International Enterprises

L’Oréal Signs Deals to Cover 25% of Electricity Consumption in France with Renewable Energy

L’Oréal Group announced that it has signed agreements with power producer and service provider EDF to provide renewable energy from 2 new solar parks, capable of producing the equivalent of 25% of the beauty company’s electricity consumption in France. Under the new power purchase agreement (PPA), EDF will supply L’Oréal with the entire production from solar parks located in the Corrèze and Vosges regions in France, to be built and operated by EDF Renewables, with a combined installed capacity of 27 MWp. The Corrèze and Vosges plants are expected to be commissioned in late 2024 and early 2025, respectively.

_{source: https://www.esgtoday.com/loreal-signs-deals-to-cover-25-of-electricity-consumption-in-france-with-renewable-energy/}

Wizz Air Announces Deal for 36,000 Tons of Sustainable Aviation Fuel

On February 22, European low-cost airline Wizz Air announced an agreement with sustainable aviation fuel provider Neste, enabling the company to purchase 36,000 tons of SAF to supply its operations across Europe and the UK, beginning in 2025. The purchase forms a key part of the company’s environmental strategy, which includes goals to reduce carbon emissions intensity by 25% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. The company has been replacing older aircraft in its fleet with new Airbus A321neo aircraft, which can currently fly with up to 50% SAF blend.

_{Source: https://www.esgtoday.com/wizz-air-announces-purchase-deal-for-36000-tons-of-sustainable-aviation-fuel/}

Wolters Kluwer Launches New Division Focused on ESG Solutions

Professional services and information solutions provider Wolters Kluwer announced the formation of a new Corporate Performance & ESG division, aimed to provide integrated financial, operational, and ESG performance management and reporting solutions for corporations and banks.

_{Source: https://www.esgtoday.com/wolters-kluwer-launches-new-division-focused-on-esg-solutions/}

UL Solutions Launches New ESG Advisory and Assurance Practice

Services listed on the UL Solutions Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Advisory and Assurance Services website include CDP disclosure review, Scope 3 baseline development, environmental gap analysis, materiality assessment, ESG training, GHG verification assurance, science-based target readiness assessment and target development, SFDR alignment, and TCFD assessment, among others.

_{Source: https://www.esgtoday.com/ul-solutions-launches-new-esg-advisory-and-assurance-practice/}

Chinese Enterprises

China Creation Ventures officially joined UNPRI

Recently, China Creation Ventures (CCV) officially joined the United Nations Organization for Responsible Investment Principles ("UNPRI") and became an early Chinese investment institution to join UNPRI. In the future, after signing the UNPRI, CCV will learn from the international mainstream ESG evaluation framework and combine the unique needs of Chinese soil, Chinese enterprises, and Chinese entrepreneurs to polish a set of unique ESG investment methodologies, integrate the ESG investment process and system into the research and investment decision-making of the foundation, and help the global ESG goals.

_{Source: https://news.pedaily.cn/202302/508910.shtml}

Chinese Policies

New energy allocation and storage standards are coming

Recently, the "Technical Guidelines for the Planning of New Energy Storage for Trans-provincial Power Transmission and Configuration in New Energy Bases" (draft for comments), led by the National Energy Administration, was released to the public. This is the first planning technical guideline issued at the national level to guide the scale of new energy storage and allocation. The guidelines will be used to guide the new energy storage planning of the new energy base trans-provincial power transmission configuration and clarify the corresponding technical principles. The main technical contents include terminology and general principles, configuration capacity analysis, planning and location selection, technology selection, layout and access system, secondary power system, technical and economic analysis, etc.

_{Source: https://finance.sina.cn/esg/2023-02-21/detail-imyhnuqm1844940.d.html}

The Supreme People's Court Issues the First Normative Document on "Double Carbon

On February 17, 2023, the Supreme People's Court officially released the "Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Completely and Accurately Implementing the New Development Concept and Providing Judicial Services to Actively and Steadily Promote Carbon Neutrality" and Typical Cases of Judicial Actively and Steadily Promoting Carbon Neutrality.

The Opinions emphasize that the trial of carbon emissions trading cases should clarify the rights and responsibilities of the relevant subjects in the carbon market, promote the improvement of market liquidity and the formation of reasonable carbon prices, and enhance the motivation of enterprises to reduce carbon emissions.

The Opinions also proposed that the trial of greenhouse gas emission reporting cases should support the administrative authorities to impose administrative penalties on some enterprises for falsifying, fabricating, concealing, or omitting greenhouse gas emission data by the law; if it constitutes a crime, criminal responsibility should be investigated by the law. Helping to boost market confidence and provide a solid rule of law guarantee for the orderly development of the national carbon market.

