Indian officials order Coca-Cola plant to close for using too much water

The Guardian via AFP: Authorities in northern India have ordered the closure of a Coca-Cola bottling plant at the centre of protests that it is extracting too much groundwater, an official said Wednesday. An anti-pollution official said the Mehdiganj plant in Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh had breached the conditions of its operating licence, prompting the order closure earler this month.

"The plant is closed following our orders," Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board member secretary J.S. Yadav told AFP. "They have also been asked to take suitable measures to recharge the depleting groundwater level by twice the amount they have extracted. "Also, the effluents released by the plant contain pollutants beyond the permissible limits."

The plant was also asked to produce a permission certificate from a government agency that regulates ground water use, Yadav said. The company has appealed the closure order to India's environment court, the National Green Tribunal, he said.

Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft-drinks maker which has consistently denied the allegations, could not immediately be contacted for comment....

Coke bottle shot by Martin Abegglen, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Exxon Mobil to assess climate risk

Heather Long in CNN Money: Exxon Mobil (XOM), America's largest energy company, funded global warming denial groups for years. Now it has agreed to release a report by the end of March that details how climate change could affect its business.

The move comes in response to a shareholder resolution and as the nation marks the 25th anniversary of the Valdez oil spill that released 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska. Investors and activists concerned about climate change see this as a major victory that they hope will inspire other companies to follow suit.

The push to get Exxon Mobil to do a climate change assessment has been going on for months. Investors sent letters and tried to engage with Exxon behind the scenes. Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management firm, and As You Sow, a California non-profit, ultimately filed a shareholder resolution demanding a comprehensive "carbon risk report." That resolution has been dropped now that Exxon plans to issue its climate change report.

The argument environmentally conscious investors have made is that shareholders need to know how large a company's fossil fuel reserves are. Regulatory or financial conditions may make it too costly to use all the current reserves, let alone new ones. "Shareholder value is at stake if companies are not prepared for a low-carbon scenario," said Natasha Lamb, director of equity research for Arjuna Capital....

Mars latest to announce “no deforestation” palm oil pledge

Carey Biron in IPS: The multinational food giant Mars, Inc. unveiled Monday a new set of guidelines aimed at ensuring that its palm oil supply lines are completely traceable and sustainable by next year.

Global demand for palm oil has increased substantially in recent years, for use in both foods and household goods. Yet the industry, overwhelmingly centred in Malaysia and Indonesia, has been rife with environmental and labour problems.

Recent months, however, have seen a cascade of major reform commitments from both palm oil suppliers and well-known consumer brands such as Mars.

“Rapid expansion of palm oil plantations continues to threaten environmentally sensitive areas of tropical rainforest and carbon-rich peatlands, as well as the rights of communities that depend on them for their livelihoods,” Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars, best known as the maker of M&Ms and other candies, said Monday.

“We believe that these additional measures will not only help build a genuinely sustainable pipeline for Mars, but will also help accelerate change across the industry by encouraging our suppliers to only source from companies whose plantations and farms are responsibly run.”...

A shot of some M&Ms by Bribri2B, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Shareholders seeking stronger responses from companies as climate change concerns deepen

A press release from Ceres: Motivated by mounting scientific evidence that human activity is a leading cause of climate change, major institutional investors are pushing for stronger actions from companies in climate-related shareholder resolutions in the 2014 proxy season.

Led by Walden Asset Management, the New York State Comptroller’s Office, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Calvert Investments, the Connecticut Treasurer’s Office, Trillium Asset Management, Mercy Investments and Green Century Capital Management, 35 institutional investors have filed 142 resolutions in a coordinated effort to spur action by 118 companies – including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Kinder Morgan, Lowes and several electric utilities – on a wide range of climate-related issues such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy efficiency and sustainable palm oil.

“The combined package of 2014 resolutions demonstrates a common urgency that investors and companies alike need to ‘raise the bar’ and expand our actions to address climate change,” said Timothy Smith, Senior Vice President and Director of Environmental Social and Governance Shareholder Engagement at Boston-based Walden Asset Management. “The range of resolutions shows how investors are broadening their outreach to more companies and deepening their message to other companies on difficult climate issues such as lobbying on climate by fossil fuel companies.”

