Happy Monday!

This week we cover:

IPCC: 4 key takeaways and 4 ways to take action, for every business.
Getting consumers to Kair: how one brand is tackling the tricky consumer use and end of life phases of our products.
In case you missed it: 💥 #6 - Meet the Brands: Rubies in the Rubble are packing a punch in the fight against food waste, featuring Jenny Costa, Founder and CEO.

> Good News Last Week

🎯 Little Freddie launched their new baby food pouches, claiming to be the UK’s first mono material pouch designed to be fully recyclable at home (with the cap on). Assessed by the On-Pack Recycling Label (OPRL), they expect to save over 350,000 pouches from landfill (totalling 2.5 tonnes of plastic) and also feature climate labelling by CarbonCloud.

🎯 Edgard & Cooper (scoring 94.1), Minor Figures (scoring 81.8) and Tribeology Ltd (Bodega Bay Hard Seltzers - scoring 95) announced they’ve all certified as B Corp.

🎯 REN Clean Skincare launched its newly upgraded packaging, working with Verescence and Anomatic to create a 20% PCR glass jar and recyclable aluminium lid for its face mask range in efforts to achieve their zero waste pledge.

🎯 Riverford Organic Farmers announced the launch of the Riverford Planet Fund. They’ve committed to ringfencing a portion of their profits to invest in innovative Planet Action projects - starting with £1.8 million from their 2020/21 profits.

⭐️ Wahaca announced the addition of carbon labels to their menu, labelling dishes as ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’ carbon. They’ve partnered with Klimato to achieve this.

⭐️ M&S announced their partnership with kidswear peer-to-peer online platform Dotte. Parents selling M&S kids clothes through Dotte will get a £5 voucher to spend at M&S online on their next £25 shop, on top of the money from the sale, which is typically half of the retail price.

⚡️ Sweep, a leading carbon management platform for large enterprises, announced it raised $73 million in Series B funding led by Coatue. The latest funding round comes only three months since its $22 million Series A round.

⚡️ Leading supermarkets have joined WWF in a pledge to make the average UK weekly food shop ‘greener’. The CEOs of Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose have committed to slash their impact across climate, deforestation and nature and lead the way for the whole food retail sector to halve its overall impact on the natural world by 2030, as tracked by WWF. These five supermarkets reach >50% of UK food shoppers.

⚡️ The EU has called for fast fashion to be held accountable for clothing quality, toxic chemicals and waste, fronted by an EU wide Extended Producer Responsibility scheme. This will make many fashion brands pay a waste fee for every item they sell.

> Click on each link to read more.

> Quick Take

IPCC: 4 key takeaways and 4 ways to take action, for every business.

On April 4th, Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report detailing the rapid acceleration of climate change. It detailed that limiting warming to ~1.5C will require global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030. To many, overshooting the established 1.5C ceiling seems inevitable, but the Panel believes that this can be a temporary overshoot if immediate action is taken.

Recap: What is the IPCC, and Working Group 3?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a United Nations intergovernmental body that researches and communicates all aspects of human-induced climate change. Reports are produced roughly every 7 years, and the latest release was part 3 of 3, the last of this cycle. It was produced byWorking Group 3 (WG3), which was established to find ways in which the world can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What are the challenges and required changes called out by WG3? Four key points:

Challenge: Continued development and operation of coal power plants.
1. Change: Coal power plants should be phased out and replaced by other low carbon sources like renewable energy.
Challenge: Reaching net-zero by 2050 doesn’t necessarily ensure that global temperature increase will remain at 1.5C, it’s likely to be breached. Additionally, deforestation and destruction of natural carbon sinks are slowing down carbon reduction.
1. Change: We need to aim for a mixture of carbon sequestering solutions. Old-growth forests need to be preserved while also planting new forests. Additionally, carbon removal and storage technologies are more important than ever - and need to be scaled, fast. Adequate levels of decarbonisation and carbon removal could make a breach temporary, and we should really be aiming for net negative emissions to be safe.
Challenge: Methane emissions from fossil fuels and industry continue to grow.
1. Change: We need to cut total methane emissions by ⅓ by 2030 to keep on track for a 1.5C target. This is no small feat, but it’s not neogitable.
Challenge: Lack of transparency from countries on the depth and breadth of their investments in low-carbon technologies is causing setbacks. Currently, investment in the shift to a low carbon world is currently six times lower than needed.
1. Change: these countries should be working honestly to combat this crisis. Increased investment is necessary across all sectors, and also towards lower-income countries already greatly threatened by the climate crisis.

What can you, both at an individual, and at a business level do to drive these changes? Four actions to make today.

Change how you power. Both in and out of the workplace, the volume and type of energy we use - gas, oil, renewables - has one of the biggest impacts on the global warming projections. Shifting to non-finite sources, provides a low-cost, low-carbon, low-conflict pathway to meet global energy needs without harming nature and communities.

Since 2010, there have been sustained decreases of up to 85% in the costs of solar and wind energy, and batteries (IPCC 2022 Press Release)

Change how you consume. Everything we do has an impact. By making conscious changes we can lower this impact with very little effort (and cost). Nothing beats true, ambitious decarbonisation - across your operations and activities. At the same time, you can encourage your employees to take similar steps too - get snacks in the office, or gifts for birthdays or celebrations? Opt for local produce, plant based options, or buy from businesses that support positive impact.

