Category Archives: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

How Corporations ‘Bypassed the Politics’ to Lead on Clean Energy in 2017

.. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ..

An article by Julia Pyper for Green Tech Media (reprinted as non-commercial use)

From mega wind purchases to rooftop solar arrays to electric truck orders, companies of all sizes are stepping up to act on climate.

When President Trump announced plans to withdraw from the Paris climate accord attention quickly turned to corporate America. Would business leaders forge ahead in the fight against climate change in the absence of federal backing?

In 2017, at least, the answer is yes. 


As of December 12, when heads of state joined to commemorate the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement, 327 major corporations, worth a cumulative $6.5 trillion, had committed to matching their emission reduction plans with the Paris goals through the Science Based Targets initiative. Another 864 companies have stated their intention to adopt a science-based target within two years. 

These companies hail from some 50 countries and 70 sectors, including finance, chemicals, food processing, technology hardware and more. Companies headquartered in the U.S. make up 20 percent of the group and have made the greatest number of climate commitments to date, despite uncertainty surrounding the American government’s participation in the Paris accord.

In addition, some 1,700 U.S. businesses from every state and of varying sizes — from Walmart to Wild Joe’s Coffee Spot in Bozeman, Montana — have signed the “We Are Still In” declaration. The initiative, which also includes cities, statehouses and college campuses, was intended to demonstrate America’s enduring commitment to delivering on the promise of the Paris Agreement.

Apple, for instance, issued a $1 billion green bond in June, shortly after Trump announced his exit from the climate deal, which CEO Tim Cook tried to convince the president not to quit. This is the tech giant’s second green bond, following a $1.5 billion offering that came in response to the Paris Agreement last year. Proceeds from the green bond sales will be used to finance renewable energy and energy efficiency projects at Apple facilities.

In another significant development this year, Walmart launched Project Gigaton, which asks its suppliers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 1 gigaton by 2030. That amounts to the equivalent of taking more than 211 million passenger vehicles off of U.S. roads for an entire year.

Walmart is “bypassing the politics” to focus on driving down emissions internally and in its supply chain, said the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer Kathleen McLaughlin, speaking at the New York Times’ ClimateTECH conference in late November. There is a business case for supporting sustainable agriculture, combating deforestation, reducing waste and purchasing renewables, she said. Cost savings is one, but there’s also the potential for business-model innovation, improved product quality and increased sales revenue.

“In light of the withdrawal from the Paris accord…I wouldn’t say the political winds are favorable to the climate agenda right now,” McLaughlin said. “But we’re trying to make it practical and favorable just from a common-sense point of view.”

Walmart signed the We Are Still in pledge, she added, because “we think we need to show the rest of the world that there is still a critical mass of American companies of states and cities working on this, to drive [climate action] forward.” 

New recruits to the 100 percent group

As part of their climate action plans, 119 companies have committed to sourcing renewable energy for 100 percent of their operations through the RE100 initiative. That’s up from 56 members a year and a half ago.

Schneider Electric is the latest company to commit to 100 percent renewable electricity through RE100, with a 2030 target date. The European multinational also pledged to double its energy productivity by 2030, from a 2005 baseline, through an initiative called EP100. 

 “When it comes to the climate, I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist — I’m an activist,” said Schneider Electric Chairman and CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire, in a statement. “Prosperity and energy are intertwined.”

Other recent additions to the RE100 list include Estée Lauder, Kellogg, DBS Bank and Clif Bar. Citi Group also made the 100 percent renewables pledge in September, on top of the company’s vow to finance $100 billion in clean energy, infrastructure and technology projects. 

Meanwhile, French utility EDF Group recently committed to transitioning to electric vehicles by 2030 through EV100, a new initiative that seeks to make electric transport “the new normal.” All three initiatives — RE100, EP100 and EV100 — are led by the international nonprofit organization The Climate Group.

The increasing cost-competitiveness of lithium-ion batteries has made electric trucks, and shorter-haul vehicles in particular, an attractive investment for many companies. UPS, for instance, currently owns 120 electric trucks in the U.S. and more than 140 of them abroad. In New York City alone, UPS is planning to convert up to 1,500 tucks to EVs by 2022.

To support its electrification goals UPS recently placed advance orders for the newly introduced Tesla Semi. PepsiCo, Walmart and several others have also preordered the Tesla truck, which is scheduled for delivery in 2019.

It took Walmart a decade to double the fuel efficiency of its trucking fleet in an attempt to reduce fossil fuel use and cut costs, but the company still uses an enormous amount of fuel, said McLaughlin. The company is excited to pilot the Tesla Semi and other electrified platforms because “we envision a world where our fleet is run completely on renewable energy and we think this is an exciting step that allows us to experiment with that,” she said.

With electric trucks either on the market or expected from manufacturers such as BYD, Daimler, Volvo, Tevva Motors, Chanje and several others, corporate customers will soon have lots of options to buy electric. The rise of electric trucks coupled with exponential growth in the number of passenger EV models has made a campaign like EDF Group’s commitment to EV100 achievable.

The biggest corporate deals of 2017

EDF hasn’t only been active on cleantech internally. Like many other energy companies, EDF has also played a growing role in serving others in the corporate sector this year.

In late November, EDF Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of EDF Group, announced a deal to supply Google with 200 megawatts of wind energy generated from the new Glaciers Edge Wind Project  in Iowa. Glaciers Edge is the third deal EDF RE has done with Google, and it is expected to come on-line in December 2019. Once complete, the wind farm will help Google reach its goal of purchasing enough renewable energy to match its consumption for global operations.

Google also signed agreements in recent weeks for wind-generated electricity from Avangrid’s Coyote Ridge  and Tatanka Ridge wind farms in South Dakota, both of which are 98 megawatts, as well as 140 megawatts from the 300-megawatt Red Dirt site in Oklahoma. The cumulative 536 megawatts Google purchased from U.S. wind farms in November puts the company’s total renewable energy procurement to date above 3 gigawatts.

