavery risk a key priority, but just half report making effective progress on the issue, according to Gartner.
9. COP28 - Climate Fund Concerns: Ahead of the conference, a major divide is emerging between developed and developing nations over who should operate and finance a fund that covers damages caused by climate change, Bloomberg reported.
10. COP28 - Financial Executives Return: Wall Street is returning to climate talks that it largely snubbed in 2022, as the United Arab Emirates steps into the role of host of COP28, Bloomberg reported. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is among a string of finance heavyweights planning to attend the COP28 summit in Dubai that starts in November 2023, the report said.
B. Sustainability M&A, Investments, Funding and Green IT Business Launches
1. M&A: Environmental Systems Group has acquired ELOS Environmental, a provider of environmental consulting services based in Hammond, Louisiana. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
2. Funding - Real Estate: Smarter Dharma, which develops a sustainability platform for real estate firms, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from Zerodha's investment arm Rainmatter, Gruhas, Anthill Ventures, Inc 42 reported.
3. Solar Stocks Fall Sharply: Solar energy stocks declined rapidly after SolarEdge Technologies issued an earnings warning on October 19. SolarEdge expects Q3 sales to be $720 million to $730 million -- far short of the company's previous $880 million to $920 million estimates. Solar installs have slowed and channel inventory remains higher than expected, the company said. SolarEdge's stock fell about 20% on the news. The announcement pressured numerous Solar stocks -- including shares in Enphase Energy, Sunrun, SunPower, Maxeon Solar, Sunnova Energy, First Solar, JinkoSolar, Array Technologies and Canadian Solar, SeekingAlpha reported.
C. Regional and Global Sustainability Policies and News
1. United States - Fed Protestor: The protest group founder interrupted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech in New York, calling Powell a him a “climate criminal,” and alleging that Powell could be doing more to regulate banks that are financing fossil fuel investments, Bloomberg reported.
2. United States - Wind Power Challenges: Developers in the U.S. offshore wind industry will likely cancel some wind power power sales contracts in New York after the state denied passing on more of the costs to consumers, but major projects off Massachusetts and Rhode Island are set to start up later this year, Reuters reported.
3. United Kingdom - Wind Power Challenges: Wind-farm developers are lobbying the UK government to give them more wind farm tax breaks in the fall budget, arguing that rising interest rates and supply-chain costs are putting the viability of some new projects in doubt, Bloomberg reported.
4. Italy - Energy and Bond Challenges: Enel SpA, an Italian energy company, is on track to miss a key target tied to the terms of almost $11 billion of sustainability-linked bonds, meaning investors may see a rare trigger event play out, Bloomberg reported. It is “highly unlikely” that Enel will achieve an end of 2023 carbon-emissions goal after changes to European energy policy resulted in the delayed phaseout of coal plants, the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute, the report said. Failure to meet the key performance indicator would release an estimated $27 million of additional annual interest costs for the Italian energy company, Bloomberg noted.
D. Sustainability and Green Technology Conference Calendar
- The Political Economics of Environmental Sustainability Conference 2023 (October 23-24, Stanford University)
- VERGE 23 Climate Tech Event (October 24-26, San Jose, California)
- NAEM's EHS & Sustainability Management Forum 2023 (October 24-27, Cleveland, Ohio)
- Valencia Digital Summit 2023 (October 26-27, Valencia)
- Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit 2023 (October 29-31, London)
- Complete Calendar of Sustainability Conferences
E. Previous Updates & Future News
1. Did You Miss Yesterday's Daily Update?: Here is our previous sustainability, green IT and renewable energy news for technology partners.
2. Future Updates: Send us your news tips. Please email me the details.
