Hello,
The main news of the week is not the holding of the European elections, nor even the simultaneous visit of Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky to Paris, nor even the new global temperature records. No, the news of the week is this:
Yes, you read correctly, (RE)SET is accelerating its growth once again by joining the Julhiet Sterwen group! Together, they are creating the benchmark for sustainable transitions consulting. Julhiet Sterwen, founded in 2015 by Marc Sabatier and Thierry Auzias, is one of the leaders in strategy, transformation, and innovation consulting. Together, Julhiet Sterwen and (RE)SET now combine all dimensions of sustainable development! What form does this partnership take? That of a capital exchange. Julhiet Sterwen becomes the main shareholder of (RE)SET, and simultaneously the founding partners of (RE)SET invest in the capital of Julhiet Sterwen, joining its community of partners. (RE)SET remains (RE)SET! With its DNA, its energy, its methods and expertise, as well as its management team. But (RE)SET becomes more than (RE)SET, with the possibility of adding new shades to its palette, new strings to its bow – in short, new offerings and additional services for its clients and partners. As Géraldine Poivert, President of (RE)SET, explained in an interview on BFM, this partnership aims "to go faster, further, and have an impact," continuing: "the transition is like a stool; to stand firmly it needs three legs: the economic leg, the environmental leg, and the social leg. This allows us to become THE reference for all sustainable transitions. It's a marriage of love and reason." Long life to the newlyweds!
Well, other things are also happening in the world, let's be honest. Particularly elections. Remember, at least those who were of voting age, it was in 2009, six years before the Paris Agreement, in the midst of a wave of climate skepticism. That year, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who had become "Danny the Green," was the lead candidate for the Ecologist party in France. And his list came second in the elections, with 20.9%. Today, as Libération puts it in its inimitable style, "The Greens are half empty" and wonder if they will cross the fateful 5% mark. What happened? Have the environment and transition disappeared from the political agenda? Are voters no longer interested in the issue? Not at all! Quite the opposite has happened, and that is good news: all lists now integrate the environment and transition into their programs, as the issue concerns citizen-voter-consumers. Of course, integrating the environmental dimension does not necessarily mean wanting to go faster, further in the transition. It can even be the opposite. And polls, in France as in all EU countries, seem to show a certain appetite for the environmental least-effort. This might seem contradictory to all those surveys showing that awareness of the urgent need for the economic and environmental transition is very real, both among citizens and businesses. And suggests that, at some point, the necessary explanation of decisions made, both in Brussels and Paris, has not been done properly. To the point of fueling fantasies of "punitive ecology" that have been flourishing for at least a year. Hence the interest, perhaps, of "taking a break," as they say at the Élysée Palace. Hoping that this "break" will be used to demonstrate pedagogy.
In the meantime, the programs of the various lists present in France have been deciphered by the Réseau Action Climat and the conclusions align with those of most of the comparators that have flourished in recent days. Unsurprisingly, if you are sensitive to the need to move forward towards a managed economic and environmental transition, it is better to avoid voting too far right. Let us repeat it to be sure to be heard: it is not the author of these lines who says it, still less (RE)SET, just cold comparators! Among the other comparators dedicated to the ecological and social transition, there is also that of WWF which sent a questionnaire to political parties. On the question of whether the Green Deal should be maintained as one of the main political priorities of the next term, the results confirm strong support from the PS-PP, EELV-LE, LFI lists. Besoin d'Europe and LR do not explicitly answer the question. The RN, for its part, states that it would not maintain the Green Deal as a political priority. Reconquête goes further by calling for the repeal of all Green Deal measures, the elimination of all wind power funding, and the construction of reservoirs. There you have it, it has the merit of being clear.
Fortunately, as indicated by the latest analysis from the Schuman Foundation already mentioned in the previous Breaking (RE)NEWS, the major political balances within the European Parliament should not be very different next week from what they were this week. The alliance of conservatives, social democrats, and liberals should, by a small margin, continue to lead Europe. The Green Deal should be able to begin its second stage, albeit perhaps at a slower pace.