These wind deals are just the latest in a long list of corporate renewable energy procurements this year. While 2017 won’t be record-breaking, it will be the second-best year for corporate renewable deals, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center.

“Sustainable companies, led by tech giants and other leading Fortune 100s, are moving forward on their clean energy commitments,” Jacob Susman, head of origination for EDF RE, wrote in an email. This comes despite uncertainty around federal tax implications and the potential for new solar tariffs. According to Susman, “this is a testament to the value, risk mitigation, and societal and environmental benefits they perceive from adding renewables to their portfolios.”

Notable deals include Anheuser-Busch’s virtual power-purchase agreement with Enel Green Power for 152.5 megawatts of the 298-megawatt Thunder Ranch wind farm in Billings, Oklahoma. The renewable energy produced under the PPA is equivalent to meeting 50 percent of Anheuser-Busch’s total electricity needs in one year, which is enough renewable electricity to produce more than 20 billion 12-ounce servings of beer annually. The Anheuser-Busch agreement marks a significant step toward delivering on parent company AB InBev’s global commitment to secure 100 percent of purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

JPMorgan Chase, which recently committed to facilitating at least $200 billion in clean financing over the next eight years, signed a 20-year PPA with NRG for a 100-megawatt wind project this year as part of the bank’s commitment to cover all of its power needs with renewables by 2020. While JPMorgan does not disclose how much power that amounts to, it will have to cover the real estate footprint of more 5,500 properties in 60 countries. To reach that goal, the company is also evaluating on-site solar options on up to 1,400 bank-owned retail buildings and 40 commercial buildings worldwide.

At the same time, America’s biggest bank is cutting energy use at its 4,500 U.S. branches through the use of new energy management and digital technologies. Chase is partnering with GE’s Current to install sensors, software and lighting controls that will help bank branches reduce electric and gas consumption by 15 percent. The company also continues to offset 100 percent of emissions generated by employee air travel on an annual basis. Collectively, these actions put JPMorgan Chase on track to reach its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Kimberly-Clark also made some big commitments to clean energy in 2017, with the corporation’s first major renewables agreement to buy 245 megawatts and 1 million megawatt-hours of electricity from two new wind projects in Texas and Oklahoma. In October, Amazon made a splash with its largest wind farm announced to date.

The next frontier of corporate purchasing: Smaller buyers

Industry giants with household names are currently leading the way with renewable energy purchases, but the corporate clean energy market is starting to diversify and appeal to smaller players.

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Question for this article:

Are we making progress in renewable energy?

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“The next frontier of corporate purchasing is for corporate buyers with smaller appetites to increase their renewables contracting in a meaningful way,” said EDF’s Susman.
Expanding markets to these smaller players has proved to be a challenge, however.

In an interview earlier this year, Patrick Flynn, director of sustainability at Salesforce, pointed out that in the commercial renewables sector “growth is driven by a handful of large, experienced corporations” and the top priority should be to “lower barriers to entry” for other companies.

While many companies are choosing to bypass federal politics to act on their climate agenda, policy innovation at the state and local level continues to be critical for the commercial renewables sector. That’s true for companies of all sizes, but it’s especially so for smaller businesses that are more price-sensitive.

In regulated markets, utility green tariff programs are an emerging option for corporate customers. As of September, 17 green tariffs in 13 states have been proposed or approved since NV Energy put forward the first green tariff in 2013, according to the World Resources Institute.

Green tariffs come in different forms and flavors. Puget Sound Energy, for instance, launched the first subscriber-style green tariff to be used by retailers and small governments in April. While most existing green tariffs are designed to enable a single, new and very large customer to contract for an entire renewable energy project, PSE’s Green Direct program allows existing customers to contract for a more modest portion of a big clean energy project, which could enable smaller corporate players to participate.

In North Carolina, a July law reintroduced a Green Source Rider Program that allows corporations, the military, and the University of North Carolina to purchase renewables. The same law, HB 589, also legalized third-party leasing of renewable energy systems, which could be a viable option for the business community.

If companies don’t get the policy arrangement they want, regulated utilities risk losing corporate customers. Pressure from large corporate buyers is spurring utilities in the heart of coal country to find renewable energy solutions — despite President Trump’s calls for a coal renaissance. In Nevada, casinos such MGM and Wynn Resorts are leaving the grid to buy clean energy from outside suppliers, and now the state is considering deregulation.

Other parts of the country, a different set of policy solutions has cropped up. San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s CleanPowerSF program, for instance, helped Salesforce to source 100 percent renewable energy for its two office towers in San Francisco in August.

In deregulated markets, where most clean energy deals have been done to date, corporate buyers have more flexibility in their renewable energy purchasing options. But even here policy remains central. In all states, renewable energy targets, net metering policies, utility rate schedules, permitting processes, government incentives and other policy elements affect how easy or hard it is for companies of various sizes to purchase renewable energy.

Hospitals get active on renewable energy policy

In a testament to the role policy plays, healthcare providers in Ohio recently sent a letter to state lawmakers calling on them to stand behind the state’s clean energy standards and correct restrictive wind siting requirements. The letter asks for a “comprehensive approach to Ohio’s energy policy” that would “value innovative technologies that institute energy efficiency and demand response as a resource and expand the deployment of advanced energy technologies that curb energy costs to consumers.”

After several years of policy uncertainty, Ohio’s renewable energy and efficiency mandates were officially reinstated late last year. This year, the issue cropped up again. In March, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill to make the mandates voluntary. The legislation has since been taken up by the Senate, and Senate President Larry Obhof has said he’ll advance the bill in January. 

Meanwhile, there’s an ongoing debate in Ohio around the need to subsidize coal and nuclear plants.

