The EU Green Deal Industrial Plan ??

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Competition in the green energy space is heating up between the European Union, United States and China this week, as the EU presents its "Green Deal Industrial Plan" ?? set to rival America’s Inflation Reduction Act. And want to know how to use fly larvae to help grow fruit ??? Then keep on scrolling for today’s ESG Spotlight to learn more.

The European Union is aiming to enact up to five trade deals ?? in record time to ensure its future as a clean tech leader, by securing supplies of key raw materials, increasing markets for green exports and reducing its reliance on China.

The five deals being targeted could be worth about ?? 10 billion euros ($10.9 billion) ?? to the EU and help cement its market share and influence in the Americas and Asia-Pacific region, according to Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of trade think tank ECIPE.

The European Commission will not propose any new joint EU borrowing when it presents ideas on how to support Europe's green industry ?? facing Chinese and U.S. competition, a draft of its "Green Deal Industrial Plan" showed.

Instead, the draft seen by Reuters offers to repurpose some of the money the EU has already agreed to raise jointly for its post-coronavirus pandemic recovery fund ??. It will also loosen state aid rules to allow governments to support their firms more.

European funding for the green industry – makers of wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles or hydrogen – has become an issue after the United States offered ?? $369 billion of subsidies largely for manufacturers based in North America, threatening to lure companies away from Europe.

But North America’s renewables boon has some hurdles ?? to overcome, as solar energy contract prices in the United States have soared ?? by a third over the past year as project developers have struggled to get imported panels, according to a report by data company LevelTen Energy.

Fourth-quarter prices on solar contracts ??, known as power purchase agreements (PPAs), were up 33.3% on a year before and 8.2% on the previous quarter, according to LevelTen Energy’s quarterly index.?

The supply chain constraints have dampened the benefits ?? for solar developers of President Joe Biden's landmark climate change law, which late last year extended tax credits for renewable energy projects.

In Conversation

Jamie Coats , CEO of U.S.-based data company Wise Responder and co-founder of UK-based non-profit SOPHIA Oxford , on the imperative to “double down” on climate change goals by linking Poverty Zero and Net Zero targets:

“The mandates of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreement are unambiguous, and time is not on our side.

If we want to achieve climate goals, then we must combine Net Zero and Poverty Zero targets. For elected governments, the promise of poverty reduction requires access to affordable energy for citizens. Without this, you get standoffs like 'Yellow Jacket' protests in France or street blockades in Panama.

To get this right, governments need to “double down” on climate justice, developing plans with sufficient green energy pathways that reduce both poverty and carbon emissions.

During the transition, trade-offs between poverty and emission reductions will happen; just look at the UK’s willingness to fire up coal power stations, if needed, to stave off power cuts. Such trade-offs should be done in the context of planning that combines the broad adoption of poverty reduction goals with decreased emissions targets.

For this to work, we need to cultivate popular backing of climate goals that enjoin developed and emerging economies to simultaneously pursue Poverty Zero and Net Zero targets. Anything short of this jeopardizes our efforts to halt climate change.”?

ESG Lens

Germany's power producers have aggressively ramped up power from intermittent renewable sources, with solar and wind generation totals both rising by more than 50% since 2015. Over the same period, power firms boosted use of cleaner-burning natural gas from 10% to 16.5%, reducing the country's overall power sector emissions in the process.

ESG Spotlight

Have you ever wondered how to help fruit grow ?? using fly larvae? Well, Malaysia’s Nutrition Technologies produces "soil conditioner" from frass – the waste and skin of Black Soldier Fly larvae.

Nutrition Technologies, which started in 2015, sells an average of 200 tonnes of frass monthly in Malaysia, mainly to farmers ?? who apply it to leafy greens, cucumbers and fruit ??, said Martin Zorrilla, the company's chief technology officer.?

While most Malaysian fertilizer producers ?? now sell frass, volumes are still too low to draw the attention of global agriculture companies, Zorrilla said. "Ultimately, soil is a living system, which is one reason it takes natural processes so long to build soil and why it is so easy to lose it," he said.

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