To begin our weekly sections, let's start with our favorite: the weather! And it does not necessarily advocate for slowing down the pace of the transition. Because the machine seems to be accelerating faster than expected. We already knew that the summer of 2023 was the hottest summer in two thousand years in the northern hemisphere outside the tropics. We now know that the trend is accelerating, according to at least a recent update of IPCC analyses by an international group of 59 renowned scientists from 44 institutions. According to Le Monde, which summarizes its conclusions, "the pace of global warming is faster than ever." The temperature would now be rising by 0.26 degrees per decade, compared to an expected 0.18. Another major result of the study: the available carbon budget (emissions ceiling) to retain a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as stipulated by the Paris Agreement, is rapidly depleting. It has been more than halved compared to the IPCC estimate. At the beginning of the year, it stood at 200 billion tonnes of CO2 versus 500 billion in the 2021 assessment. This now corresponds to only five years of emissions at the current rate.
And indeed, globally, maps continue to appear, month after month, saturated with red dots, like this one, published by Libération, concerning the last known month, May :
This time, the global average temperature rose to 15.91°C, symbolically exceeding the estimated average for May in the pre-industrial reference period 1850-1900 by +1.52°C. An opportunity for our favorite whistleblower to sound the alarm again: " We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. Not only are we in danger, we are the danger ", said the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday in a speech at the American Museum of Natural History in New York for World Environment Day. Indeed, Indians and Pakistanis are painfully aware of this, having just experienced their worst heatwave period, with a peak of over 52°C in the suburbs of New Delhi and 53°C on the Indo-Pakistani border. Historic records, of course.
To close this "weather" chapter, and for the anecdote, know that in France, we have had, to use the most heard expression in recent weeks and taken up by Le Parisien, "a crappy spring," and even the crappiest since 2008 according to official data, in terms of the amount of rain that fell. The fourth crappiest since 1959, to be complete on the subject. Every cloud has a silver lining: French groundwater levels have recovered much better than last year at the same time Libération tells us. However, the temperature remained largely above usual seasonal norms. There you have it, thanks to Breaking (RE)NEWS, you now have material to fuel quite a few "small talks." Don't thank us!
To stay in the clouds, the advice of the week is to keep your seat belts fastened when you fly! Because turbulence has increased by 55% in 40 years and should triple in the next 30 years, due, once again, to global warming… A dramatic example was given by Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 departing from London: 70 injured and one dead. This turbulence issue is not anecdotal. And it is costly! " Airlines will have to start thinking about how they will manage the increase in turbulence, as it costs the industry between 150 million and 500 million [between €138 million and €460 million] per year, just in the United States, warned researcher Mark Prosser, lead author of a study on the subject, quoted in Le Monde. Every extra minute spent in turbulence increases the wear and tear on the aircraft, as well as the risk of injury to passengers and crew. »
Let's return to earth, and even below it, with the discovery of the week, about which we do not know whether it is good or bad news. Russia would have discovered 511 billion barrels of oil in Antarctica, Le Figarotells us. The black gold in question would be mainly in the British Antarctic Territory, a vast uninhabited area of 1.7 million km2 also claimed by Chile and Argentina. Small problem (or solution!): this area is off-limits to exploitation. The 1961 Antarctic Treaty, to which Russia is a party, strictly prohibits the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in this region of the world. 511 billion barrels is not nothing. The whole world consumes about 36 billion barrels of oil per year, according to the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, while the Telegraph notes that these 511 billion barrels represent "10 times the total production of the North Sea over 50 years." Let's keep our fingers crossed that the scarcity of oil reserves will not one day push for a return to the 1961 treaty…
In the meantime, our Total Section has the opportunity to be enriched, with the latest General Meeting of the French oil company. "Should TotalEnergies be dismantled?" economist Maxime Combes pretended to ask gravely, in the columns of Libération, on the day of the AG. Confronted with a revolt from some of its shareholders and activists mobilized around the La Défense headquarters, Patrick Pouyanné nevertheless hammered the point home, recounts Libération: "The reality of the world we live in is, unfortunately, still a world of fossil fuels, and it is not Total that decreed that cars run on gasoline." In the end, a quarter of shareholders voted against the renewal of the term of the CEO of TotalEnergies (he is therefore still in place, Novethicreminds us), and 173 people were arrested by the police.