This year’s record number of climate-related resolutions demonstrates that investors are paying more attention than ever to risks and opportunities that climate change and environmental issues pose to companies in their portfolios. The investors – many of which are members of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, coordinated by the sustainability advocacy group Ceres, and members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) – request specific actions from companies such as adopting and achieving company-wide goals for reducing GHG emissions from operations...

A stock certificate photographed by SpreeTom, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Who will pay for climate change consequences?

Gary Lawrence in Environmental Leader: A number of initiatives, including the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Recovery and the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index, have been developing models to assess climate risk at various scales.  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has been trying to put numbers on the cost of adaptation. The journal Nature Climate Change recently published a paper entitled “Future Flood Losses in Major Coastal Cities” full of some very sobering numbers. The World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Climate Change has developed recommendations on financing mechanisms for adaptation. These are just some of the initiatives underway to price the risks of climate-driven weather variations.

It is likely, however, that the extraordinarily complicated questions of what is at risk, what should be done about it and how much should be spent will be easier to address than the political question, who should pay and what’s their share. This is a question our clients, public and private, grapple with all the time as they consider their own risk attenuation.

 All but the most optimistic agree that substantial new revenue from existing sources dedicated to climate adaptation will not be forthcoming.  There is hope that financial markets can develop instruments for investors that produce positive returns for adaptation investments.  Without new funding sources, the best we can do is incorporate adaptation benefits into exist ing spending.  But, how much do we spend on probabilities and what is the opportunity cost for that spend compared to existing needs? This is a very contentious political question.

In politics, do we see the future considered as a constituent of decisions about the future? Sustainability demands the answer should be yes. For many, quite reasonably given the inability to know the future, the answer is largely no.

But, there are future-minded companies out there that have risen above the political hubbub and recognized that protecting their assets from an uncertain, unknowable future is simply good business sense. I reached out to a few of my colleagues to get their thoughts and received some excellent examples of companies and organizations that have redefined this question in terms of sound business strategy.

...The best mitigation and adaptation strategies are not stand-alone investments but part of a broader consideration of cumulative benefits....

How global forest-destroyers are turning over a new leaf

Bill Laurance in Terra Daily via the Conversation: Indonesia is the world's biggest destroyer of forests and four multinational corporations - APP, APRIL, Wilmar and Golden Agri Resources - have been responsible for much of it. Until recently these mega-corporations were considered environmental pariahs, but suddenly things seem to be changing, with all four proclaiming "no deforestation" policies. What gives?

APP and APRIL are giant paper-pulp corporations. Collectively, they've cleared several million hectares of native Indonesian rainforest and other lands to grow fast-growing pulpwoods, turning the original rainforest into pulp in the process. Wilmar and Golden Agri Resources are the world's two biggest producers of palm oil - a key driver of forest destruction across the tropics, especially in southeast Asia.

Golden Agri Resources led the way, announcing a no-deforestation policy in 2011. Under growing pressure, its sister company APP (Asia Pulp and Paper) followed suit early last year.

APP's metamorphosis was especially stunning. For years, APP had thumbed its nose at critics while bulldozing ever more forest. This was easy for it to do because APP is largely a privately held corporation and because countries such as China and India - which generally don't fuss too much about the environment - snapped up much of its pulp and paper products.

But gradually, the tide turned against APP. Its critics mounted, its reputation turned increasingly toxic, and it began to lose more and more market share. By this point, it had cleared vast expanses of native forest for plantations, and so had less need for more forest clearing....

The last batch of sawnwood from the peat forest in Indragiri Hulu, Riau Province, Indonesia. Deforestation for oil palm plantation. Shot by Aidenvironment, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Syngenta, Bayer challenge EU bee-saving pesticide ban

Seed Daily via AFP: Swiss agrichemical giant Syngenta and German chemicals group Bayer on Tuesday said they were taking legal action against the European Commission over its suspension of the use of an insecticide it blames for killing bees.