_{Source: https://www.court.gov.cn/zixun-xiangqing-389371.html}

Shenzhen Stock Exchange Revises Industry Information Disclosure Guidelines to Strengthen ESG Information Disclosure Requirements

Shenzhen Stock Exchange has recently released the newly revised "Self-regulatory Guidelines for Listed Companies on Shenzhen Stock Exchange No. 3 - Industry Information Disclosure" and "Self-regulatory Guidelines for Listed Companies on Shenzhen Stock Exchange No. 4 - Industry Information Disclosure on GEM". The revision mainly includes three aspects and adaptive adjustments to industry disclosure guidelines.

First, it responds to market concerns and optimizes operational information disclosure requirements. It encourages listed companies in the automotive industry to disclose regional sales, strengthens disclosure requirements for major projects of listed companies in the civil engineering and construction industry, and adaptively adjusts the disclosure caliber of periodic reports in the photovoltaic industry. At the same time, on the premise of protecting investors' right to know, the relationship between the effectiveness and cost of information disclosure in some industries is appropriately balanced.

Second, highlight the characteristics of the industry and strengthen the ESG information disclosure requirements. Combining with industry characteristics, the disclosure requirements for major environmental pollution accidents are refined for heavily polluting industries such as solid mineral resources, food and wine manufacturing, textile and garment, chemical industry, and electric power, to promote listed companies to deal with the relationship between business development and environmental governance; for industries with a high possibility of safety accidents and a high degree of impact of accidents such as solid mineral resources, chemical industry, and civil blasting, the disclosure requirements for major safety accidents are refined. The disclosure requirements of the listed companies will be improved to promote their social responsibility.

Third, strengthen the synergy of rules and adjust non-industry information disclosure requirements. The general financial disclosure requirements for periodic reports, the disclosure requirements for administrative penalties, and the environmental disclosure requirements, which have been regulated by other business rules, are deleted to further highlight the characteristics of industry-specific information disclosure. Unify the disclosure standards for material contracts in various industries on the GEM and align them with other rules.

_{Source: https://www.szse.cn/aboutus/trends/news/t20230210_598654.html}

Other Infos

Morningstar Launches Index Suite Offering Exposure to SDG-aligned Impact Themes

Investment research firm Morningstar announced the launch of Morningstar Global Sustainable Activities Involvement Indexes (SAI), a new suite of benchmarks aimed at providing investors with exposure to companies with revenues aligned with specific UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across environmental and social themes.

_{Source: https://www.esgtoday.com/morningstar-launches-index-suite-offering-exposure-to-companies-with-sdg-aligned-activities/}

The UN Global Compact released a "carbon neutral" report in Shanghai

Recently, according to the report on "Carbon Neutralization" Goal Setting, Action and Global Cooperation of Enterprises released by the United Nations Global Compact in Shanghai, as of October 12, 2022, 3821 enterprises in the world have joined the scientific carbon goal initiative, of which 1399 have made a clear net zero commitment. The report also shows that enterprises that have made commitments by the standards of the Scientific Carbon Target Initiative have accounted for 35% of the total market value of global enterprises, covering more than 27% of the global enterprises that may have a significant impact on the climate.

_{Source: https://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw4411/20230223/95ff390eaa824ee6960a38c158919952.html}

ESG x AI: ChatGPT comes out of nowhere and what it means for ESG

The commitment to General Artificial Intelligence (AGI) research is what makes OpenAI and ChatGPT stand out.

Despite the stated goal of making AI beneficial to all of humanity, ChatGPT has received attention for negative events such as its carbon emissions and underpaying labor in Kenya through its suppliers.

ChatGPT: AI is no substitute for human judgment and human expertise when it comes to ESG disclosure.

ChatGPT: The most effective and sustainable way to reduce Scope 3 emissions is for all stakeholders to share the cost of reducing Scope 3 emissions; Scope 3 emissions are not an obligation pass-through.

_{Source: https://www.xcf.cn/article/8d95de3eb0d011ed8e250c42a1b68ab6.html}

Investor Association Warns that Proposed EU ESG Fund Labelling Rules Won’t Address Greenwashing

Proposed rules on the use of ESG or sustainability-related terms in the names of investment funds unveiled by the EU markets regulator the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will not fulfill their primary objective of protecting investors from greenwashing risk, according to Europe’s central investment industry trade association, the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA).

_{Source: https://www.esgtoday.com/investor-association-warns-that-proposed-eu-esg-fund-labelling-rules-wont-address-greenwashing/}