In the same spirit, the dissent is spreading among the shareholders of Shell and other global oil "majors," all facing the same challenges at their recent AGMs. It must be said that according to a report by the NGO Oil Change International, published on Tuesday, May 21, none of the eight major international oil and gas companies – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Eni, Equinor, and ConocoPhillips – have a climate plan aligned with the Paris Agreement, let alone the recent COP28 decision to phase out fossil fuels. Six of them (Chevron, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, and Eni) even have an explicit objective of increasing oil and gas production in the short term. Alone, these eight companies are set to use 30% of the remaining carbon budget, i.e., the greenhouse gas emissions the world can release, to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Still underground, the dependency of the week is on critical raw materials for the transition, particularly metals and other rare earths. In a fascinating dossier, Le Monde reveals how critical minerals are now fueling rivalries between established and emerging powers… There, as often, a good infographic does better than a long speech:
Still on mining sovereignty, the interview of the week is also offered to us by Le Monde, which asked good questions to Christel Bories, CEO of Eramet, the leading French player in the global competition in this sector, drawing good responses: " Let's not dream, France and Europe do not have vast mining resources. Even if we maximally exploited all ongoing projects, we would only manage to cover about 20% of European needs. On the other hand, we need to do what the Chinese, Japanese, or Koreans have done: forge economic and political partnerships with producing countries to secure our supply chains. Europe has a lot to offer these countries, notably its rules of corporate social and environmental responsibility that others do not take into account. We have responsible practices; we pay attention to the environment and local communities. These producing countries will not let you operate indefinitely on their territory if you do not bring them anything more than money and jobs." And she continued, when questioned about the rivalry with China: " China does not have all the resources on its soil either. It has no nickel, lithium, or copper, for example. But it understood very early on that metals would become the raw material of economic and industrial sovereignty in the 21st century and that it needed to go get them where they are and take a monopoly on their processing." »
In any case, the supply of these minerals is likely to become ever more problematic, which is pushing companies, particularly battery manufacturers, to look for alternatives – and they exist! The alternative of the week goes by the names sulfur, iron, and sodium, which are more abundant, less difficult to extract, with better-controlled side effects, and more easily recyclable than others. Long live low-cost metals, as Le Monde headlines! And awareness is indeed here, as shown by the announcement this week of the suspension of investments by battery cell manufacturer AAC, whose main shareholder is Stellantis. Its two gigafactory projects in Germany and Italy are therefore on hold to switch part of its production to LFP battery technology, which is more "low-cost," as L'Usine Nouvellereveals. The company justifies its decision to delay its plans by the need to adapt its technological portfolio to market demands. In short: the lithium-ion NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) batteries it wanted to build in all its plants so far are not a panacea, and this technology needs to be supported. Very popular due to their low cost despite lower energy density than their NMC equivalent, LFP-type batteries (lithium iron phosphate) are currently the most rational choice.