“What both the advanced energy industry and healthcare providers would like to see from lawmakers is a move to put innovative technologies on a level playing field with some of the other incumbent technologies in the state, basically allowing competition to thrive,” said Ray Fakhoury, state policy associate at Advanced Energy Economy, which helped to facilitate the Ohio energy policy letter.

Large companies like Kaiser Permanente and Partners HealthCare have made sizable investments in renewables in recent years, but healthcare providers have generally taken a cautious approach to renewables. There’s hesitancy to make the upfront investment when healthcare needs are so high and some concern around disrupting hospital operations during installation. But the sector is starting to see a shift.
Because hospitals are the second most energy-intensive facility type in the U.S., renewables present a significant cost savings opportunity for the sector. Hospitals also need power around-the-clock and stand to benefit from clean energy microgrids in the event of an outage. Recent disasters such as the Boston bombing attack and Hurricane Harvey have underscored the need for uninterrupted electrical service at hospitals, according to a recent report sponsored by Ameresco.

“We’re now seeing hospitals get involved [in renewables] in a more active way, because pushing for access to a diverse portfolio of resources is something they’re interested in and Ohio is a state they’re looking to,” said Fakhoury.
Signers of the letter include the Cleveland Clinic, the Ohio Hospital Association Energy and Sustainability Program, and the CEOs of Mercy Health, Mount Carmel Health System, and Tri-Health. Energy business leaders signing the letter include executives from First Solar, Apex Clean Energy and Siemens.

Small commercial solar remains tricky

Of all companies, purchasing solar is the biggest challenge among the smallest players. Small and medium-sized businesses have traditionally been a “no man’s land” for solar installers.

Between 2012 and 2016, commercial solar installations were virtually flat due to project financing challenges, lengthy development timelines and heavy reliance on incentives.
According to GTM Research, commercial solar hit its highest year of installations in 2016 as the market experienced demand pull-in in response to two impending regulatory deadlines on solar-friendly rate structures came in California and the qualification period for obtaining the full SREC value in Massachusetts. These factors continued to drive deployments in 2017, but growth is expected to drop in 2018 and only grow incrementally over the next five years.

Legal fees and complex contract negotiations create substantial transaction costs for commercial project developers and owners. Customer acquisition is time-consuming and highly localized. And attractive financing is only available to a subset of the market. Small and medium-sized businesses don’t enjoy the investment-grade credit that the Fortune 100 companies do.

There’s still high interest in this market segment, however. Entities such as NextEra, NRG, AES and Duke’s REC Solar are active in the commercial solar space and competing to provide comprehensive low-carbon energy packages for customers.

Commercial solar asset owners are also taking more control of their projects from the outset, rather than acquiring projects at a later date. Taking more control can eliminate speed bumps like having to repeat due diligence on project financing, according to GTM Research solar analyst Michelle Davis, author of the Commercial Solar Asset Ownership  report. This trend could increase commercial solar installation volumes and concentrate the market beyond 2017.

Going global

While there’s still a huge opportunity to tap into the commercial renewables market in the U.S., most of the larger, mature buyers are now starting to direct their attention elsewhere.

According to the Business Renewables Center, North America accounted for more than 75 percent of global corporate PPAs through August 2017. But markets in South America, Europe and Asia have the potential for significant growth.

A recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that new opportunities for companies to use cleaner power in China could increase the country’s wind and solar capacity by 40 percent over 2016 levels by 2020. China is already the global leader on renewable energy deployment, but it currently offers few scalable options for companies to use 100 percent renewables.

But things are starting to change.

China is undergoing its most significant electricity reform in a generation, according to the report. As a result, the number of options for corporate buyers is increasing. In March 2017, for instance, the government established ground rules for community solar, opening a new mechanism to procure local power for companies without sufficient rooftop access. RMI identified eight other new and existing pathways to expand corporate renewable energy procurements in China.

In some cases, policies and market dynamics in countries outside of the U.S. are better than those that exist within the U.S. 

Walmart, for instance, has a goal to reach 100 percent renewables across its global network, and currently sits around 25 percent renewable today. But in the U.S., that number is actually closer to 12 percent, due to “the regulatory environment, pricing environment, infrastructure, technology and so forth,” said McLaughlin.

Because large corporations have such large international footprints, they can’t afford not to lead on climate action or they could miss out on a business opportunity.

“We’re a global company, we operate all around the world, and so wherever we can, we like to have that certainty that there’s a level playing field wherever we operate,” said Todd Brady, director of global public affairs and sustainability at Intel, on a panel at ClimateTECH. “I think that makes a strong business case for staying in the Paris Agreement.”

The World Resources Institute identified three things company leaders can do push global climate action further in 2018: show up and speak up at high-level events, align their corporate climate goals with countries’ climate goals, and meet with ministers to help break down silos within and between governments, leading to a more cohesive policy framework.

At the COP23 climate conference in November, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ had a message for businesses: “I am asking you to misbehave.” He called for companies around the world to disrupt “business-as-usual” and urge governments to ramp up their climate action plans. Hundreds of businesses, in the U.S. and abroad, have accepted the secretary’s challenge. Now, the world will be watching for them to follow through.

global, North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,

India strides towards clean energy leadership

.. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ..

An article by L. Michael Buchsbaum in Energy Transition: the Global Energiewende

It looked as if India’s plan to power up the country using coal would be a disaster for the environment. But renewables changed the game: they currently make up 20% of the energy mix and are growing fast. L. Michael Buchsbaum explains.


New solar and wind in India are now 20% cheaper to build than coal (Photo by Raj, edited,CC BY 2.0)

Illustrative of India’s economic miracle, just this spring, its last village without access to electricity was finally connected to the energy grid. But to fuel this growth, beginning in 2010 India rapidly initiated development of almost 1,000 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired energy. With the fifth largest domestic coal reserves worldwide, and Australian and Chinese mines eager to supply immediate demand, India’s economic miracle seemed like game over for the health of planet Earth.

