Here is today’s sustainability news, research and analysis for technology partners, renewable energy and green IT companies, management consultants, CIOs, chief sustainability officers (CSOs) and c-suite members.
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A. Sustainable Technology, Talent, Partnerships and Alliances
1. Annual ESG Reports: Our global database of annual sustainability and ESG reports now spans 278 companies. The latest additions are: Orla Mining, Qualys and Southwire.
2. Chief Sustainability Officers (CSO) List: Our database of chief sustainability officers now spans 316 CSOs. The latest addition is Burt Fealing, executive VP, general counsel and chief sustainability officer, Southwire Company.
3. Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS): Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) will deploy a Strata Grid Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) at NREL’s Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF). NREL is short for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
4. AI and Sustainability Disclosures: Keep an eye on Chatreport, a Language Model-based tool for sustainability disclosure analysis.
5. Research - ESG Survey: When it comes to perspectives on ESG reporting, there is a disconnect between executives and employees, according to Workiva survey results.
6. Executive Leadership - ESG Software: EcoOnline, backed by private equity firm Apax, has hired Tom Goodmanson as CEO. We'll share more perspectives soon.
7. Hardware and Circular Economy: By 2030, 80% of hardware vendors’ product portfolio will be linked to circular initiatives, up from 20% in 2023, according to Gartner.
8. COP28 - Air Pollution: Nearly 50 organizations have signed a letter calling on COP28 President-Designate Dr. Al Jaber to "take steps to reduce air pollution and deliver win-wins for climate, public health and economies," according to The Clean Air Fund.
9. Activist Investor: Arena Investors has sent a letter to Charge Enterprises' board of directors, urging the board to "take clear steps towards improving Charge's current corporate management and operations, with the goal of remedying Charge's dramatic underperformance, including an approximately 78% decline in Charge's stock price in the past year," the activist investor said. Charge Enterprises has not yet replied to the letter.
B. Sustainability M&A, Investments and Funding
1. Bond Investing and Climate Risks: Bond investors can’t rely on credit ratings to give them a fair assessment of the climate risk they’re exposed to, and should brace for “trouble ahead,” according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, as reported by Bloomberg.
2. Regulations: The asset management unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co. is breaking away from a number of its peers and voluntarily complying with a new European Union rule that requires fund managers to report their social and environmental impact, Bloomberg reported.
3. Exit: IBM has sold The Weather Company assets to private equity firm Francisco Partners. IBM will retain the sustainability software business, including its Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
4. All M&A Activity: Our M&A database has now tracked 119 mergers and acquisitions so far in 2023. See all M&A deals involving sustainability listed here.
C. Regional and Global Sustainability Policies and News
1. Germany: The German government is overestimating the impact of its recently announced climate protection efforts and will likely make less progress on reducing emissions than it currently assumes, Bloomberg reported.
2. Europe - EV Charging Network: Tritium DCFC and evyve have deployed 150 rapid electric vehicle (EV) chargers at retail and hospitality sites across the UK, from Eastbourne to Edinburgh, the two companies said. The evyve charging network has 98% uptime, the companies said.
3. South America: Ecuadorean referendums to ban oil drilling in a part of the Amazon and mining in a forest outside Quito easily passed, drawing cheers from Indigenous leaders and environmentalists despite warnings from oil and mining groups about billions of dollars in lost income, Reuters reported.
D. Sustainability and Green Technology Conference Calendar
- Google Cloud Next 2023 Partner and Customer Conference (August 29-21, San Francisco)
- Sustainability Live 2023 (Sept. 6-7, London, United Kingdom)
- ICSD 2023 Sustainability Conference (September 6-7, Rome, Italy)
- Sustainability Reporting Europe 2023 (September 6-7, London, United Kingdom)
- Reuters Impact 2023 (September 6-7, London, United Kingdom)
- 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.
