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What Growing Greenwashing Litigation Means for Companies
New data reveals that climate-washing litigation (challenging a company’s claims of being “carbon neutral” or “climate-friendly) is a big success for plaintiffs with 70% of completed cases ending in successful rulings for them. Of the 77 cases that reached their...
Oh Deere: Is ESG/DEI in Your Communication Plan?
Last week when news broke about John Deere backing away from their DEI commitments, I was skeptical – suggesting it could be a hoax because of a few red flags. However, it now looks as though the company statement issued...
New Podcast: Neurodivergence in the Workplace
A new podcast is now available for members. In conversation with Tameka Allen (she/her), a neuroinclusion consultant and the founder of ModCulture, we unpack neurodiversity in the workplace. Drawing from her 16+ years of experience, Tameka shares practical tips and...
Materiality Assessment: Getting Value Out of Stakeholder Input
[Ed. note: This guest blog comes from Dinah Koehler, ScD of CSO Partner. Dinah has extensive experience in environmental and climate matters and holds a doctorate in environmental risk assessment and management from Harvard School of Public Health. This is...
The Quiet Way AI Conflicts With Sustainability
We wrote about the apparent conflict between AI and corporate climate goals at the end of last year and that tension is big news now. But there is another way companies use AI that may not be fully compatible with...
Renewables Success Sinks EU ETS Value in Germany
It was bound to happen. Indeed, the intent, design and goal of carbon emissions trading was supposed to be its own ultimate demise – as the world leaves fossil fuels behind, demand and pricing for tradable carbon emissions should fall....
Movie Time: What Does Sustainability Innovation Look Like?
Sustainability professionals beat the drum of the business value of sustainability, or integrating sustainability into the business. I couch it in terms of linking sustainability to business fundamentals or to customers’ key buying criteria. Chrissa Pagitsas recently called the concept...
Italy Moves Forward with Armani and Dior Probes
Previously, we wrote about the Italian government investigating LVMH, owner of luxury brands Dior Group and Armani, based on alleged human rights violations of suppliers. The situation has heated up as Italy’s competition authority took on its own investigation, alleging...
Webcast Today: ESG Investing Today: The Reality for Investors and Portfolio Companies
PracticalESG.com members can join us today at 10:00am Central Time for our live webcast “ESG Investing Today: The Reality for Investors and Portfolio Companies.” ESG investing isn’t new, but it is in a new world right now with unprecedented regulatory,...
Is John Deere’s Announcement Abandoning DEI Actually a Hoax?
Big news is that John Deere announced July 16 on X that the company is eliminating DEI programs, seemingly following the lead of Tractor Supply Company (TSC) and responding to similar criticism from the same social media commentator that attacked...
Words Matter: Using “Trust Words” in Disclosures Signals The Opposite
Misdirection is the goal in magic, but probably not in regulatory disclosures. Here is a pretty fascinating article from Advisory Board member Dan Goelzer: “A research paper published in the Journal of Business Ethics finds that companies that use ‘trust...
Upcoming Webcast: ESG Investing Today: The Reality for Investors and Portfolio Companies
PracticalESG.com members can join us next Tuesday July 23 at 10:00am Central Time for our live webcast ESG Investing Today: The Reality for Investors and Portfolio Companies. ESG investing isn’t new, but it is in a new world right now...
Is the SEC Prepared for a Post-Chevron Landscape?
Recently, we syndicated a blog from TheCorporateCounsel.net that discussed the recent SCOTUS ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overruling the 40-year precedent of “Chevron Deference.” In a nutshell, prior to Loper, if there was ambiguity in how a statute...
Huh? SHRM Removes Equity from DEI
By now, you’ve likely noticed the array of comments about the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) recent action of removing equity from its framework. The announcement is rather confusing as SHRM’s President announced that they are eliminating equity, while...
Tractor Supply Stock Price Surges – Is It the Start of Something?
The recent controversy involving Tractor Supply Company (see here and here) is still top of mind to many. With so much negativity around the company, there is one point of particular positivity – TSC’s stock price. Since the day before...
Austria Faces Litigation at the European Court of Human Rights
Human rights litigation is one of the most common types of climate litigation outside the US. These cases typically allege governments violate the human rights of their citizens when failing to adequately address climate change. Often, plaintiffs seek policy reforms...
The Pressure is on Suppliers to Decarbonize – Is it Real This Time?
Last year, we started covering the conflict facing technology companies in simultaneously meeting climate targets and business goals. Bloomberg wrote about the increasing pressure yesterday: “Microsoft said its carbon emissions are now 30% higher compared to 2020 as it invests...
PracticalESG.com Changes You’ll Soon Notice
The ESG world hasn’t been static and neither have demands on your time and needs for usable information. Therefore, starting next week, you’ll notice some changes for the summer that enhance our service and value to members. We will be...
California’s Climate Laws Face Amendments
Proposed amendments to California SB253 (the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act) and SB261 (Climate-Related Financial Risk Reporting) have been published, which mainly address timing and California Air Resources Board (CARB) function. The major proposed amendments to SB253 include: Giving CARB...
