Friday in Five from Unibloom

As parents look ahead to kids finally returning to school and we all start to look ahead to budget planning processes and new product development plans for 2025, it’s a great time to reflect on whether you have the tools and data within your business that you need to ensure effective decision making behind your sustainability planning.??

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

• Companies spending a lot more on reporting climate action, than innovating to act on it.
• Unbundled RECs come under renewed scrutiny
• Unibloom’s latest release lands
• Lidl trials blended meat
• New EU resources on CSRD and CSDDD

IBM report shows companies spending a lot more on reporting climate action, than innovating to act on it.

It isn’t a well kept secret that sustainability teams are feeling the pinch with a host of new regulations coming in and that this has dominated board rooms throughout 2024 and will continue to do so into 2025.? However, an IBM report from earlier this year shines a light on the scale of this challenge, showing that:

• Spending on sustainability reporting exceeds spending on sustainability innovation by 43%.?
• 53%) of these businesses say that business benefits are essential for justifying sustainability investments; only 17% say meeting sustainability objectives is in itself sufficient to justify investment.
• While 82% of executives agree that high-quality data and transparency are necessary to achieve sustainability outcomes, only about 4 in 10 organisations can automatically source sustainability data from any of the following core systems: ERP (finance, HR, supply chain), Enterprise Asset Management, CRM, Energy Management Systems, Facilities Management systems.

If this sounds like your business, please come and speak to us to see how we can support you move from intention and reporting into action.?

Unbundled RECs come under renewed scrutiny

The use of unbundled renewable energy certificates (RECs) have come under renewed pressure given their use by tech companies to support prolific AI growth.? RECs are market instruments used by companies that provide evidence of the purchase of a particular amount of renewable energy.? The challenge with unbundled RECs is that it doesn’t necessarily lead to actual emissions reductions.? The use of RECs is widespread and has been an important part of demonstrating market signals for clean energy but the challenge remains when it leads to a loss in transparency.? There has been a number of reports recently about the growth in emissions driven by AI from some of the largest tech companies in recent months but this is something that is going to affect every business as AI usage becomes increasingly widespread.? The role for RECs in supporting the transition will continue to be a source of debate.??

Unibloom’s latest release lands

Unibloom’s latest release is now available with all decarbonisation planning connected to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, enabling businesses to visualise your short term and long term plans and map against your targets instantly - www.unibloom.world.? Get in touch with Chris ([email protected]) or Anna ([email protected]) to discuss how we can support you with your action plans.?

Lidl trials blended meat

Lidl has launched a beef / pea protein blended mince in their Dutch stores as part of their goal of making 60% of protein sales by 2030 from plant-based protein. It will be particularly interesting to see the consumer reaction from the new range, particularly with Lidl also aligning this launch with price parity from their plant-based range with meat proteins. Several other retailers have already tried and failed with blended meat options and so Lidl's move will be watched closely by retailers and brands alike. https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/lidl-netherlands-blended-meat-plant-based-dairy-cost-gehaktmix-met-erwteneiwit/

Resources

The EU has released new FAQs on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive - :

• https://finance.ec.europa.eu/publications/frequently-asked-questions-implementation-eu-corporate-sustainability-reporting-rules_en?
• And on the EU Corporate Sustainabiity Due DIligence Directive - https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/7a3e9980-5fda-4760-8f25-bc5571806033_en?filename=240719_CSDD_FAQ_final.pdf

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Read more on Unibloom at - www.unibloom.world

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This is Unibloom's way to support you and your teams to look ahead, plan and prioritise the right actions towards your business and climate targets. We believe that we need a much more collaborative and data-driven approach to achieve the level of transformation all our businesses need to achieve to align with the science, and to grow up to 2030 and beyond.? If you have subjects or issues that you would like us to cover please do leave a comment below and / or get in touch with us in the link above