Marian’s Sustainability Update – June

In her latest column, Marian D’Auria – GFG’s Head of Risk and Sustainability, shares her thoughts the most pressing matters to affect our planet, how it impacts our lives and how we can act more sustainably.

AI, AI, AI… Every conversation I’ve had this month, and every newspaper I’ve read, is focused on the impending doom/opportunity/revolution that is AI. I can’t help but jump on that bandwagon. How will AI impact Sustainable Development?

Great report from PwC here https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/sustainability-climate-change/insights/how-ai-future-can-enable-sustainable-future.html which looks at this.

If you can get past the AI headlines, the first half of 2023 has felt a bit like a courtroom drama, as we’ve seen a spate of ESG-related litigation against companies accused of greenwashing and of not effectively managing their impact on people & planet.

Norton Rose Fullbright’s Co-Head of ESG highlighted some of the new charges they’re seeing being levelled against companies:

• The use of carbon offsets will likely be challenged
• Board members’ personal responsibility will be scrutinised
• Greenwashing will increasingly be used as a legal argument in disputes between competitors;
• ESG regulation in one jurisdiction will be felt across many others exposing companies to new legal risks;
• Class actions, class actions, class actions.

If you want to see how your own actions can impact the environment, Monday 5^th June is World Environment Day https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/ – the UN’s day for encouraging awareness and action to protect the environment.  Plenty of suggestions for engagement on their website.

And on the subject of action, here’s another month’s worth of GFG Alliance in action – read about our ESG wins below (or many more on the main SPOKE site)

Recent ESG Wins

Tahmoor Apprentices pitch in to complete a community project in Whyalla. Tahmoor Coal’s commitment to its local region was on show again in New South Wales, Australia, with the completion of a significant community project this month.

The ability to produce, store and transport hydrogen will be one of the defining challenges of the transition to net-zero. LIBERTY Pipes Hartlepool has successfully passed trials to become the first UK producer of pipelines for safe transportation and storage of hydrogen, a major step in LIBERTY’s aim to support the UK’s development of low carbon hydrogen technologies.

Read about the finalists of the Chairman’s Global Excellence Awards and their work on Social and Economic Sustainability, and the journey to CN30.

Rita Monteiro – Head of Decarbonisation along with the GREENSTEEL Academy, deconstructs staff photos of natural landscapes, to give us a cautionary view of what our planet could be contending with, a great and personal read – I highly recommend reviewing this story.

Out & About Our Executive Chairman Sanjeev Gupta heralded the hydrogen iron age during a keynote speech at the Australian Hydrogen Conference held in Brisbane on May 25th. His speech underpinned some crucial points that align with our CN30 vision and goals. See it here.

What We’re Reading

The IIF and WTW have published a report Emissions Impossible (One day someone will come up with a more imaginative way to include Emissions in a report title – this must be the 5^th one linked to Mission Impossible!). That said, it’s a good read and you can download it here.

One of the key takeaways is that the financial risk associated with the transition to net zero isn’t well predicted by an organisation’s carbon emissions today. This is music to our ears, as investors move away from decarbonising their portfolios now, to investing in those companies who are driving the transition – even if they are higher emitting today.