The concept of the week is "0DDwashing". According to an assessment carried out by the CSR Platform (Corporate Social Responsibility), a division of France Stratégies dedicated to the issue of integrating sustainability issues by companies, made public in May, the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are still poorly integrated into corporate CSR approaches, thus contributing little to the ecological and social transition. "Barely 20% of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets will be achieved by 2030 if the current trajectory is maintained," worry the authors, quoted by Novethic. Since their adoption in 2015 by the United Nations, the 17 SDGs have served as a compass for the ecological and social transition of various public and private actors worldwide. The analysis by the CSR Platform experts is unequivocal: "few companies use the SDGs and their targets as levers to transform their business models" and as a lever for overall sustainability. Worse: studies "show a very low positive contribution of companies to the sustainable development goals," as the authors point out. The causes include "the low budgets allocated to CSR" in companies, and "the lack of dedicated human resources," which does not allow creating a serious dynamic for integrating social and environmental issues. The figures speak for themselves: one in two mid-cap/large companies reports having less than half a full-time equivalent dedicated to CSR issues. Fortunately, (RE)SET is here to help them.
Somewhat in the same spirit, the NGO Oxfam has just published the study of the week, according to which CAC 40 companies as a whole devote four times more of their profits to rewarding their shareholders than to financing their green investments. Aptly titled "France at (CAC) 40 degrees," the study points out that the four non-financial companies least aligned with respecting the Paris Agreement are TotalEnergies, Safran, Airbus, and ArcelorMittal. Those most likely to respect the Paris Agreement are Alstom and Legrand. A special mention, positive, goes to Crédit Mutuel and MAIF.
Still on the CAC 40, but this time analyzed from another angle, with the Vérité 40 index. "Is the Vérité 40 index the future of the CAC 40?" asks Challengesmagazine. Founded by the asset management company Axylia, this index brings together the 40 French companies listed on the SBF 120 and answers the question: could they pay their carbon bill from their financial profitability? To do this, Axylia multiplies all the companies' emissions, including indirect ones, by an estimated carbon price of 142 euros per tonne (a figure defined by the IPCC). It then gives each company a score from A to F. Those at the top of the alphabet have a better ability to absorb carbon-related costs. "It's a simple methodology, in contrast to ESG ratings of abysmal complexity," boasts Vincent Auriac, president of Axylia. In the end, a small half of the CAC 40 companies would still be profitable after paying their "carbon bill." The result, Challenges tells us: eighteen CAC 40 giants have exited, including of course TotalEnergies, but also Stellantis, Engie, Accor, Publicis, ArcelorMittal, Carrefour, and Safran. The biggest bills go to Airbus (58 billion euros) and Michelin (21 billion euros). So much so that with their respective operating results of 5.84 and 2.65 billion euros in 2023, the aircraft manufacturer would need ten years and the tire giant almost eight years to pay them back! Due to lack of public data, the banks BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, and the insurer Axa are excluded from the index. Conversely, L'Oréal, Hermès, La Française des Jeux, Euronext, Danone, Orange, and EssilorLuxottica are among the good students. With some surprises: Dassault Systèmes, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Thales, Sanofi, Bouygues, and Saint-Gobain. "Their presence in the index does not mean they don't pollute," explains Vincent Auriac, "but that they are sufficiently profitable relative to their CO2 emissions."
The Olympic medal of the week is awarded in anticipation to Coca-Cola, the world's best competitor in terms of greenwashing, according to France Nature Environnement, as L'Usine Nouvelletells us. Indeed, there's a bit of hypocrisy in the announcements made about the use, during the upcoming Games, of deposit cups, omitting to specify that they will be filled from… 6 million single-use PET bottles.
An opportunity to recall that a report by the National Assembly has just completed an evaluation of the implementation of the AGEC law. Its conclusions are mixed. “Several provisions of the law are poorly applied, or not applied at all, are not subject to monitoring or control measures, or face various obstacles, whether at the local, national or European level”, the authors emphasize. In particular, the reduction of plastic waste is suffering from delays. While the legislation provides for halving the number of single-use plastic bottles placed on the market by 2030, their number increased by 4% between 2021 and 2022. To reverse this trajectory, the parliamentarians propose to require producers to develop reduction plans. More generally, the authors of the report regret the concentration of efforts “on the downstream of a product’s life cycle, and particularly on waste sorting, collection, and recycling” to the detriment of “prevention of waste production, eco-design, and reuse." However, priority in the waste treatment hierarchy, waste reduction levers remain “the poor relation of the law”, they say.
