Friday in Five from Unibloom

Our last newsletter of 2024 brings you updates from WEF’s new cost of climate inaction report, feed additives hitting the headlines in the UK and why climate transition plans will be key for 2025.

Welcome to our bi-weekly newsletter where we intend to inspire you with real life business action on climate, biodiversity, nature, circularity and social justice through the lens of driving business value.? Coming to you every other Friday, we want to celebrate the wins, draw attention to the challenges and occasionally even mythbust and we guarantee to do it in under five minutes.??

Summary:

• New report shows the costs of climate inaction
• Misinformation campaign fuels controversy over Arla’s use of Bovaer
• Why you need a climate transition plan
• New electricity grid projection tool launch from Unibloom

New report shows the costs of climate inaction

The World Economic Forum and BCG’s new report, The Cost of Inaction: A CEO Guide to Navigating Climate Risk, reveals the financial costs that all companies will face from inaction on climate.? It shows that:

• Rising temperatures and extreme weather events are already disrupting supply chains and impacting productivity.
• Climate change is already expensive: Climate-related disasters have caused over $3.6 trillion in damage since 2000
• Companies that don't take action face significant financial risks, including reduced earnings and asset devaluation. (5-25% of their 2050 EBITDA at risk)
• Investing in climate adaptation measures can protect businesses from these risks and unlock new growth opportunities, with companies reporting $2 to $19 back for every dollar invested.

Misinformation campaign fuels controversy over Arla’s use of Bovaer

Arla recently launched a trial at 30 farms in the UK to test? the use of Bovaer as a feed additive with the aim of reducing methane emissions from their dairy production, in collaboration with a number of major retailers

.? In tests, Bovaer has been shown to reduce emissions by between 30-45%.? However, the announcement was met with a significant consumer backlash with misinformation spreading rapidly on social media platforms, despite rigorous trials showing that the additive is safe and doesn’t pass into milk or meat.? The controversy was covered widely by national media outlets and has led to calls to boycott Arla, but they have made it clear they will continue with the trial. This probably wasn’t an initiative that Arla was expecting this level of response on given it is ostensibly a technical trial but it demonstrates the need for strong leadership, transparency of the science behind the new solutions and robust communication to be in place alongside the operational changes needed to drive emission reduction.??

Why you need a climate transition plan

‘Only one-quarter of net-zero-aspiring businesses have explained by crunching numbers, presenting models and planning scenarios to build a climate transition action plan (CTAP).’? Trellis’ overview of why climate transition plans are going to become the key tool in the sustainability arsenal is well worth a read.? Up until now the presence of a science aligned target, carbon accounting and an impact report showing if you did or didn’t meet the target and some broad areas of focus for the year ahead has been sufficient.? As gaps grow for businesses to achieve 2030 targets, and regulation, for example the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires CTAP’s, these are going to be the key pieces of evidence to be able to demonstrate your plan and actions, risks and opportunities - linked to? financials.??

New electricity grid projection tool launch from Unibloom

Unibloom helps businesses avoid unnecessary climate investments with a new integrated electricity grid projection tool, improving the accuracy of climate transition planning.

We have just released the latest update to the platform that vastly improves businesses’ ability to build effective and fully costed climate transition plans.? Unibloom works with ambitious food & consumer goods companies to enable them to identify better climate solutions, cheaper & smarter, to meet their? SBTi & Net Zero targets.?

The new feature enables businesses across Europe & the US, to forecast national electricity grid transition and subsequently optimise their emission reduction strategies.? By leveraging national grid transformation data, companies can now avoid overinvesting in decarbonisation solutions in Scope 2 and instead shift investments to Scope 1 and Scope 3 (across the value chain) while still meeting their targets. This creates a more comprehensive and robust climate action plan.

"Unibloom helped us understand the potential impact of decarbonisation of national grids on Scope 2 emissions. This helps us to both avoid overinvesting in Scope 2 reduction, but also to understand the real impact of switching from fossil sources to electricity. This way, we can focus on high-impact areas like feed in Scope 3 and energy in Scope 1. It saves us a lot of analytical work and ensures our efforts to drive real progress toward 2030 targets”. Ida, Sustainability Director, Scandi Standard:

Watch a demo here.?

Get in touch with the Unibloom team to hear how we can help you develop yours - [email protected]

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