But nearly simultaneous to their swift coal build up, India also began developing green energy. Though only 20% of the current energy mix, roughly 70 GW of renewable capacity has been installed and at least another 40 GW is under construction according to the latest government data.

With around 11,788 megawatts (MW) more being added between April 2017 and March 2018, India is now positioned 4th globally in wind, and 6thin solar. Additionally, last year the renewable energy sector created 47,000 new jobs while sustaining almost 400,000 more positions, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The sheer pace of India’s adoption of renewables has reduced aggregate installation and production costs by 50% over the last two years according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), flipping earlier economic projections and torpedoing plans for hundreds of megawatts of new coal power. Though coal still supplied 80% of the economy last year, new wind and solar is now 20% cheaper than existing coal-fired generation’s average wholesale power price. Moreover, rising domestic production costs, the doubling of imported coal prices and a crippling delivery shortage continues to plague the industry. Currently new renewable energy is less expensive to build than it costs to run most of the existing coal fired power in the nation—let alone construct new plants.

Case in point: in June the state owned utility, NTPC, the largest owner and developer of coal plants in India, cancelled its planned 4 GW Pudimadaka “Ultra Mega” Power Plant project in the state of Andhra Pradesh. No longer economical, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), since the 2010 build out announcement, India’s coal plant pipeline has shrunk by 547 GW.

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Question for this article:

Are we making progress in renewable energy?

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To put that into perspective, that figure amounts to almost three times Germany’s total installed capacity. And while 80 GW of new coal-fired capacity is still technically “progressing” through myriad approval processes, IEEFA estimates that no more than 10-20 GW might actually see the light of day. “That means more than 84% of India’s 2010 coal pipeline will have been cancelled when all is said and done,” said Tim Buckley, IEEFA’s Director of Energy Finance Studies, Australasia.

Moreover, under the nation’s 2018 National Energy Plan (NEP), India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has recently proposed closing nearly 50 GW of inefficient and heavily polluting coal capacity by 2027. Retrofitting those that remain open to achieve new compliance standards will cost millions more, forcing operators to reconsider future investments as renewables elbow them out.

So how will India keep both the existing lights on and enable millions more citizens to power up? The new NEP calls for an incredible 275 GW of total renewable energy capacity by 2027. In June the trajectory for the build-out was increased to no less than 227 GW by 2022. At these rates, clean energy is projected by BNEF to constitute 75% of total capacity by 2050, essentially inverting the status quo.

Illustrative of this leap forward, on June 21, India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) R.K. Singh announced a 100GW solar tender, with an emphasis on battery storage and domestic solar manufacturing. This announcement follows on the heels of plans for 8-10GW of annual onshore wind installations, plus an ambitious 30GW of offshore wind by 2030. Under the Paris Climate agreement, India had already committed to produce 40% of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. Singh has since vowed to have over 55% installed by then.

While an enormous task, a large portion of the support and financing for this is coming from Japan’s richest man, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, who has reportedly told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he will underwrite most of the 100GW of new solar with a US$60-100 billion investment.

But can this and the overall 275 GW target realistically be met on time? While not sure if the giant solar tender “makes a lot of sense”, IEEF director Buckley, offered instead that the plan is indeed a “brilliant statement of intent.” Certainly, by setting the aspirational goal, India has attracted investors and further spurred the development of their domestic manufacturing industry. Tulsi Tanti, chairman and managing director of the Suzlon Group, one of the nation’s leading wind energy suppliers, expects that there will be at least two million workers employed in the wind energy manufacturing industries by 2022. Suzlon currently commands a 35% share of the market since over 8,500 of their turbines with a cumulative generation capacity of 11,919 MW power it. “In the next financial year, a minimum of 1 GW more [of wind energy] installation will happen every month,” Tanti said as the nation ramps towards 50-60MW of total wind capacity.

While coal will continue to constitute India’s baseload energy backbone for the next few decades as a hedge against intermittency, its role will diminish as the grid becomes better integrated, more decentralized and additional battery power comes on line. “We have missed the first and second industrial revolutions,” Minister Singh said recently. “We caught up with the digital revolution, but we need to lead this revolution towards clean energy and renewable energy.”

South Asia, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Faces Of Africa – Defenders of the Forest [Madagascar]

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An article from CGTN

Madagascar is one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots. The vast majority of its species of fauna and flora are endemic to the island. Much of Madagascar’s wildlife is under threat, particularly humid forest. The severe poverty that afflicts the island communities is causing serious damage to its environment. Turning these practices around will mean finding ways for locals to benefit from the natural environment. This is where Mitsinjo Association comes in. The organization is composed of the local conservationists who are dedicated towards the conservation of the island’s heritage.



Video

It all started when tourists would go into Andasibe village and requested to see the forest. Later in 1999, Mitsinjo was formed by local villagers. “We started as guides only, protecting the forest, trying to plant trees,” told Justin Claude – Mitsinjo Amphibian conservation director. When Justin joined Mitsinjo, he was only seventeen years old. He was the youngest founder in the group. The group embarked on planting trees and conserving the animals that were in danger of extinction. Each member is assigned a particular zone depending on their expertise. One of the members Youssouf Martin is in charge of tree nurseries while Justin is in charge of the Amphibians.

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Question for this article:

When you cultivate plants, do you cultivate peace?

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“Before, I was a guide and afterwards they asked me to help them do reforestation here. Because I was born here in this village I can do this work because I have much knowledge about the rainforest. This project is a program to plant more native trees. We’re restoring 25 hectares per year so we must grow 30, 000 seedlings with the 60 different species of the native tree,” told Youssouf – Mitsinjo tree nursery specialist.

