Countries’ map developing National Action Plans (NAPs) on Business and Human Rights

NAPs are policy documents in which a government articulates priorities and actions that it will adopt to support the implementation of international, regional, or national obligations and commitments with regard to a given policy area or topic.

The UN Working Group on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (UN Working Group), mandated by the Human Rights Council to promote the effective and comprehensive implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), noted in its 2016 Guidance on business and human rights NAPs that they can be an important means to promote the implementation of the UNGPs.

More on: https://bit.ly/3vZiIuR

Innovation is key for the Net‐Zero Emissions Scenario 2050 (NZE)

The @IEA just released the world’s first comprehensive roadmap for the global energy sector to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. They say almost 50% of the emissions reductions needed in 2050 in the NZE depend on technologies that are at the prototype or demonstration stage. This share is even higher in sectors such as heavy industry and long‐distance transport.
This is clearly ambitious, as most clean energy technologies that have not been demonstrated at scale today should reach markets by 2030 at the latest. Technologies at the demonstration stage, such as CCUS in cement production or low‐emissions ammonia‐fuelled ships, are brought into the market in the next three to four years. Hydrogen‐based steel production, direct air capture (DAC) and other technologies at the large prototype stage reach the market in about six years, while most technologies at small prototype stage – such as solid state refrigerant‐free cooling or solid state batteries – do so within the coming nine years.
In the NZE, electrification, CCUS, hydrogen and sustainable bioenergy account for nearly half of the cumulative emissions reductions to 2050. Just three technologies are critical in enabling around 15% of the cumulative emissions reductions in the NZE between 2030 and 2050: advanced high‐energy density batteries, hydrogen electrolysers and DAC.

You can read the report “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector” here

“ESG rating disagreements” – new research paper

Rating agencies disagree substantially about how they assess individual firms. Without agreement on what constitutes good ESG performance, market participants can be misled by these ratings.

The authors of this paper found ESG disagreement is most pronounced for firms with high levels of ESG disclosure, contrary to the argument that disclosure reduces disagreement. While thousands of companies now claim to integrate ESG issues in their business strategy and operations, it is not clear whether those claims are merely cheap talk.

Ratings could help investors and other stakeholders to choose companies that exhibit their preferred ESG outcomes. Having rating agencies focus on ESG outcomes could motivate companies to show real outcomes in their disclosures rather than highlighting the adoption of policies or initiatives that might not generate any real effects.

Lot of work still needs to be done to develop rules and norms that determine what characterises good ESG performance.

Authors of the research paper:

Dane Christensen, @GeorgeSerafeim, @AnywhereSikochi . More on https://bit.ly/3ooKChi

Citation:

Christensen, Dane M. and Serafeim, George and Sikochi, Anywhere, Why is Corporate Virtue in the Eye of the Beholder? The Case of ESG Ratings (February 26, 2021). The Accounting Review. DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2019-0506