Still on the Olympic Games, the "again missed of the week" is the training of French swimmers in the Seine: too polluted, again, but also too agitated, with strong currents. The result of too frequent rainy episodes lately – reread our information on "the crappy spring" at the beginning of this Breaking (RE)NEWS. More serious: the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, had to announce the postponement of her own swim. But she is not giving up on the principle, explains Libération : the mayor will indeed take her bath before the Olympics, on June 30, she swears!
More seriously, regarding water, the map of the week is brought to us by " Les Greniers d’Abondance " and it translates into numbers the water dependence of our beautiful French municipalities. It was created by cross-referencing the "Water withdrawal" indicators, i.e., the volume in m3 used from 2012 to 2020 in each zone, and the frequency of "drought decrees" over the last 5 years. An opportunity to recall that over the decade 2010-2020, water consumption was distributed as follows: 58% for agriculture; 26% for drinking water; 12% for energy; 4% for all other industries (INRAE), whereas in 1995 the distribution was different: 43% for agriculture, 42% for drinking water, and 15% for the rest. The share of agricultural water withdrawals has therefore increased considerably in recent decades, while the share of drinking water has fallen. In 5 years, withdrawals for agricultural irrigation increased by 22%, while "drought" decrees have multiplied by 4. We ask the question: isn't it time to consider a less water-intensive agriculture?
Still on water, WWF launches the alert of the week in a report made public on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, and reported by Le Monde, stating that less than half of the rivers are in good ecological condition: 43.1% in 2019, a figure from the water agencies reported by the NGO. WWF wanted to establish a health status of life in rivers in metropolitan France by publishing a "living rivers index" based on data from monitoring programs. It concludes a decline in fish and bird populations observed over the past twenty years, despite colossal sums spent – estimated at 500 billion euros for water policy. One of the victims of this degradation is the charming European pond turtle, a freshwater turtle whose legs are covered with small yellow spots, which you may have had the chance to see swimming in our rivers:
The riddle from last week seemed ridiculously easy but was not. What is the highest point in the world? The clue was that trying to recall your elementary school lessons would not give you the correct answer. Indeed, Everest, with its summit at 8,849 meters above sea level, is certainly the highest point relative to sea level, but not relative to the Earth's center… The "cosmographer" and lecturer at Sciences-Po, Maxime Blondeau, reveals on LinkedIn why Mount Chimborazo, an Andean volcano rising to 6,263 meters above sea level south of Quito, the capital of the Republic of Ecuador, is the true highest point in the world: " (…) because the distance between Mount Chimborazo and the center of the Earth is greater than with Everest. It is the highest point, not from sea level, but from the center of the globe. Because the Earth is not a sphere. It is ellipsoidal. The Earth's radius is about 21 km larger at the equator than at the poles, and Chimborazo is practically on the equator line, which distances it from the center, much more than the Himalayan peaks. »
The riddle of the week is much more "down-to-earth." Which company, since this week, "weighs" more than our 40 French flagship companies combined in the CAC 40? The clue: it concerns neither luxury, nor the automotive sector, nor oil, nor finance. An additional clue, because we like you: its founder and current CEO was born in Tainan, the cultural capital of Taiwan.
Happy reading and have a good weekend!
[As a reminder, (RE)SET, founded in 2019, is the first independent consulting firm dedicated to economic and environmental transition and built for action. "(RE)SET: resources to win environmental and economic battles!" Inevitably partial, sometimes biased, always committed, this media review with its often spirited, even impertinent tone, in no way commits (RE)SET in its consulting activities, but it paints a picture we find interesting of the state of the transition as it appears in the press and research. A snapshot of the debate, of the forces at play, the oppositions, the convergences, which we hope is useful for your decisions and for building your transition strategies.]