Madagascar is thought to have more than three hundred species of frogs, ninety nine percent of which are endemic. These are one of the most critically endangered creatures on the Island. Hence in 2010, Justin started the amphibian conservation project. The project is the first one of its kind in Madagascar. In 2013, Justin went for training on amphibian conservation in the United States of America. Coming back to Madagascar, he established a breeding facility for the frogs. The facility remains under his supervision.

Besides the wildlife being under threat of endangerment, the environment faces serious threats too. Clearance of forests primarily for firewood and charcoal is rampant in Madagascar. Hence the group carries out sensitization forums with the locals to stress on the importance of conserving the forests.

This is where education comes in. Mitsinjo engages in a variety of education and capacity building programs for the communities they support, including schools. “Mitsinjo needed a head for environmental education, which also has a link to teaching. I accepted, because I was born here. The environment and love of nature are important to me too. We work with schools all over the region of Andasibe (their village). Over the holidays we create clubs for children who don’t have the money to travel”, said Irene Ramanantenasoa – Mitsinjo environmental education officer. This group of Andasibe local conservationists is working tirelessly to ensure that the glory of its forests is restored and conserved.

Africa, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Coal Divestment Reaches Japan

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from Treehugger

Nippon Life Insurance will become first major Japanese institutional investor to ditch coal.

News reported by Reuters that Nippon Life Insurance is going to stop financing coal-fired power plants  should be welcome news for all of us who care about the fate of the planet.

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Question for this article:

Divestment: is it an effective tool to promote sustainable development?

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True, it might not be news quite on the magnitude of Ireland divesting from all fossil fuels. But for fossil fuel divestment to work we need it to spread and deepen — meaning more institutions, in more locations, divesting from an increasingly comprehensive list of fossil fuel-related interests. And—as The Church of England has taught us —we most urgently need to start with the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

As Japan’s largest life insurer, with assets of $667 billion, this is a significant announcement in and of itself. But the Reuters report also states that Japan as a whole is currently one of the biggest financiers of coal technology in the world. Given that Nippon Life Insurance is apparently the first institutional investor in Japan to make such a move, activists will surely be hoping that it has ripple effects across the country’s financial scene.

As I’ve argued before, the real test for divestment will be when folks divest not because of ethical pressures, but because continuing to pour money into the technologies of the past no longer makes financial sense. But every move like this brings that moment closer to fruition.

East Asia, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Emerald Isle Goes Green: Ireland just voted to divest from fossil fuel companies

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Casey O’Brien for the Sierra Club ©2018 Sierra Club. All Rights Reserved – reproduced from a Sierra Club website with permission of the Sierra Club

The global fossil fuel divestment movement just got a huge push from an unexpected place—Ireland. On July 12, Ireland became the first country to vote to shed its financial holdings in oil, gas, and coal corporations. The measure calling for the country to sell off its estimated $370 million in fossil fuel investments “as soon as is practicable” passed the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland with support from all parties. The vote marks a major milestone in the effort to move capital away from the largest carbon polluters.  


People celebrate July 12 after the passage of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill in Ireland. (Mark Stedman). Photo from National Catholic Reporter

“This is the next step in a progression . . . of what people considered impossible and unprecedented, but it makes perfect sense that that’s what’s happening,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of the socially responsible investment firm As You Sow. 

Ireland’s move is the latest surge in the rising tide of the divestment movement, which now includes universities across the United States, dozens of Catholic institutions, and New York City, which earlier this year announced it is investigating selling off its fossil fuel holdings. Go Fossil Free, a group that advocates for fossil fuel divestment, estimates that $6.15 trillion worth of fossil fuel assets have been sold off since the movement started in 2010. “First we had student movements, then we had mission-driven organizations—faith based and philanthropy—and now we have entire countries,” said Clara Vondrich, global director of Divest Invest, which provides institutions with guidance on how to move their money away from fossil fuel corporations.  

The move surprised some people, as Ireland has something of a reputation for being slow to act on climate, in comparison to other European nations. Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, tweeted that the news of the vote “staggered him.” The Climate Action Network recently declared Ireland the second-worst country in the EU for climate change management. The only other country to consider such a move is much-wealthier Norway, which has proposed divesting its $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund but hasn’t done so yet. 

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Question for this article:

Divestment: is it an effective tool to promote sustainable development?

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Ireland’s vote is particularly important because it reflects a major shift in the divestment movement, Vondrich explained. Originally, fossil fuel divestment was entirely driven by moral concerns—institutions pulled their money out of oil, gas, and coal companies because they didn’t want to be contributing to the destruction of a stable climate. Now, divestment is increasingly seen as a smart financial move for investors; Ireland’s divestment is as much a fiduciary decision as it is a chance to demonstrate its principles. “The divestment movement now stands on a strong three-legged stool of moral, fiduciary, and financial arguments,” Vondrich said.   

A recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) illustrates Vondrich’s point. The report states, “The financial case for fossil fuel divestment is strong. Over the past three and five years, respectively, global stock indexes without fossil fuel holdings have outperformed otherwise identical indexes that include fossil fuel companies. Fossil fuel companies once led the economy and world stock markets. They now lag.”    

Energy stocks were the second-worst performing sector in 2017, states IEEFA’s report, outpaced by health, technology, and other industries even as the price of oil stabilized from a low of $28 a barrel in 2016 to $75 today. Fossil fuel companies’ relatively weak performance is crucial, given that some investment institutions are required, by their charters, to prioritize profit performance and fiduciary responsibility above all other concerns. Ireland’s vote, Vondrich said, solidifies the argument that divestment is the financially savvy choice for investment managers.  

While Ireland’s vote only affects a relatively small amount of money (as national investment funds go), Behar and Vondrich agree that it carries significant symbolic value. “What started on a handful of college campuses is now the policy of nations,” Vondrich said. “Ireland’s pledge to divest takes the movement to the next level, where activists and heads of state work hand-in-hand to save the world.”  

