Safeguarding human rights in business supply chains by businesses that believe profits should come not from creating the world’s problems, but from solving them… Continue Reading
Our clients and other stakeholders can use these results as they make their company plans for GHG emission measurement, disclosure, and reduction in 2023… Continue Reading
As we look back in this ‘year in review’ at our most read blog posts in 2022, at a time when many have emerged from 2 years of permacrisis to the highs of a future where ESG opportunities are accelerating. This blog is a microcosm of the issues we assist clients with daily in our … Continue Reading
Much has been written in the media about the just concluded UN Climate Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, most of it focusing on the agreement to agree on reparations or more correctly stated, on providing “loss and damage” funding in the future for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters. But the biggest takeaway for … Continue Reading
The golden opportunity in ESG may be in concrete. Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with materials’ manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal. In a building, there is “upfront” embodied carbon in construction and then operational carbon largely from energy consumption. Embodied carbon is particularly important because it contributes more climate changing … Continue Reading
There is a new answer to the philosophical question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?” The answer has depended upon your definition of sound. If you define sound as our perceptions of vibrations that travel through air (vibrations from a falling tree), … Continue Reading
Scope 4 greenhouse gas emissions are not new. They date to 2013 when the Greenhouse Gas Protocol identified “avoided emissions” as emission reductions that occur outside of a product’s lifecycle or value chain, but as a result of the use of that product. It was actually a decade ago that the GHG Protocol released “a survey to … Continue Reading
After this blog was posted, on September 21, 2023 the Biden Administration approved the recommendation of the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, directing federal government agencies to consider the social cost of greenhouse gases in federal procurement. On November 11, 2022, shortly after this blog was posted EPA proposed a rule … Continue Reading
Calculating net zero is ill defined, unregulated and complex. Businesses making a net zero pledge like, “we will be net zero by 2030” risk a charge that they are greenwashing and misleading consumers. It is one thing when government leaders make an ESG claim: In 2009 the King of Bhutan proclaimed his Himalayan country was … Continue Reading
With the U.S. midterm elections just weeks away, increasing numbers of employees are being encouraged to serve civil society helping repair the world. There are a myriad of possible elements in the “S” (Social) component of ESG, but what they have in common is they are about social relationships, from a business’ relationship with its … Continue Reading
There are more than 3 Million houses in the U.S. with solar panels installed on the roof. The Inflation Protection Act of 2022 extended the 30% federal tax credit for residential solar panels through 2034 which is predicted to more than triple that number of solar installations. And as those houses are each year … Continue Reading
Whilst much of the popular media is all but obsessed with the March 21, 2022, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed ESG Rules to Enhance and Standardize Climate-Related Disclosures that will among other matters require companies for the first time to disclose greenhouse gas emission data, we continue to work with companies in complying with … Continue Reading
Last month, the California Secretary of State appealed the decision by a California Superior Court striking down as unconstitutional California’s board diversity law, which required all publicly traded companies headquartered in the State to include a minimum number of female directors. In 2018, Women on Boards (Senate Bill 826) was signed into law to advance … Continue Reading
With allegations of greenwashing all but de rigueur, businesses should be on the alert for the soon to be released Federal Trade Commission’s updated Green Guides. This year companies are being publicly challenged and having their reputations tarnished for greenwashing, in some instances for deceptive misrepresentations, others for unintentionally misleading, and more often than not, … Continue Reading
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to designate two of the most widely used per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the “Superfund” law. The proposal applies to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), including their salts and structural … Continue Reading
We have blogged repeatedly that “the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor” is a key element, if not singularly the most important principle of a business’s practices. That point was driven home with the release last Wednesday, by The United Nations Human Rights Office assessment of human rights concerns in China’s Xinjiang … Continue Reading
You are invited to join Stuart Kaplow and Nancy Hudes for a live webinar we are presenting this Tuesday, August 16 from 9 to 10 am EST that will provide you with all the information you need to reply to the question “Are You Ready to Measure and Report Your Building GHG Emissions?” Our webinar … Continue Reading
As governments enact mandatory greenhouse gas emission laws and as businesses voluntarily make “net zero” pledges, we are increasingly working with organizations, first to understand and calculate their GHG emissions, then to implement strategies for efficacious yet frictionless reductions. An example of what businesses are reacting to is Maryland’s new statutory mandate that buildings, commercial, … Continue Reading
Slavery exists in 2022. There is simply no morally defensible reason for not doing everything in our power to end modern slavery. U.S. Customs and Border Protection describes in a May 17, 2022 update, that at any given time, “an estimated 40.3 million people are in modern slavery.” That “means there are 5.4 victims of … Continue Reading
Corporate diversity is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. Maryland has published, for public comment, regulations implementing the corporate diversity law enacted by the legislature in 2021. But the proposed regulations are unconstitutional on their face, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Article 24 of the Maryland … Continue Reading
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc. with misstatements and omissions about ESG considerations for certain mutual funds that it managed. To settle the charges, on May 23, 2022, BNY Mellon Investment Adviser agreed to pay a $1.5 million penalty. The SEC’s order finds that, from July 2018 to September 2021, BNY … Continue Reading
On October 7, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reopened the public comment periods, for 14 days from the day the notice is published in the Federal Register, for 11 of its rulemaking releases, some of them viewed as controversial including the rules discussed in this blog post, due to a technical glitch that … Continue Reading
Congress passed, and on December 23, 2021 President Biden signed into law, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The new law that will be enforced beginning June 21, 2022 has implications for imported cotton and tomatoes and most significantly for solar panels. The Act, codified at 22 U.S.C. §6901, establishes a rebuttable presumption that any … Continue Reading