Here is today’s sustainability news, research and analysis for technology partners, management consultants, CIOs, chief sustainability officers (CSOs) and c-suite members.
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A. Sustainable Technology, Talent, Partnerships and Alliances
1. New Corporate Sustainability Reports: Our database tracking corporate sustainability reports and associated net-zero goals now spans 167 companies and organizations. Today's additions include BKV, Colliers, Fusion Fuel, Itron, Richemont, and ZTE.
2. Sustainability Partner Program - Smartphones: Fairphone, which develops a sustainable smartphone that runs Google Android, has been added to our Sustainability Partner Programs database. More than 100 hardware, software, cloud and energy companies are now listed in the database. Update - June 29, 2023: Fairphone CEO Eva Gouwens steps down.
3. Apple Worldwide Developer Conference - Sustainable Technology?: Apple is expected to unveil an augmented reality headset at WWDC 2023 -- scheduled for this week at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California. The event is mostly virtual, Bloomberg reported. We'll be listening closely to learn about potential sustainability use cases. Also, we'll listen for updates involving Apple's right to repair, circular economy and e-waste programs. Here's a list of potential Apple WWDC product announcements, from ZDnet.
4. State of Green Software: Find the latest perspectives on green software here -- from the Green Software Foundation Projects LLC. Among the anecdotes to note: More than 60% of software developers are interested but not yet involved with various sustainability initiatives in their workplace.
5. Sustainable Cloud Strategies: Blesson Gregory, a cloud consultant at TCS Australia and New Zealand, describes the sustainable benefits of cloud services in this blog.
6. Partnership - Sustainable Networks and E-Waste Management: Ericsson and Zain Group are partnering to drive sustainability initiatives for more energy-efficient networks. The relationship also involves the Ericsson Take-Back Program -- which supports responsible disposal and recycling of e-waste.
7. Research - Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Survey Data: Find some factoids and findings here from PwC.
8. EV Charging Stations - App: PlugShare, owned by EVgo, has now managed more than 6.5 million electric vehicle (EV). Also, the PlugShare user base also grew more than 40% in the last year, adding 1 million new users to reach over 3.5 million registered users around the globe. More than 750,000 charging stations are listed on the platform.
9. EV Charging Stations - Growth: Allego, which develops a pan-European public electric vehicle fast and ultrafast charging network, remains in growth mode. Total revenue was €38.8 million (US$41.5 million) on Q1 of 2023, up 27.4% from Q1 of 2022. First quarter operational EBITDA was €8.9 million ($9.5 million) compared to €1.5 million (US$1.6 millon) for the three months ended March 31, 2022. The EBITDA improvement mainly involved higher recurring charging revenues and cost-efficient long-term hedging of energy, Allego said. We plan to check in with the company to learn about potential partner milestones.
9. EV Charging - Energy Management Platform: SolarEdge Technologies has launched a solar-attached Electric Vehicle (EV) management solution for the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) segment. The software "manages and optimizes the EV charging process for sites that require dynamic load management and have large quantities of EVs, such as apartment buildings, workplaces and public charging locations," the company said. The platform involves software from Wevo Energy, a startup in which SolarEdge is an investor.
B. Sustainability M&A, Investments and Funding
1. SEC Climate Disclosure Rule: Here are IBM's perspectives on the proposed SEC climate disclosure rule.
2. Funding - ESG Software Startup: Sentra.World has raised $2 million in seed funding, Entrepreneur India reported. We'll be watching to see if the ESG software startup builds a partner program.
C. Regional and Global Sustainability Policies and News
1. United States - Texas Clean Energy Policies: Clean-energy advocates say they have avoided disaster in Texas, The Wall Street Journal reported. A barrage of measures in the Texas legislature had threatened wind and solar projects, but according to renewables-project developers, the worst of those weren’t enacted, the report said.
2. United Nations - Carbon Credit Debate: The United Nations is in the process of defining global carbon markets for decades to come, and it could make or break the fledging carbon removal industry, Bloomberg reported.
3. Germany Strategy: Germany is launching a program that will make available tens of billions of euros for firms facing substantial energy costs, in a bid to help its challenged industrial sector fund a shift towards carbon-neutral production techniques, Reuters reported.
4. Germany - Energy Transition Costs: Germany expects the cost of transforming its natural gas and heating networks to reach as much as €14 billion ($15 billion) by the end of the decade, the first time an official estimate has been given, Bloomberg reported.
5. China - Long-Range Batteries: One of China’s top battery-makers reckons it has cracked a technology to provide even cheaper and more powerful packs for electric vehicles, Bloomberg reported. Gotion High-Tech Co. recently unveiled a lithium-iron-manganese-phosphate battery — LMFP for short — which it says will power an EV for 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) on each charge., the report said. Until now, it’s largely the more expensive nickel-cobalt batteries have provided that kind of range, the report noted.
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