Sustainability/ESG bulletin, Friday 31 March 2023

In this week’s Sustainability/ESG bulletin, read about Northern Ireland’s 2023 Energy Strategy Action Plans, new guides to tackling plastic waste, and employer equality training sessions now open for registration. Also covered is the EU Green Claims Directive outlining potential penalties for companies found to be ‘greenwashing’ and a new EU regulation on alternative fuels infrastructure, as well as the usual articles and events.

Northern Ireland publishes 2023 Energy Strategy Action Plan

The Department for the Economy for Northern Ireland has published its Energy Strategy Action Plan 2023 - Path to Net Zero Energy to deliver the region’s Energy Strategy Programme. The transition to a net zero carbon energy system is key to Northern Ireland achieving the net-zero emissions 2050 target, as set out in the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. This action plan focuses on five key pillars: placing consumers at the heart of the energy future; growing the green economy; doing more with less (energy efficiency); replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy; and creating a flexible, resilient & integrated energy system.

New Northern Ireland guides to tackling plastic waste

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful has created a guide to encourage local businesses and event organisers to reduce their dependence on single-use plastics. Showcasing two case studies from Northern Ireland, the Plastic Free Events Guide highlights sustainable alternatives that minimise unnecessary waste and pollution, and includes 10 steps to help organisations go plastic-free.

Businesses can also find 5 easy steps to tackle plastic in the workplace in Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful’ s Toolkit to tackle plastic. The toolkit includes templates and articles to help business be ready for future legislation on the banning/reduction of single-use plastics. To date NI businesses have reportedly saved over £25.7 million in cost savings and reduced CO2 emissions by more than 352 tonnes through Invest Northern Ireland's free Resource Matching Service. Working with over 2,000 businesses ranging from steelworks manufacturers to bee-keepers, this service helps businesses find alternative solutions for their wasted resources by finding another company that wants them.

Northern Ireland employer equality training sessions open for registration

Equality training sessions from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland’s Employer Training Programme are now open for registration. The webinars focus on a number of equality issues, laws, and best practices for employers, including disability reasonable adjustment duty in the recruitment and selection process, promoting age equality and others. The online events are free and last between 60 - 90 minutes.

European Commission’s new ‘greenwashing’ Directive

The European Commission has proposed common criteria against greenwashing and misleading environmental claims. The ‘Green Claims Directive’ aims to ensure that environmental labels and claims are credible and trustworthy, so as to allow consumers to make better informed purchasing decisions. It also aims to boost the competitiveness of businesses who are striving to increase the environmental sustainability of their products and activities.

A 2020 study conducted by the Commission reportedly found that 53 percent of green claims give vague, misleading or unfounded information, 40 percent of claims have no supporting evidence, half of all green labels offer weak or non-existent verification and that there are 230 sustainability labels and 100 green energy labels in the EU, with vastly different levels of transparency.

Under the new Directive, companies making “misleading or unsubstantiated explicit environmental” claims or using non-compliant environmental labelling schemes could face “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” penalties, which could amount to at least 4 percent of their total annual turnover.

Following the ordinary legislative procedure, the Green Claims Directive proposal will now be subject to the approval of the European Parliament and the Council.

New EU regulation on alternative fuels infrastructure

The European Parliament and the Council have reached political agreement on a new regulation to ensure sufficient and user-friendly alternative fuels infrastructure for road, shipping and aviation. The new Regulation for the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR) sets mandatory deployment targets for electric recharging and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure for the road sector, for shore-side electricity supply in maritime and inland waterway ports, and for electricity supply to stationary aircraft.  On formal adoption of this political agreement the new rules will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and enter into force after a transitional period of 6 months.

District Societies to mark Earth Day 2023

The Chartered Accountants Ireland District Societies are getting together to mark Earth Day 2023 on Saturday 22 April. Each society is organising a clean-up in their area. It's a great opportunity for members to meet up, bring their families and friends and make a positive impact in their communities. Keep an eye out for messages from your own society to find out how to get involved. Find your district society here.

Articles

• EU approves law to end sales of new CO2-emitting cars by 2035 (RTÉ News)
• Don't lose sight of climate-related risks, Central Bank warns (RTÉ News)
• Firms face fines under EU anti-greenwashing law over false claims (Irish Independent)
• Poor air quality having a detrimental impact on health and deaths in Ireland, report finds (Irish Times)
• Central Bank reduces financed emissions to 2.3m tonnes in 2022(Irish Times)
• The Fiduciary Duty of Directors to Manage Climate Risk (Climate Law Blog - Columbia.edu)
• UK spring budget 2023: Key climate and energy announcements (Carbon Brief)
• ‘Beginning of a new era’: Pacific islanders hail UN vote on climate justice (The Guardian)

Upcoming Events  

• Clearstream Solutions and sustHub webinar - The Business Case for Sustainability
  31 March @ 12:00 – 13:00

• Chartered Accountants Ireland’s online Audit Conference (ROI/NI). This year’s theme is: "Staying Ahead of the Curve" and is suitable for audit professionals at all levels. Includes a current update and future development on sustainability auditing.

• SAICA Sustainability reporting: Navigating the Sustainability Reporting Standards – Webcast  With the International Sustainability Standards Board's (ISSB) first Sustainability Disclosure Standards (IFRS S1 and IFRS S 2) expected to be become effective from January 2024, SAICA is pleased to host Dr Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, the ISSB Board member to provide an update on the key discussions made by the ISSB on the upcoming IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 to be published by the end of June this year.  17 April

• Chartered Accountants Worldwide, Greenwashing Webinar -  Hosted by Daniel Thomas, Chief UK Business Correspondent for the Financial Times Experts, experts include Tsuyoshi (Yoshi) Domoto, ESG & Sustainability Consultant, GLIN Impact Capital; Aisling McCaffrey ACA, Director – Sustainability, Financial Services Advisory Grant Thornton Ireland; Elena Margineanu, Ph.D. Lecturer at the Free International University of Moldova; Michael Izza, CEO of ICAEW, Chairman, Chartered Accountants Worldwide; and Kate Robertson, Co-Founder, One Young World. 18 April @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm BST

• ICAS special summit on sustainability reporting (London)
  The ICAS sustainability summit will be an opportunity for those closest to developing and implementing UK, European and International sustainability reporting disclosure standards to discuss how we meet the information needs of users and stakeholders. In person, in London, speakers include Andrew Death, Deputy Director at the UK Government’s Department of Business and Trade, Judy Kuszewski, Chair of the Global Sustainability Standards Board, Indy Singh Hothi CA, ICAS President, and Mark Vaessen, President of Accountancy Europe.

Certificate in Sustainability Strategy, Risk and Reporting

Find out more

Network for Chartered Accountants working on ESG projects

Are you a Chartered Accountant working in ESG or working on ESG-related projects? Would you like an opportunity to engage with other Chartered Accountants working in this space to share insights, challenges and opportunities?

Chartered Accountant now has a network to allow members working in sustainability/ESG to meet and discuss all matters of interest re ESG and accounting.

• 3rd Wednesday of every month
• Next : 26 April, 2023
• 14.00-15.00/30
• Chartered Accountant House/Teams

If you would like to attend please email sustainability@charteredaccountants.ie