Behar said, “This is a political statement. The fund is relatively small . . . but I think that having it decided in that venue is really important. It’s sort of like when California decided that they wanted CalPERS, the pension fund, to divest. That was a vote in the California legislature.” Behar continued, “I would equate it to when the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation made [their divestment] announcement at the 2014 climate summit in New York. That was a major moment, when the heirs of the Exxon fortune said, ‘We’re going to sell our Exxon [stocks].’” 

Vondrich said the strategy going forward is to continue to push for divestment decisions as well as divest-invest pledges in which divested funds are reinvested in enterprises committed to sustainability and clean energy. Ultimately, the goal is to demonstrate that buying shares of fossil fuel corporations is not a wise investment. 

“The fossil fuel industry is really in the long term, nonviable. So you want to get out as early as possible,” Behar said. “Our goal is removing the social license for these companies to exist.” 

Europe, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

North America: Greentrees Sequesters Another 1 Million+ Tons of Carbon via Reforestation; Wins Award

. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from Revitalization: the Journal of Urban, Rural and Enviornmental Resilience

GreenTrees® claims to be the largest reforestation program in North America, with over 120,000 acres of trees restored via its 500 landowner partners. These plantings produceg over 1,000,000 tons annually on The American Carbon Registry.

GreenTrees recently completed its latest verification for 1,273,866 metric tons on the American Carbon Registry (ACR). This marks the second consecutive issuance of over one million tons.


Photo credit: GreenTrees.

ACR has had fifteen issuances over a million forestry tons for both compliance and voluntary markets. This includes IFM, Avoided Conversion and Afforestation/Reforestation project types. Of the fifteen issuances, GreenTrees has two of them. Only three of the fifteen issuances are from afforestation/reforestation projects, with the remaining one from an international project.

The GreenTrees River System approach is setting the standard for how reforestation can achieve scale and impact and does it with small and medium-sized landowners. Reforestation provides a continuous loop of scaled impact while bending the climate curve.

On behalf of landowners—whose properties range from 7 to 1700+ acres–the company quantifies their positive impact being made in cleaning up the air, building equity in the landscape, filtering the water and enhancing wildlife habitat.

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Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

When you cultivate plants, do you cultivate peace?

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Ultimately, reforestation is about repairing past and growing future with nature’s own solar-powered carbon sequestration technology: trees.

On April 5, 2018, GreenTrees was awarded The American Carbon Registry’s Innovation Award. The American Carbon Registry (ACR) is a nonprofit enterprise of Winrock International.

GreenTrees received ACR’s Innovation award in recognition of exceptional implementation of the world’s largest reforestation project both in terms of volume of high-quality verified emissions reductions issued and number of participating landowners and acres. The GreenTrees project is a one-million-acre conservation initiative that aims to plant over 500 million new trees for ecosystem repair and climate impact in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, North America’s largest rainforest and waterfowl migratory corridor.

By partnering with close to 500 landowners on over 120,000 acres to date to reforest their degraded lands, GreenTrees has enhanced wildlife habitat, improved water and soil quality and delivered local economic development benefits in addition to generating over 2.5 million tonnes of verified carbon offsets for partners including Norfolk Southern, Duke Energy, United Airlines, Arbor Day Foundation, Blue Mountain Brewery and Skyway Air Taxi, among others.

“We highly value this award and thank the American Carbon Registry for its keen understanding of research and market-based programs, our corporate clients and carbon buyers for endorsing our work, our conservation community friends for their wonderful counsel over the years, and our landowners as partners. Their stake as equity brokers with us is the chief factor creating the prairie fire of steadily expanding healthy forest ecosystems, which is the leading reforestation co-benefit for our time,” said Jerry Van Voorhis, president and chief executive officer of GreenTrees.

“We believe that ecosystem change in forestry alone will help bend the climate curve back most, replenish our earth, and let the tools of capitalism work for the greater good of the planet,” he concluded.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Continent’s free trade deal a game-changer for Africa

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from Independent Online (© Independent On-line 2018, All rights reserved, Reprinted with no commercial purpose)

South Africa has joined more than 50 African states in signing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTFA) agreement, which is aimed at facilitating a single market for goods and services on the continent.

President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the agreement during the official opening of the 31st Ordinary Session of the Assembly of African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government in Nouakchott, capital of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.


President Cyril Ramaphosa signs the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement in Nouakchott

The Presidency said the Africa Continental Free Trade Area and Peace and Security was introduced by the former chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, at the AU Summit held in Sandton in June 2015.

“It included issues related to the Union’s self-financing, the streamlining of the organisation’s summits and working methods. These efforts precipitated the current discussions on the African Union’s Institutional Reforms.

“The July 2016 Assembly of the African Union in Kigali subsequently mandated President Paul Kagame of Rwanda to prepare a study on the institutional reform of the African Union, with a view of putting in place a system of governance capable of addressing the challenges facing the Union,’’ said the Presidency.

In his speech on institutional reforms of the African Union yesterday, Kagame said: “The Continental Free Trade Agreement, championed by President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, is among the most historic achievements of the African Union.

“Forty-four countries signed in Kigali, while four more are signing in Nouakchott. It is going to become a reality before much longer.

“This drive emerges from the same logic that led to the institutional reform. In a deeper sense, an African Union capable of delivering a functional free-trade area is actually the end point of the reform.

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Question related to this article:

Can the African Union help bring a culture of peace to Africa?

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“Our partners welcomed the Continental Free Trade Area, in part because they doubted it would ever be implemented. Our track record provided ample evidence for that.

“As that perception increasingly proves to be outdated, interests will be recalculated. This is where the reform’s emphasis of speaking with one voice as a continent will emerge as perhaps the most important provision of all.”

The agreement has been welcomed in the country, with experts saying that it will benefit the continent and enhance intra-african trade.

