Shaken Not Burned

Highlighting changemakers and solutions

Glossary - Life cycle

We understand the term ‘life-cycle’ in regard to living organisms, but it also refers to the processual journey of products from the extraction of materials, creation, use and disposal. In the marketing world, a product’s lifecycle is its transition from introduction to growth, maturity and eventual decline.

When considering climate and sustainability, we focus on the impacts of a product from production to disposal - including, for example, the emissions generated during manufacturing or the fuel consumption of its delivery to the consumer. Life-cycle assessments provide an account of both positive and negative impacts right along the value chain..

Busting a myth - Clean technologies are the key to a sustainable future 

There is no doubt that breakthroughs in technology can be transformational in terms of resource extraction and use - whether it’s innovation in renewable energy, power storage, the creation of novel materials or even basic improvements in efficiency. But while these technologies can certainly do good for the planet, we still need to consider the full life-cycle of their delivery. There is often hesitation about using new technologies due to high initial costs, but we also need to consider potential social and ecological trade-offs.

We must rethink our approach to product creation, use and disposal to account for all externalities - such as the costs that come from increased extreme weather, growing inequality and pollution - rather than just explicit financial costs. Technology is not a flawless panacea without its own impact. Its integration into our wider shift in global thinking must be approached with care.

What we’ve been reading this week

•  While ESG may have been getting a bad rap in the press, particularly plagued by right-wing push back, a recent Deloitte study found that over 70% of companies have abandoned M&A deals due to ESG concerns. What matters is not the headline-making political statements, nor the inflows and outflows into labelled funds (which may be mislabelled or even misrepresentative), but the fact that an ESG lens provides greater transparency on the longer term risks faced by the business in question.

• CDP has launched its new integrated sustainability reporting platform to streamline the complex process many companies face in reporting. CDP’s new corporate questionnaire aligns with the ISSB (IFRS S2) climate standard as the foundational global baseline, collating issues pertaining to forests, water, biodiversity and plastics together into one questionnaire and dataset. CDP says that it has also improved critical alignment with other key standards like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the European Union standards (ESRS). The idea is to accelerate more efficient reporting and enable its translation into actionable data. Countries covering nearly 55% of global GDP are seeking mandatory full alignment with ISSB Standards, and CDP’s alignment will make it easier to comply. New CDP analysis released today shows that most disclosing companies are already prepared, with nearly 60% of listed companies currently reporting on most of the datapoints aligned with IFRS S2 in CDP’s questionnaire.

• H&M, which has its own history of greenwashing accusations, has gone on the record to warn against the use of carbon credits in net zero plans, even going as far as calling out the Science-based Targets Initiative on its recent decisions and the furore that followed. The SBTI has become the de facto gold standard for planning science-based emissions reductions, with its methods used by over 1000 companies. But in April 2024, it reversed its stance of allowing only  5-10% of last mile management of emissions to be addressed by offsets. H&M Group's Head of Sustainability Leyla Ertur issued a letter to SBTI trustees, warning that: “the decision weakens corporate climate pledges and makes real decarbonisation efforts within value chains less attractive.”

• The Carbon Markets Integrity Board has announced the launch of the first approved methodologies for ‘high integrity’ carbon credits in line with its Core Carbon Principles. This means that the high-integrity CCP label can now be used on an estimated 27 million carbon credits generated by projects that tackle potent greenhouse gases by capturing methane from landfill sites or by destroying ozone-depleting foams and refrigerant gases from discarded equipment. While there are many criticisms of carbon markets, it has been reported that companies using carbon credits are nearly twice as likely to be decarbonising year on year. They are also morse successful successful in cutting operational emissions. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently called for increased use of the carbon markets in corporate climate action, but warned that there must be a ‘commitment to integrity’ to ensure that carbon markets are not used in lieu of practical emissions reductions.

• Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks has committed to investing three-quarters of a million in nature restoration through its Projects for Nature platform. Despite the fact that Task-force for Nature related Financial Disclosure is not yet mandatory, and the Nature Restoration Law is in limbo at a EU level, its becoming increasingly clear that companies are expanding their focus on climate and pollution to also include their impact on nature.