The two companies, which announced their challenges separately, said they were bringing their cases before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

"We would prefer not to take legal action but have no other choice given our firm belief that the Commission wrongly linked thiamethoxam to the decline in bee health," Syngenta chief operating officer John Atkin said in a statement.

In neighbouring Germany, a spokesman for Bayer said its agrochemical division Bayer CropScience had submitted its legal complaint in the middle of this month and wanted clarity for the sake of future investment.

The European Commission announced in May that it was temporarily banning the use of Syngenta's thiamethoxam, which is also sold under the name Cruiser. The product is used to treat seeds and is applied to the soil or sprayed on bee-attractive plants and cereals...

Bee on a flower, shot by Dinkum, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

'Seed freedom is the answer to hunger and malnutrition'

Vandana Shiva in the "Health and well-being hub" at the Guardian (UK): What happens to the seed affects the web of life. When seed is living, regenerative and diverse, it feeds pollinators, soil organisms and animals - including humans. When seed is non-renewable, bred for chemicals, or genetically engineered with toxic Bt or Roundup Ready genes, diversity disappears.

In recent years, beekeepers have been losing 25% of their hives each winter. According to a scientific study in 2008, bees and pollinators contribute more than €153bn annually to agriculture. Chemically-farmed soils, sprayed with herbicides and pesticides kill the beneficial organisms that create soil fertility and protect plants.

Organic seeds and organic farming do not just protect human health; they protect the health and wellbeing of all.

With industrial seeds and industrial agriculture, the diversity of plants and crops disappears. India had 200,000 rice varieties before the "green revolution" in the 1970s, which relied on pesticides and fertilisers to avert famine in India. This diversity was replaced by monocultures.

Today the fastest expanse in acreage is of genetically engineered corn and soya, because they are patented and corporations can collect royalties from farmers. When seed freedom disappears and farmers become dependent on GMO seeds, they in effect become seed slaves.

According to the National Bureau of Crime Records, more than 284,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since seed monopolies were established in India. Gandhi spun cotton for our freedom. Today GMO Bt cotton has enslaved our farmers in debt, and pushed them to suicide. And 95% cotton seed is controlled by one company: Monsanto.

When culture is eroded, biodiversity is eroded. And when control over seeds becomes big business, diversity disappears faster. Diversity is a product of care, connection and cultural pride....

Home-grown seeds of Detroit Dark Red beets (Beta vulgaris), an earthy-tasting, dark red, culinary beet. Shot by Downtowngal, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Two-faced corporate support for denial

Union of Concerned Scientists shines a light on some corporate hypocrisy: An overwhelming scientific consensus supports the reality of human-induced global warming and the importance of prompt action to limit its impact. Constructive, science-based public discussion of climate change impacts and policy solutions is urgently needed. Unfortunately, many U.S. companies are using their influence to muddy the waters—casting unwarranted doubt on the science, adding confusion to the policy discussion, and holding back or slowing down action on solutions.

The 2012 UCS report, A Climate of Corporate Control, looks at statements and actions on climate science and policy by 28 U.S. companies, shows how these contributions can be problematic, and suggests steps that Congress, the public, the media, and companies themselves can take to address the problem.

Corporations have the right, of course, to weigh in on public policy issues that affect their interests. But too often they do so irresponsibly, misrepresenting and misusing science at the public's expense, and in recent years their influence has grown.

Corporations skew the national dialogue on climate policy in a variety of ways—making inconsistent statements across different venues, attacking science through industry-supported organizations, and taking advantage of the secrecy allowed them by current legal and regulatory structures.

Some corporations are contradictory in their actions, expressing concern about the threat of climate change in some venues—such as company websites, Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, annual reports, or statements to Congress—while working to weaken policy responses to climate change in others....