Chairman of the South African chapter of the BRICS Business Council Dr Iqbal Survé said the agreement would open opportunities for African entrepreneurs.

“I think this is a good move for the country. Intra-African trade at the moment sits at approximately 10%, whereas intra-European and Intra-North American trade sits at 30% to 40% within those continents.

“I think we should increase intra-African trade to 30% over the next decade. It will be good for the continent, its countries, job creation and its development,” said Survé.

He said the agreement would reduce tariffs and benefit entrepreneurs, including medium to small businesses, “because they’re the ones who often find tariffs difficult to overcome because it is very costly. It will be an opportunity for entrepreneurs from African countries to start working together with each other in a trade tariff free environment”.

“By accepting that the best way to go forward is to have an intercontinental agreement, I think that is the strongest point being achieved. It will take many years to translate this new policy into effective continental trade.

“The most important thing now is that we have reached an agreement between the majority of African countries to achieve this,” said Survé.

The agreement will cover a market of 1.2 billion people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.5 trillion, across all 55 member states of the African Union. It will be the world’s largest free-trade area since the formation of the World Trade Organisation.

The Cape Chamber of Commerce has also welcomed the agreement, saying that it would promote trade with African countries.

Janine Myburgh, president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, said: “The African move came at a time when there was an increasing risk of a full-scale trade war, largely triggered by US President Donald Trump imposing heavy duties on imported products.”

Africa, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

African Union: Tourism sector supports about 21 million jobs in Africa

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from Vanguard

The African Union, AU, says the tourism sector supports about 21 million jobs in Africa with a value of over $160 million, exceeding manufacturing and banking sectors combined.

Dr Amani Abou-Zeid, the AU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Tourism, disclosed this at the just- concluded 61st UN World Tourism Organisation, UNWTO Regional Commission for Africa Conference in Abuja.


Dr Amani Abou-Zeid – photo from International Hydropower Association

Abou-Zeid said tourism was an engine for inclusive growth and economic development on the continent.

“In the African continent, tourism supports about 21 million jobs translating to one in 14 jobs; this is how important tourism is. That is why we are making sure it takes its due place.

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Question related to this article:

How can tourism promote a culture of peace?

(continued from left column)

“The value of the industry now stands at over $160 billion accounting for almost eight per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

“So, it exceeds the contributions from manufacturing and banking sectors.

“Tourism industry accounts for more than six per cent of the total investments valued at $29 billion and employs over 20 million people, hence accounting for 6.5 per cent of the total work force,” she said.

The AU commissioner said it was projected that five per cent of the tourism industry would grow much faster than the 4.8 per cent economic growth forecast for the continent over the next 10 years.

She, therefore, called for tourism promotion strategies through improvement of Africa’s image in the global media.

“Our priority on the continent now should be to optimise the role of tourism based on the agenda of NEPAD/AU action plan.

“On that, we have the responsibility to coordinate and facilitate the implementation and of course collaborations with UNWTO and other key partners.

“We have finalised the first agenda for 2063, the focus now is on strategy for implementation.

“We are particularly keen to see that tourism is very much high in the priority of the action plan,’’ she said.

Africa, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ transforms arid Pakistan region into green gold

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from The Hindu (Copyright THG Publishing Private Limited, reprinted as non-commercial use)

Around the region of Heroshah, previously arid hills are now covered with forest as far as the horizon. In northwestern Pakistan, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted to fight deforestation.

In 2015 and 2016, some 16,000 labourers planted more than 9,00,000 fast-growing eucalyptus trees at regular, geometric intervals in Heroshah — and the titanic task is just a fraction of the effort across the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.


Greenery all around: Pervaiz Manan, head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa forest department, who oversaw the re-vegetation of Heroshah district.   Photo Credit: AFP

Control against erosion

“Before it was completely burnt land. Now they have green gold in their hands,” commented forest manager Pervaiz Manan as he displayed pictures of the site previously, when only sparse blades of tall grass interrupted the monotonous landscape.

The new trees will reinvigorate the area’s scenic beauty, act as a control against erosion, help mitigate climate change, decrease the chances of floods and increase the chances of precipitation, says Mr. Manan, who oversaw the re-vegetation of Heroshah.

Residents also see them as an economic boost — which, officials hope, will deter them from cutting the new growth down to use as firewood in a region where electricity can be sparse.

“Now our hills are useful, our fields became useful,” says driver Ajbir Shah. “It is a huge benefit for us.”

Further north, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat, many of the high valleys were denuded by the Pakistan Taliban during their reign from 2006 to 2009.

Now they are covered in pine saplings. “You can’t walk without stepping on a seedling,” smiles Yusufa Khan, another forest department worker.

The Heroshah and Swat plantations are part of the “Billion Tree Tsunami”, a provincial government programme that has seen a total of 300 million trees of 42 different species planted across the province.

A further 150 million plants were given to landowners, while strict forest regeneration measures have allowed the regrowth of 730 million trees — roughly 1.2 billion new trees in total, says the programme’s management.

Kamran Hussain, a manager of the Pakistani branch of the World Wildlife Fund, who conducted an independent audit of the project, says their figures showed slightly less — but still above target at 1.06 billion trees.

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Question for this article:

When you cultivate plants, do you cultivate peace?

(Article continued from the left side of the page)

“We are 100% confident that the figure about the billion trees is correct,” he said, highlighting the transparency of the process. “Everything is online. Everyone has access to this information.”

The programme has been praised by the head of the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a green NGO, which called it a “true conservation success story”.

Initially mocked for what critics said were unrealistic objectives, it is a welcome change to the situation elsewhere in the country.

Pakistani authorities say just 5.2% of the country is covered by forest, against the 12% recommended by the United Nations.

Just one big tree remains in the poverty-stricken village of Garhi Bit in the southern province of Sindh, shading its small mosque.

It has stood there for a century, locals say.