Will US Courts be Applying More Foreign Law?
For years, foreign plaintiffs relied on a law known as the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) to bring claims in US courts for violations committed overseas. The ATS allowed foreign nationals to sue persons or companies located in the US for...
Germany Seeks to Scale Back German Supply Chain Act
When the EU passed the Corporate Supply Chain Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), it had an eye towards raising the standards for supply chain management across the EU. Ironically, the new Directive is causing Germany, an early adopter of mandatory supply...
CSOs, Sustainability Staff – Find Personal Clarity for Professional Success
This blog is a bit different from what I normally write. We all know how overwhelming the ESG/sustainability/DEI world is right now. Information and demands come from every angle – burnout along with feelings of helplessness and loss of purpose...
New UK Government to Double Onshore Wind Development by 2030
The UK government changed drastically in early July as the Labour Party came into power ending 14 years of Tory rule. The more liberal Labour Party’s presence is already being felt as a new policy statement on wind energy is...
Switzerland Proposes to Adopt CSRD Reporting
Mandatory sustainability disclosures are becoming the global norm. At this juncture, there are two major frameworks most jurisdictions model their legislation after: the ISSB’s IFRS standards and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSRD) and its ESRS standards. While...
New Study: Texas Anti-ESG Law Did Not Cost State $700 Million
We’ve written before about the Texas law prohibiting public entities from doing business with financial institutions that “engage in boycotts against energy and firearms companies.” One study on the impact of that law claims that the law cost taxpayers hundreds...
Buh-Bye 1.5 Degree Scenario
I’m not sure how many people will be surprised by this, but the data on global temperatures seem to indicate we are on our way to blowing past the IPCC 1.5 degree scenario – probably the most common climate scenario...
When Materiality Cuts Against ESG Professionals
It’s been roughly a week since Tractor Supply Company (TSC) issued the surprising company statement pulling back their DEI and climate programs/commitments. I’ve tracked reactions on various venues, most notably LinkedIn – which offer valuable learning moments for ESG/sustainability professionals....
Canadian Companies Go Silent on Climate to Comply With New Greenwashing Regs
Canada’s new greenwashing regulations have companies scrambling to erase statements that could be interpreted as greenwashing. The new rules were introduced in bill C-59 as part of a suite of changes to the Competition Act and tighten up the rules...
IFAC Provides Sample Sustainability Assurance Letters
The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has published helpful tools to understand ESG disclosure assurance, including sample assurance letters for limited assurance on sustainability information, including qualified conclusions, adverse conclusions and disclaimers. These are excellent resources to read and carefully...
Hawaii Settles Youth Climate Case
Climate litigation is in full swing with numerous cases being brought against, carbon majors and governments by a wide variety of plaintiffs. Constitutional climate cases saw some success in the US with a Montana trial court ruling in favor of...
ESA’s Publish Vision for SFDR
The EU”s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) has faced major challenges since its implementation. It’s fair to say that most people agree that the law needs to be changed, but thus far there hasn’t been a consensus on how. We...
Telstra Redux: Company Criticized for Ditching Carbon Offsets
Recently, I blogged about Australian telecommunications company Telstra’s announcement to re-prioritize their “climate change investments to take more direct action, moving funds away from the purchase of carbon credits in favour of decarbonisation projects that will reduce our footprint overall.”...
TNFD Finalizes Sector-Specific Guidance
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is spearheading the efforts to move reporting beyond climate and into nature as a whole. While entirely voluntary for the time being, the TNFD is designed to give investors information about how companies...
CultureAmp’s Report is Here with Data-Driven Insights about the Current DEI Landscape
CultureAmp, a leading employee experience, feedback, and analytics platform recently released its 2024 Report. This report uses Culture Amp’s 34 million employee experience data points and customer feedback on their investments to understand the DEI landscape compared to previous years....
For Fun – It’s Hotter’n a Firecracker
Last week, The Washington Post touched on climate change by exploring whether it was hot enough outside to cook an egg on the sidewalk. That reminded me about a similar experiment I did last summer. Just for fun as part...
German Court Bans Unqualified “Carbon Neutral” Claims
[Ed. note: In observance of the Fourth of July in the U.S., no blog will be published tomorrow. We will be back Friday. We wish everyone a safe and happy Fourth.] Greenwashing restrictions have grown tighter in Germany as the...
Australia Aligns More Closely with ISSB’s IFRS Standards
[Ed. note: In observance of the Fourth of July in the U.S., no blog will be published tomorrow. We will be back Friday. We wish everyone a safe and happy Fourth.] Previously, we wrote about Australia’s draft sustainability reporting standards...
SEC Commissioner Peirce: “ESG is a Hopeless Muddle”. She’s Kind of Right.
[Ed. note: In observance of the Fourth of July in the U.S., no blog will be published tomorrow. We will be back Friday. We wish everyone a safe and happy Fourth.] Last week, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce gave remarks about...
