Last week in Low Carbon Commerce - 2023-10-2

Last Week in Low Carbon Commerce
October 2, 2023

Regulation and Research

📄 Last week, the European Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a new EU directive addressing greenwashing. It is expected to be formally adopted in November 2023 and enter into force shortly after. This will be followed by a 24-month period for businesses to adapt. The new directive includes the following:

• Ban on unsubstantiated generic environmental claims without proper evidence, such as ‘climate neutral’, ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘natural’, ‘biodegradable’, or ‘eco’

• Ban on unverified claims based on emissions offsetting

• Ban on unverified claims that suggest a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment

• Ban on the planned obsolescence of goods

Retailers

📄 Kroger released their annual ESG report called ‘Thriving Together.’ Highlights include:

• donating 3 billion meals two years ahead of stated goal

• donating over $336 million to non-profit organizations

• donating 106 million pounds of surplus food

• diverting 82% waste from landfills company-wide

• reducing GHG emissions by 15.2% from 2018

• sourcing 20.4 million pounds of Fair Trade Certified ingredients for private label products (a 20.8% increase year-over-year!)

• transitioned over 33% of egg supply to cage-free or higher-welfare supply

♻️ major UK retailer Sainsbury announced their switch from plastic to paper packaging for all their private label toilet paper and kitchen towels, saving over 55M pieces (485t) of plastic annually in their largest single plastics reduction effort so far

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Brands

♻️ Lego has abandoned a project to make Lego pieces from recycled bottles, citing higher lifetime carbon emissions due to the extra ingredients and energy needed to make the product viably durable. The Danish company currently uses the oil-based plastic acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which requires around 2kg of petroleum to make 1kg of plastic, according to the Financial Times

♻️ Coca-Cola opened a new bottling and washing plant for their reusable and resealable glass bottles, significantly increasing the range of reusable products they offer to the Austrian market. This water and energy efficient plant, along with recently announced paper and cardboard outer packaging instead of plastic, will help Coca-Cola achieve net zero emissions across its entire value chain by 2040.

Deals and Funding

💰 German biomaterials startup traceless materials raised €36.6M in a Series A funding round to scale production of their plastic alternatives. According to the company, their products are certified home compostable and can save up to 91% of CO2 emissions compared to traditional plastics