GTG Links 26 – Sustainability reports galore

A nice quick one this week.

The dichotomy of ESG

Amazon’s latest sustainability report has some gems in it

9 takeaways from Amazon’s 2022 Sustainability Report

The annual report describes how we’re building a more sustainable company for our customers, our people—and, importantly, the planet.

US About AmazonWritten by Kara Hurst, Vice President and Head of Worldwide Sustainability at Amazon

Microsoft's enviro sustainaiblity report is out too

Microsoft 2022 Environmental Sustainability Report

Read the annual sustainability report from Microsoft. Explore our progress to become a carbon negative, water positive and zero waste company.

Microsoft Sustainability

Nintendo has updated its ESG data

Data Sheet | CSR Information | Nintendo Co., Ltd.

This page provides numerical data disclosure related to the environment, employees, and governance and compliance.

Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Google's sustianability report is out too

Haven't finished reading it yet myself, but check out this incredible graphic of their data centre renewable power percentage, with percentages for different times of the day. East coast US seems like it's dipping overnight, so its probably mostly solar? More offshore wind is probably needed to see spluts like those seen in Europe (Denmark and Finland take a bow).

This is the challenge though – how do we power things everwhere and at all hours with renewables? Unlike household energy, where you can set your dishwasher to come on when the sun is shining, Data centres don't really have that luxury.

Also the hourly renewable percentage increased slightly over 2021 even as they added around 3 TWh worth of demand. For context, the entire country, of Luxembourg only used 6.6 TWh of electricity in 2022. So Google's data centres added 1/2 of a Luxemobourg worth of demand, and kept the renwables up. Crazy stuff.

Sustainable Innovation & Technology - Google Sustainability

Sustainability

Infuriating but essential reading

Bill McKibben’s piece from a decade ago was the one that got me started on thinking about games + climate. This one is just an update on where we are at, and how badly the fossil fuels are winning.

Big Heat and Big Oil

A rapid end to burning fossil fuel would arrest the heating that has caused extreme damage in recent weeks; and that rapid end is possible.

The New YorkerCondé Nast

The best explainer on Voluntary Carbon Market Initiative rules

VCMI carbon credit claims ‘cannot be used for offsetting’

Carbon credits cannot be used for offsetting emissions instead of reducing emissions within corporate value chains, or for making ‘carbon neutral’ claims, under the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI)’s Claims Code.

Environmental FinanceThomas Cox

How much of the net is going net zero?

How much of the internet is covered by Net zero targets? - The Green Web Foundation

How to help Green Web Foundation build an open dataset showing how much of the internet is covered by credible Net Zero commitments.

The Green Web FoundationChris Adams

Equitable energy demand reduction

This is a really fascinating paper, with really important implications for future energy use and just approaches to curbing climate change. h/t to Jackson Ryan (who has his own irregular newsletter) for finding this one.

Energy demand reduction (EDR) will be required to reach climate targets in the Global North. To be compatible with just transitions principles, EDR needs to be equitable. Equitable EDR may involve targeting high energy users while ensuring the satisfaction of needs for all, which could require increasing consumption of low users. Emissions impacts of equitable EDR approaches have not yet been assessed. This Article finds that capping energy use of the top quintile of consumers across 27 European countries can achieve considerable greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 11.4% from domestic energy, 16.8% from transport and 9.7% from total energy consumption. Increasing consumption of low energy users in poverty reduces these savings by only 1.2, 0.9 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively.

Emissions savings from equitable energy demand reduction - Nature Energy

Emissions impacts of equitable energy demand reduction approaches are not well understood. A new study finds that capping energy use among top-quintile consumers in Europe achieves considerable emissions reductions.

NatureMilena Büchs

Some press for PATH – the Partnership for Carbon Transparency

This is a relatively young organisation that branched out of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) after a pilot project a couple years ago. It's about creating, and maintaining, a Scope 3 data sharing protocol/standard, to enable much more definite accounting of CO2 emissions from products and services. Very promising! Keep an eye on them.

SAP BrandVoice: Can Accountants – And CEOs– Save The World With A Carbon Accounting System?

Understanding materiality - the threshold above which missing or incorrect information in financial statements is considered to have an impact – is key for CEOs.

ForbesJudith Magyar

Recycling plastics from eWaste (like consoles)

From a few of the Sony sustainability research team. Read the open access piece here.

New machine allows for the refurbishing of certain OLED phone screens

This one is suuuuuper cool, and a great sustainability win for OLED phone screen repairability.

Harvard Business Review piece on the role of CSOs

h/t to Scharl for posting this one on LinkedIn.

The Evolving Role of Chief Sustainability Officers

The role of the CSO is undergoing a rapid and dramatic transformation. Historically CSOs have acted like stealth PR executives—their primary task was to tell an appealing story about corporate sustainability initiatives to the company’s many stakeholders. Now, however, some CSOs have moved away from…

Harvard Business ReviewRobert G. Eccles

MIT Sloan management review with new research on sustainability progress as viewed by staff

Roughly one-third of the respondents asserted that their employers have made significant strides in their sustainability journeys. Although that number might sound low given the enormity of the task facing us, the good news is that there is momentum, which we can help accelerate by pointing out the roadblocks as perceived by employees.

Sustainability Progress Is Stalled at Most Companies

U.S. employers are lagging at embedding sustainability into their organizations, new research shows.

MIT Sloan Management ReviewCB Bhattacharya and Rob Jekielek

Games history at risk

Better repairability would help. Good for history, good for the planet.

87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games | Video Game History Foundation

New study reveals most classic video games are completely unavailable

Video Game History FoundationKelsey Lewin

Video of all the major flooding in June/July so far

Michael Flammer on LinkedIn: #climatebreakdown | 69 comments

Extreme weather events every single day now. All of this and much more happened within one month only! India, Spain, Turkey, USA, Indonesia, Japan, South… | 69 comments on LinkedIn

LinkedInMichael Flammer

Thanks for reading. More soon.