World Water Forum will pander to corporate self-interest, say critics

Claire Provost in globaldevelopment blog, at the Guardian (UK): Diplomats, business leaders, and scientific experts are gathering in southern France this week for an international conference billed as a "platform for solutions" to the global water crisis, but denounced by critics for lacking legitimacy and promoting the interests of large transnational corporations.

Organisers say more than 20,000 delegates from 180 countries will attend the six-day World Water Forum (WWF) in Marseille. French president Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to attend, along with European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and the CEOs of Nestlé and Coca-Cola.

The meeting comes amid growing global concern about resource scarcity and future water shortages. The UN's world water development report, published on Monday, warned that unprecedented growth in the demand for water is threatening global development goals and will exacerbate inequalities between and within countries.

"Because allocation will inevitably go to the highest paying sector or region, this may result in an increasingly significant portion of people not being able to satisfy their basic needs for food, energy, water and sanitation. This would not be mere stagnation, but would likely take the form of a distinctly regressive trend compared to current conditions," said the report.

It added that it is no longer sufficient for water experts to draft technical proposals behind closed doors. Instead, it is necessary to open up water management to society as a whole, and recognise that "efficiency and productivity gains alone cannot alter global patterns of unequal supply of resources and consumption or access to benefits"....

Photo of a well by Bluemangoa2z, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

World's largest beef company breaks commitment on avoiding Amazon deforestation

Mongabay: In a campaign launched in Italy on Wednesday, Greenpeace accused Brazilian beef giant JBS-Friboi of breaking its commitment to exclude cattle connected with illegal deforestation and slave labor from its supply chain.

Greenpeace says it has uncovered evidence of JBS breaking its 2009 commitment on responsible cattle sourcing. The agreement signed by JBS commits it to avoid buying cattle from properties that have been blacklisted by the Labor Ministry, embargoed by Brazil's environmental protection agency IBAMA, or are situated within indigenous territories.

Greenpeace says the discovery "demonstrates weaknesses in the supply chain for responsible leather and meat products."

"Consumers buying products originating from JBS’ supply chain cannot be assured their products are responsibly sourced, meaning not contributing to deforestation and slave labour," said Greenpeace in Broken Promises: How the cattle industry in the Amazon is still connected to deforestation, slave labour and invasion of indigenous land [PDF], a report launched as part of the campaign.

Greenpeace is calling upon JBS to honor its commitment under the 2009 Cattle Agreement signed by other cattle majors....

Mechanical milking in the Minas Gerais, shot by Andrevruas, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Large companies chasing $135 billion global warming market

Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Kim Chipman in Bloomberg: Seed maker DuPont Co., wind-turbine manufacturer General Electric Co. and insurer Zurich Financial Services AG are devising products to help the world adapt to climate change, a potential $135 billion-a-year market by 2030.

…Damages from climate-related disasters are mounting. Insured losses from storms and floods have risen more than fivefold to $27 billion annually in the past four decades, Swiss Reinsurance Co. said in a September report. By 2030, the world may need to spend $135 billion a year on flood protection, buildings that can withstand hurricanes and drought-resistant crops, Swiss Re said, citing United Nations data.

“Climate change presents a direct threat to our business,” Jim Hanna, director of environmental impact for Seattle-based Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest coffee chain, said in an interview. “We are already hearing some anecdotal evidence that shifting weather patterns and increased erosion and pest infestation are starting to impact coffee crops.” Adaptation strategies, such as rewarding farmers for taking extra steps to prevent erosion on vulnerable land, will help Starbucks prepare, Hanna said.

Relatively rich nations such as the U.S. are devoting more attention and resources to adaptation and are negotiating a fund to help poorer countries cope with the higher sea levels, droughts, heat waves, more severe storms and erratic weather predicted by climate scientists.

“Sooner or later all businesses will have to climate-proof their operations,” Christiana Figueres, the UN’s climate chief, said in a September speech in New York. “Adaptation will be imperative if businesses want to avoid climate-change impacts that could drive them out of business.”….

Gustave Doré, an 1865 engraving of a climbing disaster on the Matterhorn, scanned from A Brief History of British Mountaineering by Colin Wells, ISBN 978-0903908627