New Anti-ESG Investing Bills Dry Up, Enforcement Picks Up
We’ve written quite a bit about the Anti-ESG movement in the past year or so as it aims to stop momentum that ESG has gathered and reverse course. Primarily this has been attempted through threats of anti-trust enforcement for climate...
Are CSOs and Sustainability Riding Off Into the Sunset?
Is sustainability history repeating itself? To some, it appears that sustainability is heading back to the 1990s when it faded away due to lack of a clear business case and associated failure to capture executive attention (what I call “the...
White House Seeks to Raise Wages for Clean Energy Workers
Global heating caused by burning fossil fuels presents an existential threat to the world as we know it, and avoiding the worst effects means transitioning to a low-carbon clean energy economy. For the low carbon transition to occur, many workers...
Social Media Calls for Boycott of Tractor Supply Win Against ESG Initiatives
Last week I wrote about how social media AI is banning sustainable/ethical products offered for sale on line, preventing customers from seeing products they want. Today is a tale from the other side of the spectrum. You may recall that...
RIP “Chevron Deference”: What’s Next?
Last Friday, the Supreme Court upended 40 years of precedence by overruling the doctrine of Chevron Deference. Chevron Deference was a major tool for administrative agencies by giving them deference when interpreting national law. This decision has major implications for...
New Podcast: Christine Uri on How GCs Can Support ESG Programs
Our newest podcast is live. Christine Uri talks from her experience as a former General Counsel and CSO about how lawyers can pivot from managing legal risk to supporting business opportunities. We cover: Three things in-house counsel can start on...
No Crying: Fashion Company Boohoo Hit With Investor Suit Over ESG
We’ve covered a lot of recent litigation against companies resulting from a lack of supply chain due diligence or active human rights abuses. In the case of Chiquita, we saw private litigants win a judgment in a Florida court, an...
Italy Regulators Use Technology to Investigate Supply Chain Labor Violations
Supply chain due diligence is gaining traction globally as companies are expected to know more about their supply chain partners. These regulations take the form of laws like the German Supply Chain Act, EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and...
Social Media, Retail AI Ban Sustainable/Ethical Products
Continuing with the technology theme of today’s blogs – but let me begin with two disclaimers. First, as regular readers already know, I am not a fan of AI. Second, this blog involves a family member so there may be...
New Canadian Law Targets Greenwashing
Canada recently passed Bill C-59 which includes substantial additions to the Competition Act, aimed at regulating greenwashing. The changes are sweeping and relate to government regulation, private litigation, and competition agreements. In a recent memo, Torys discusses the major pillars...
Lufthansa Increases Prices in EU for Regulatory Carbon Costs
Pricing strategies for green products/services typically are intended to reflect lower costs or, on the other end, a “greenium” – a price premium usually equating to higher margin/profit. But as compliance mandates proliferate, some companies face rising operating costs that...
Investor Olympics: Transition Economy Competes Against AI for Investors
The Paris Olympics are still a month away, but I’m using an Olympic theme for this blog anyway. Earlier this month, I wrote that CEOs are more interested in making internal investments in AI than in sustainability/decarbonization. Not surprisingly, capital...
EU Approves Controversial Nature Restoration Law
The EU’s Nature Restoration Law has been a controversial piece of legislation. Much like the long embattled Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), the EU Parliament and Council reached a political agreement for the Nature Restoration Law, only for support...
SEC Climate Disclosure Rule Just Aligned with ISSB – Kind Of
The SEC’s final climate disclosure rule referred to and allowed use of the GHG Protocol, but also specifically declined to recognize the ISSB standards as an acceptable reporting regime. On Monday, that distinction became less relevant than the Commission originally...
New Research Finds High ESG Performers More Resilient to Crises
ESG isn’t just about “doing the right thing” – it’s about building a business that operates sustainably. ESG programs help companies manage a variety of ESG risks improving resiliency in the long term. A recent analysis from investment research firm...
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Featured Q&A Members Only
Why are climate risk disclosures in 10-K are different from a company’s ESG report?
I saw discussion on LinkedIn that FedEx’s 10-K states that the company is not going to meet their climate goals. Since SEC’s climate rules aren’t in effect, I thought there is no requirement to file climate disclosures with the SEC. Plus what is in the 10-K is completely different from what the company says in their ESG report. What is going on?
07/23/2024, Question #23943
Asking for ESG department funding increases in an anti-ESG world
I’m preparing for a meeting with senior management and the board where I will be asking for additional funds for the company’s ESG programs. I already know there will be strong pushback, especially given the anti-ESG/anti-DEI developments since the previous budget cycle. What are some ideas for making my case?
07/18/2024, Question #23885
CSRD exemptions
Does anyone know whether the non-EU parent consolidated report due in 2029 (where applicable for “significant presence” in the EU) will exempt “large” EU subsidiaries from their own earlier reporting requirement under the non-EU parent subsidiary exemption (not the artificial consolidation exemption). In other words, could a “large” EU subsidiary of a non-EU parent with a “significant presence” in the EU rely on this exemption to delay its reporting in 2026 until 2029, or would the consolidated report have to be filed in 2026?
05/23/2024, Question #22824