3 Bits periodically provides three bite-sized items of interest about climate news.
1. Stepping Up Amidst SEC Setbacks
The recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruling excluded Scope 3 reporting from its corporate sustainability requirements, but that isn’t stopping food and beverage manufacturers, including PepsiCo and Unilever, from measuring their supply chain footprints and reducing emissions. These emissions “account for up to 87% of the food and beverage industry’s carbon footprint”, and agricultural suppliers are especially at risk due to climate change. To enable action, companies like HowGood provide granular emissions factors for tens of thousands of ingredients to enable companies to quantify current and future scenarios, at scale. (Source: Food Dive)
2. Circular Construction
As companies build out ESG teams and establish emissions reductions targets, a key business mitigation target is corporate construction. Real-estate firms and construction companies alike are becoming accustomed to clients and corporate tenants seeking circular construction practices, “think re-use”, to drive decarbonization. That may look like shifting electricity supply away from fossil fuel suppliers, purchasing refurbished office furniture instead of new, or incorporating recycled concrete into new buildings, which “reduces carbon-dioxide emissions by about 40% compared with ordinary production”. (Source: Wall Street Journal)
3. Community Solar is Gaining Ground
Folks in Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston, are establishing an 81-kilowatt community solar project on the roof of a recently opened Food Co-Op in the neighborhood. By creating an alternative energy source and revenue stream to be shared amongst community members with stakes in the project, this project “helps bring the benefits of renewable energy to lower-income and other historically disadvantaged communities”. As recently as 2022, 2% of community solar customers identified as low-income, and this project exemplifies how consumer interest drives energy investment at the local level. (Source: Canary Media)