The UK Election, Reasons to be Cheerful, and Scope 3 - The Elephant in The Room.

Hello subs!

I know it's been a while (nearly 9 months) since I have posted in this newsletter, I am sorry for being AWOL. Its been a busy time at Ecologi and also in the VCM ??

However, I am back and keen to keep people updated with some thoughts and trends within the sustainability world, and net-zero more broadly.

1. The UK Election.

The race is on! The UK election has finally been called and if the polls are to be believed it looks like Keir Starmer will be picking out the drapes in Number 10 this summer.

But what are his climate priorities? I think we were all disappointed when Labour dropped their ￡28 billion green pledge - to a ‘ramp up’ rather than outright spending.

Their push for a government-backed publicly owned clean energy company called?'GB Energy' is a welcome move, and so is their pledge to end new oil and gas licenses for the North Sea oil.

“In total, Labour has a revised commitment for an additional ￡23.7bn in green investment in its first term in office (just under ￡5bn a year).”

Rachel Reeves has stressed her intention that the treasury will play a greater role in the transition. Numerous instances of decision-making by chancellors and the Treasury have hindered the UK's efforts to achieve net zero so far.

This includes the cancellation of climate policy initiatives like the Zero Carbon Homes standard, the carbon capture and storage competition, and the Green Homes Grant.

Even a former permanent secretary at the Treasury acknowledged that it was "slow to act on climate change.” But this focus on the economic fundamentals of the transition is great to see from Labour - but tricky to balance with high public borrowing costs and a planned reduction in oil production, but things could soon be moving in a more positive direction come July.

But we will have to wait and see. You can read more here .

2. Reasons To Be Cheerful on Climate

It's always good to reflect on progress and read good news about the climate as there seems to be very little of it at the moment!

Five Reasons for Optimism on Climate

1. More than 30% of global emissions are now from renewables. The global surge of installations and declining costs of solar installations, especially in China, signifies a major shift towards renewable energy.

2. Electric Vehicles (EVs): With 18% of new cars being electric, V2G technology allows EVs to sell stored energy back to the grid, enhancing cost-effectiveness, energy efficiency and also compensate for fluctuations in renewable energy generation.

The cost of batteries has actually decreased by 90% over the last 15 years - which is quite staggering.

3. EU Energy Production: For the first time in April, fossil fuels provided less than a quarter of the EU’s energy.

According to energy think tank Ember, the proportion of electricity generated by fossil fuels in the EU fell to a record low of 23 percent last month, a sharp decline of 22 percent compared to April 2023, despite increased demand. This also surpasses the previous record low of 27 percent set in May 2023.

4. Legal Actions: High-profile climate lawsuits could force fossil fuel companies and governments to account for their environmental impact and the lack of action.

There have been a few high-profile wins from Client Earth who are a great organisation to follow.

5. Historical Progress: There has been tangible progress since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

"Greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, based on policies in place, were projected to increase by 16 per cent at the time of the agreement’s adoption. Today, the projected increase is 3 per cent.

However, by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions must still decrease by 28 percent to align with the Paris Agreement's 2°C target and by 42 percent to meet the 1.5°C target - So there is much more to be done.

You can read more here , here and here

3. Scope 3 - The Elephant in the Room.

Scope 3 is the greatest challenge in net-zero (and can be up to 11 times higher than direct emissions) and yet there are so many blockers to progress.

One of the foremost challenges in addressing scope 3 emissions is the complexity of data collection. Companies often operate within extensive and intricate supply chains, making it difficult to gather precise data.

Scope 3 emissions include all indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain, making accurate measurement and attribution challenging. Also the lack of standardised methods for reporting emissions further exacerbates this issue, leading to inconsistencies in data collection and reporting across the industry. Accurate measurement is vital for setting realistic reduction targets and tracking progress.?

Additionally, when looking to engage with suppliers there is often a power imbalance especially if you have a major supplier which can be an emission bottleneck, (eg AWS) for a small low emitting business, as there is little scope to influence them.

Effective supplier engagement requires building strong relationships and offering support to help suppliers improve their environmental performance. There are tools out there but speaking to firms looking to tackle scope 3 they can often be besieged by data requests of varying levels of complexity with little standardisation.

Effectively reducing Scope 3 emissions will require extensive collaboration across different organisations and industries. Coordinating actions and initiatives across a diverse supply chain can be logistically challenging. It's clear that organisations and supply chains must work together, share best practices, and support each other in their sustainability efforts.

There are some positive signs, larger organisations are starting to add data collection efforts to their procurement processes - A public sector version of this can be seen in the NHS' PPN 06/21 (a catchy name I know) that requires all tenders for framework agreements to submit a Carbon Reduction Plan and a public net-zero commitment, this will start a trickle-down effect of data collection in years to come.

We at Ecologi are looking to research how companies are planning to adhere to this new requirement and help them to do so please feel free to book a session with us here .

PS, I have actually written a Medium article focused on scope 3 - if you want to see an example of how this problem could be solved you can read more here .

Thanks for reading and see you in a few weeks (not months).