The compound effect of small, tangible actions leads to huge change. “Changes to our lifestyles and behaviour can result in a 40-70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.” (IPCC 2022 Press Release)

Change how you walk. There is no disillusion that a huge part of making the low-carbon shift is through our governments and increased innovation and funding. At all levels, find out if there are local networks or industry working groups that you can join to lobby for change. Additionally, whilst long term goals of Net Zero for businesses are essential, the report states that these targets, to date, have failed. By setting actionable goals and commitments in the shorter term will ensure that real action starts now, before it’s too late. Furthermore, partner your plans with a mixture of carbon offsetting, insetting and removal solutions, covering a range of timescales.

“A much larger set of businesses need to take action - delivering not empty promises but real commitments of action.”
Eliot Whittington, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership

Change how you talk. Talk. About. It. No more not wanting to rock the boat or sitting quiet in meetings. This IPCC report is the first one to call out the incredible impact that demand side mitigation has. Demand more from your leadership, your suppliers and your teams. Integrate Sustainable Decision Making. Challenge perceptions and conversations in and out of the workplace. Engage your consumers in the conversation at every opportunity.

“People genuinely do care. And people want to learn. Education and knowledge sharing will impact not only this generation, but both the older and younger generations too.”

So, what’s next?

As a result of this report, world governments will meet in November to discuss new strategies for cutting down greenhouse gas emissions, following a failure to meet milestones set at COP26 last year. Governments will need to show transparency and willingness to make investments in order to tackle the rapid acceleration of climate change. WG3 believes that it is now or never to make changes and reach the 1.5C target.

Interested? Read more, and act now:

Refresh your memory: Last August, after the release of part 1 by Working Group 1, we put together 10 ways you and your business can take action.

Factbox: Key takeaways from the IPCC report on climate change mitigation
IPCC: The window is tight, but there is hope - learn more about and join the Race to Zero campaign.
Edie have a full afternoon of engagement workshops to drive change in business - check them out here.

*A mixture of carbon capture, removal and storage technologies are pivotal. Climeworks, pictured, have just raised US$650 million to scale. Source: yahoo.com*

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> Brand Spotlight

Getting consumers to Kair: how one brand is tackling the tricky consumer use and end of life phases of our products.

Doing their best to get consumers to ‘buy less, wear more’, Kair are determined to make it easier and safer for consumers to preserve their clothes, no matter how many times they’re washed. Kair are a UK founded and manufactured laundry product brand, with a full range of detergents, conditioners and finishing sprays.The innovative startup is challenging the fashion industry to consider the consumer use and end of life phases of its products - whilst educating consumers in the process.

Why is this important?

The ‘consumer use’ and ‘end of life’ phases of a product’s lifecycle feel out of control to many brands. The first three phases are all somewhat within a brand’s operations. However, it’s understandable to ask the question of ‘once the product is in your consumer's home, what can you really do…?’, and in turn, what can really be done about these last two phases? Although there is a shift towards lifecycle thinking, it can be difficult for brands to target and reduce emissions in the use and end of life phases. Whilst a product like Kair doesn’t directly reduce your emissions, they way they’re tackling these hard to reach phases can serve a clean dose of inspiration:

Consumer Use phase: When it comes to fashion and apparel, plastic fibres and toxic dyes seeping into our water systems are often focused on as the negative side effect of a product’s use. This has resulted in a push for more natural fibres and dyes. However, brands pay little attention to what consumers are washing their clothes with at all. Bleach, harsh detergents and chemicals like chlorine are frequent in your standard washing products, however Kair have made sure that all their formulas are biodegradable and contain none of these nasties - leaving as little damage possible as a result.
End of Life phase: Not so much a question of how to dispose of garments, but more a question of whether they need to be disposed of at all. WRAP’s ‘Valuing Our Clothes’ report calls for consumers to extend the life of their garments, as in the UK, the average lifetime for a garment is estimated as ~2.2 years. Extending the active life of a garment can significantly reduce its impact; one way to do this is to take care of clothes properly. This is where Kair can come in. With gentle and specialised formulas for different garment types, they strive to maintain the quality of your clothing no matter how many times you’ve washed it.

Similarly, in the food and drink industry, brands like Rubies in the Rubble have engaged consumers in the ‘End of Life’ phase particularly well (who would’ve guessed taking a picture of your fridge would be involved?).

How are they kair-ing for the planet themselves?

All Kair’s products are sold in refillable, infinitely recyclable glass bottles, and they’ve recently introduced lightweight refill pouches too. Each pouch has the same amount of product as one full bottle of Kair, but reduces plastic pollution and energy waste by using 76% less plastic than their bottle equivalents. They’re not stopping there - their goal is to eventually remove plastic from their refills completely!

So, if you're looking to encourage your consumers to treat their garments right, partner with Kair! Or, if you’re looking to engage your consumers in the use and end of life phases of your products, take inspiration instead.

Support Kair via their shop:

Shop Kair

> In case you missed it

💥 #6 - Meet the Brands: Rubies in the Rubble are packing a punch in the fight against food waste.

Following the Footprints

🌱 IPCC Part 3: 4 ways to take action, for…