“Before, there were big trees, many kinds of them,” says Dad Mohammad, a 43-year-old farmer.

“But they started to dry because of the lack of water, so we cut them,” he says, pointing to hundreds of metres of cultivated land where previously there stood a forest. More than 60% of the forests lining Sindh’s riverbanks have disappeared in the last 60 years, mainly due to river depletion and massive logging during the 1980s, says Riaz Ahmed Wagan, of the provincial forest department. “It is a disaster,” he says, adding that forestry remains the lowest priority on the agenda of the provincial governments.

The “Billion Tree Tsunami”, which cost the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government $169 million, started in November 2014. Officials say they are still implementing maintenance safeguards such as fire protection, with the project due to be completed in June 2020.

Green Pakistan Project

In early 2017, the federal government announced its own Green Pakistan Project, which aims to plant 100 million trees in five years across the country.

It ranges from “legislative reforms” to “wildlife protection”, according to its leader Ibrahim Khan, who works under the authority of the Ministry for Climate Change. More than a quarter of the work was done by the end of April 2018, he says.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is ruled by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the political party headed by former cricketer Imran Khan, which is the main challenger to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as the country heads into a general election in July 2018.

Mr. Imran Khan has vowed to make the environment an election issue, and to plant a total of 10 billion trees across the country. “Every child in Pakistan should be aware of the environmental issue which, until now, has been a non-issue,” he told AFP.

But it is yet to be seen whether his ambitions will translate into votes.

Pakistani environmental lawyer and activist Ahmad Rafay Allam says that in a country where the electorate is often swayed by infrastructure projects rather than the environment, he has doubts.

“It would be a first,” he told AFP.

South Asia, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In Latin America, agroecology is a deeply political struggle

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Florence Poznanski for Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia (translation by CPNN)

Agroecology is a new model of development based on farming and land use practices in an ecological and common good perspective centered around traditional and popular knowledge and culture. In Brazil, the National Association of Agroecology (ANA) has brought together several hundred farmers’, women’s, artists’ and activists’ organizations over the course of the last fifteen years. Every four years they organize a national meeting of agroecology (RNA) in order to strengthen this network and share the know-how. The fourth edition was held this year between May 31 and June 3 in the city of Belo Horizonte (south-east Brazil) with the theme of the link between the city and the countryside for the production of a healthier diet. In addition to 2000 participants from different regions of Brazil, there were also about fifty people from 14 other countries.


Martin Willaume, Paulo Petersen and Patrícia Candela Orozco. Photos by Lucas Bois

International networks of agroecology

The Catholic Committee against Hunger and Development (CCFD) was one of the participants who made the trip. The French organization has defended the right to land on all continents for more than 50 years. Its presence is due to the institutional support partnership that was signed with ANA in 2016 as part of a global program on ecological transition based on the knowledge of traditional communities. In Latin America, in addition to Brazil, CCFD supports organizations in 10 other countries including Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Haiti.

“The Latin American experience is of great interest to us because it develops a political approach to agroecology that goes far beyond the sole issue of agriculture. In addition to the debate on organic food production and soil protection, the movement manages to link other central axes such as decent work, gender equality or the struggle for democracy “, explains Martin Willaume of CCFD. “This approach does not exist in other parts of the world, for example in Africa where the movement works in a mainly technical line. We are interested in understanding how this articulation is built to then bring the experience there, “he adds.

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(Click here for the original French version.)

Question for this article:

What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from left side of page)

Willaume reports that there are several agroecological experiences on the continent that intertwine with other political agendas. In Bolivia, for example, agroecology has become a central focus in the process of building indigenous self-government in accordance with the Plurinational State’s legislation. In Peru, the movements build agroecology as a means of fighting against mining, and in Colombia, the agroecological movement combines the issues of the peace process in the struggle.

To face the empires of agribusiness, an international union is needed

Paulo Petersen, member of the ANA Executive Committee, explains how important these international alliances are, especially in the context of Brazil today. “The very nature of agroecology is transversal. If we take the 17 Sustainable Development Goals [adopted by the United Nations], we realize that agroecology covers the majority: climate, water, the fight for gender equality, against poverty, hunger, decent work, etc., “commented Peterson.

Completing Willaume’s reflection on the political dimension of agroecology, he points out that “it is not possible to think agroecology without thinking about the defense of democracy. We are talking about processes that do not correspond to a market logic. Agroecology is linked to the common good. It is a global challenge because the companies we fight are global empires and the answer is more autonomy, more sovereignty to get closer to nature and create new social relationships.”

Peterson explains that several Latin American organizations have contacted the ANA to participate in the RNA and also underlines that these exchanges of knowledge are important to allow the movement to continue to innovate and enrich new ideas. Brazil has a pioneering articulation force on the continent
Among the Latin American representatives was Colombian Patrícia Candela Orozco who went to Brazil to learn about the RNA experience. She represents the Instituto Mayor Campesino (IMCA), located in the Valle del Cauca region, near Cali, an organization that has been working for 57 years with peasant communities.

According to Patrícia, Brazil is a pioneer in the development of agroecology in Latin America. She says she was very impressed with the methodology called “mystic”, which is developed with music, theater and poetry. This is used to welcome meeting participants, to celebrate victories, to strengthen struggles or to introduce or contextualize debates in diverse spaces, in addition to fostering greater interaction with and among participants. “The fact of adding the spiritual part of the people gives more strength to the messages of that struggle. If each one lives this message inside of himself, he will be able to transmit it more easily to the rest of the people”, she says.

The broad participation in the fourth ENA was another point that impressed Candela. In Colombia, the IMCA was involved in the construction of the first national farmers’ meeting, which took place in 2017 and involved various civil society organizations. Patrícia highlights how difficult it is to hold an event of this size. The Brazilian experience in the ENA left her inspired.

(Thank you to Kiki Chauvin, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

Latin America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT