Hello,
The main news of the week is not the European elections, nor the simultaneous visit of Joe Biden and Volodimir Zelensky to Paris, nor even the new world temperature records. No, the news of the week is this:
Yes, you read that right, (RE)SET is further accelerating its growth by joining the Julhiet Sterwen Group! Together, they are creating the benchmark for sustainable transition 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 bring together all the dimensions of sustainable development! What form does this rapprochement take? That of a capitalistic exchange. Julhiet Sterwen becomes the largest shareholder of (RE)SET and simultaneously the founding partners of (RE)SET invest in the capital of Julhiet Sterwen, of which they join the 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 touches to its palette, new strings to its bow, in short, new offers and additional services to its customers and partners. As Géraldine Poivert, President of (RE)SET, explains in an interview on BFM, this rapprochement aims to "go faster, further and have an impact", continuing: "the transition is like the stool, for it to hold well it needs three legs: the economic foot, the environmental foot and the social foot. This allows us to become THE reference for all sustainable transitions. It's a marriage of love and reason" Long live the newlyweds!
Well, there are other things going on in the world too, let's be honest. Not least elections. Remember, at least those of you of voting age, that was in 2009, six years before the Paris Agreements, at the height of the climate scepticism wave. That year, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, now known as "Dany Le Vert", headed the list of the French Green Party. And his list finished second in the elections, with 20.9%. Today, as Libération puts it in its inimitable style, "the Greens are half-empty" and wondering whether they'll pass the fateful 5% mark. So what's happened? Have the environment and transition disappeared from the political agenda? Have voters lost interest in the subject? Not at all! In fact, the exact opposite has happened, and that's good news: all the lists now include the environment and transition in their programs, given the extent to which the subject concerns citizens-voters-consumers. Of course, integrating the environmental dimension does not necessarily mean wanting to go faster or further in the transition. It may even be the opposite. And opinion polls, in France as in all EU countries, seem to show a certain appetite for the lowest environmental standards. This may seem at odds with all these surveys, which show that awareness of the urgent need for economic and environmental transition is very real, both among the general public and among companies. And this suggests that, at one time or another, the necessary explanation of decisions taken, in Brussels as in Paris, has not been properly provided. So much so, in fact, that the "punitive ecology" fantasies that have been flourishing for at least a year now have taken root. Hence the interest, perhaps, in "taking a break", as they say at the Elysée Palace. In the hope that this "pause" will be put to good educational use.
In the meantime, the programmes of the various lists in France have been deciphered by the Climate Action Network and the conclusions are in line with those of most of the comparators that have flourished in recent days. Unsurprisingly, if you are rather sensitive to the need to move forward towards a controlled economic and environmental transition, it is better to avoid voting too far to the right. Let's repeat it to be sure to be heard: it is not the author of these lines who says it, even less (RE)SET, just cold comparators! Among the other comparators dedicated to the ecological and social transition, there is also the WWF which sent a questionnaire to political parties. To the question of whether the Green Deal should be maintained as one of the main political priorities of the next mandate, 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 says it would not maintain the Green Deal as a political priority. Reconquest goes further by calling for the repeal of all Green Deal measures, the elimination of all funding for wind power and the construction of basins and water reservoirs. There you have it, it has the merit of being clear.
Fortunately, as the latest analysis by the Schuman Foundation already mentioned in the previous Breaking (RE)NEWS indicates, 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, with a small margin, continue to lead Europe. The Green Deal should be able to enter its second phase, albeit at a slower pace.
To kick off our weekly features, let's start with our favorite: the weather! And this one doesn't necessarily militate in favor of slowing down the pace of transition. It seems that the machine is running faster than expected. We already knew that the summer of 2023 was the hottest ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere outside the tropics in the last two thousand years. We now know that the trend is accelerating, at least according to the recent update of IPCC analyses by an international group of 59 leading scientists from 44 institutions. According to Le Monde, which quotes the findings, "the pace of global warming is faster than ever". Temperatures are now expected to rise by 0.26 degrees per decade, compared with the 0.18 degrees anticipated. Another major finding of the study is that the carbon budget (emissions cap) available to maintain a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as set out in the Paris Agreement, is rapidly running out. It has been more than halved compared with the IPCC estimate. At the start of the year, it stood at 200 billion tonnes of CO2, compared with 500 billion in the 2021 assessment. This corresponds to just five years of emissions at the current rate.
And in fact, at the global level, cartographies continue to follow one another, 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 by +1.52°C the estimated May average for the pre-industrial reference period 1850-1900. Our favorite whistleblower once again sounded the alarm: " We're playing Russian roulette with our planet. Not only are we in danger, we are the danger," declared United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday, speaking at the Natural History Museum in New York on World Environment Day. In fact, Indians and Pakistanis are well aware of this, having just experienced their worst heatwave ever, with a peak of over 52° in the suburbs of New Delhi and 53% on the India-Pakistan border. Historic records, of course.
To close this "weather" chapter, and for the anecdote, you should know that in France, we had, to use the expression most heard in recent weeks and taken up by Le Parisien, "a rotten spring", and even the most rotten since 2008 according to official data, if we refer to the amount of rain that fell. The fourth most rotten since 1959, to be complete on the subject. In all things, misfortune is good: French water tables have returned to much better levels than last year at the same time, says Libération . Thanks to the Breaking (RE)NEWS, you now have enough to feed a lot of "small talks". Don't thank us!
To stay in the clouds, this week's tip is to keep your seatbelts fastened when flying! Turbulence has increased by 55% over the last 40 years and is expected to triple over the next 30 years, again due to global warming... A dramatic example of this was provided by Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from London: 70 injured and one dead. This turbulence is not anecdotal. And it's expensive! Airlines will have to start thinking about how they will manage the increase in turbulence, because it costs the industry between $150 million and $500 million [between €138 million and €460 million] a year in the United States alone," warned researcher Mark Prosser, first author of a study on the subject, quoted in Le Monde. Every extra minute spent flying through turbulence increases wear and tear on the aircraft, as well as the risk of injury to passengers and crew. "
Let's come back down to earth, and even below, with the discovery of the week, which we don't know if it's good or bad. Le Figaro reports that Russia has discovered 511 billion barrels of oil in the Antarctic. The black gold in question is said to lie mainly in British Antarctica, 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 part of the world. 511 billion barrels is no mean feat. The world consumes around 36 billion barrels of oil a year, according to the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, while the Telegraph points out 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 depletion of oil reserves will not one day lead to a reversal of the 1961 treaty...
In the meantime, our Total Rubric has the opportunity to enrich itself, with the latest Annual General Meeting of the French oil company. "Should TotlaEnergies be dismantled?" asked economist Maxime Combes in the columns of Libération on the day of the AGM. Confronted with a rebellion from some of his shareholders and activists mobilized around the company's La Défense headquarters, Patrick Pouyanné pressed the point home, as Libération reported: "Unfortunately, the reality of the world in which we live is still one of fossil fuels, and it wasn't Total that decreed that cars run on gasoline. In the end, a quarter of shareholders voted against the reappointment of the TotalEnergies boss (he is still in place, Novethic reminds us), and 173 people were arrested by the police.
In the same vein, there's a growing backlash within Shell's shareholder base, as well as among the world's other oil majors, all of whom faced similar challenges at their recent AGMs. According to a report by the NGO Oil Change International, published on Tuesday May 21, none of the eight international oil and gas majors - Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Eni, Equinor and ConocoPhillips - has a climate plan in line with the Paris Agreement, let alone the recent COP28 decision to move away from fossil fuels. Six of them (Chevron, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, Equinor and Eni) even have an explicit goal of increasing oil and gas production in the short term. Between them, these eight companies are on track to use 30% of the remaining carbon budget - the amount of greenhouse gas emissions the world can release - to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Underground again, the dependence of the week is on critical raw materials for transition, in particular metals and rare earths. In a fascinating dossier, Le Monde reveals how critical minerals are now fuelling rivalries between established and emerging powers... As is often the case, a good infographic is better than a long speech:
Still on the subject of mining sovereignty, the interview of the week is also offered by Le Monde, which put some good questions to Christel Bories, CEO of Eramet, the leading French player in the global competition in this sector, attracting some good answers: " Let's not dream, France and Europe don't have vast mining resources. Even if we exploited all current projects to the full, we'd only manage to cover around 20% of Europe's needs. Instead, we need to do what the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have done: forge economic and political partnerships with producer countries to secure our supply chains. Europe has a great deal to offer these countries, in particular its rules on corporate social and environmental responsibility, which others do not take into account. We have responsible practices, we care about the environment and local communities. These producing countries won't let you operate there forever if you don't bring something other than money and jobs." She continues, when asked about the rivalry with China: " China doesn't have all the resources on its soil either. It doesn't have nickel, lithium or copper, for example. But it understood very early on that metals were going to be the raw material of economic and industrial sovereignty in the 21st century, and that it had to go and get them where they were and take a monopoly on processing them. "
Be that as it may, the supply of these minerals is likely to become increasingly problematic, prompting companies, and battery manufacturers in particular, to look for alternatives - and they do exist! The alternative of the week is sulphur, iron and sodium, which are more abundant, less difficult to extract, have better controlled side effects and are easier to recycle than others. Long live low-cost metals, as Le Monde headlines! And the awareness is there, as demonstrated 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 have been put on hold, with the aim of shifting part of its production to the more "low-cost" LFP battery technology, as revealed by L'Usine Nouvelle. The company justifies its decision to delay its plans by the need to adapt its technological portfolio to market demands. To put it plainly: the lithium-ion NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) batteries that the company had previously intended to build in all its factories are not a panacea, and this technology needs to be backed up. LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries, which are very popular because of their low cost despite a lower energy density than their NMC equivalent, are currently the most rational choice.
The concept of the week is "0DDwashing". According to the inventory carried out by the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Platform, a division of France Stratégies dedicated to the issue of how companies take sustainability issues into account, made public in May, the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are still poorly integrated into companies' CSR approaches, thus contributing little to the ecological and social transition. "Barely 20% of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be achieved by 2030 if the current trajectory is maintained," the authors worry, 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 the various public and private actors around the world. The analysis of the CSR Platform's experts is clear: "few companies use the SDGs and their targets as levers for transforming their business models" and as a lever for global sustainability. Worse: the studies "show a very small positive contribution of companies to the Sustainable Development Goals", as the authors point out. This is due in particular to "the low budgets allocated to CSR" in companies, and "the lack of dedicated human resources", which do not allow for the creation of a serious dynamic to take into account social and environmental issues. The figures speak for themselves: one in two large mid-cap companies say they have less than half a full-time equivalent devoted to CSR issues. Luckily, (RE)SET is here to help
In a similar vein, 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 looking after their shareholders than to financing their green investments. Beautifully entitled "Une France à (CAC) 40 degrés", the study highlights that the 4 non-financial companies least aligned with the Paris Agreements are TotalEnergies, Safran, Airbus and ArcelorMittal. Those most likely to comply with the Paris Agreement are Alstom and Legrand. Special positive mention goes to Crédit Mutuel and MAIF.
Cac 40 again, but this time analyzed from a different angle, with the Vérité 40 index: "Is the Vérité 40 index the future of the CAC 40?" asks Challenges magazine. Founded by management company Axylia, this index brings together the 40 French companies listed on the SBF 120 and answers the question: can they pay their carbon bill from their financial profitability? To do this, Axylia multiplies the companies' total emissions, including indirect emissions, by an estimated price per tonne of carbon of 142 euros (a figure defined by the IPCC). It then gives each company a score ranging from A to F. Those at the top of the alphabet have a better capacity to absorb carbon-related costs. "It's a simple methodology, unlike the abysmally complex ESG ratings," boasts Vincent Auriac, Chairman of Axylia. In the end, a mere half of CAC 40 companies would still be profitable after paying their "carbon bill". The result, says Challenges, is that eighteen CAC 40 behemoths are out, 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). With their respective operating results of 5.84 and 2.65 billion euros in 2023, it would take ten years for the aircraft manufacturer and almost eight years for the tire giant to repay them! In the absence of public data, banks BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and insurer Axa are excluded from the index. Conversely, L'Oréal, Hermès, Française des jeux, Euronext, Danone, Orange and Essilor-Luxottica are among the top performers. And there are a few surprises: Dassault Systèmes, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Thales, Sanofi, Bouygues and Saint-Gobain. Their presence in the index doesn't mean that they don't pollute," explains Vincent Auriac, "but that they are sufficiently profitable in relation to their CO2 emissions."
This week's Olympic medal goes to Coca-Cola, the world's best greenwashing competitor, according to France Nature Environnement, as reported by L'Usine Nouvelle. In fact, there's a touch of hypocrisy in the announcements made about the use of returnable cups during the next Games, omitting to specify that they will be filled with... 6 million single-use PET bottles.
An opportunity to recall that a report by the French National Assembly has just completed an evaluation of the application of the AGEC law. Its conclusions are mixed. " Several of the law's provisions are poorly applied, if at all, are not subject to follow-up or monitoring measures, or face various obstacles, whether at local, national or European level", the authors point out. In particular, the reduction of plastic waste is slow. Although legislation aims to halve the number of single-use plastic bottles placed on the market by 2030, their number rose by 4% between 2021 and 2022. In order to reverse this trend, the parliamentarians propose that producers be required to draw up reduction plans. More generally, the authors of the report deplore the concentration of efforts "on the downstream end of a product's life cycle, and in particular on waste sorting, collection and recycling" to the detriment of "waste production prevention, eco-design, and reuse or re-utilization." Despite their priority in the hierarchy of treatment methods, waste reduction levers remain "the poor cousins of the law", they say.
Still at the Olympic Games, the "again failed of the week" is the training of French swimmers in the Seine: too polluted, again, but also too rough, with strong currents. The result of too frequent rainy sequences lately – read our information on "the rotten spring" at the beginning of this Breaking (RE)NEWS. More seriously, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, had to announce the postponement of her own bath. But she does not give up on the principle, explains Libération : the mayor will take her bath before the Olympics are held on June 30, she vows!
More seriously, on the subject of water, the map of the week is brought to us by " Les Greniers d'Abondance ", and it expresses in figures the dependence on water of our beautiful French communes. The map was created by cross-referencing the "water abstraction" indicators, i.e. the volume in m3 used from 2012 to 2020 in each zone, with the frequency of "arrêtés sécheresse" (drought orders) over the last 5 years. This is an opportunity to point out that over the decade 2010-2020, water consumption was split 58% for agriculture, 26% for drinking water, 12% for energy and 4% for all other industries. (INRAE) whereas in 1995, the breakdown was different: 43% for agriculture, 42% for drinking water and 15% for the rest. The proportion of water used for agricultural purposes has thus increased considerably over the last few decades, while the proportion used for drinking water has fallen. In 5 years, withdrawals for agricultural irrigation have increased by 22%, while "drought" orders have multiplied by 4. The question is: isn't it time to think about a less water-intensive form of agriculture?
In a report published on the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, and reported by Le Monde, the WWF sounds the alert of the week on the fact that less than half of all rivers are in good ecological condition: 43.1% in 2019, a figure quoted by the NGO from water agencies. WWF set out to establish the state of health of river life in mainland France by publishing a "living rivers index" based on data from monitoring programs. It concludes that fish and bird populations have been declining over the past twenty years, despite the colossal sums spent on water policy - estimated at 500 billion euros. One of the victims of this degradation is the charming cistude, a freshwater turtle whose legs are covered with small yellow spots, which you may have had the good fortune to come across, swimming in our rivers :
Last week's riddle seemed ridiculously easy, but it wasn't. What is the highest point in the world? The clue was that there was no point in trying to remind you of your elementary school lessons, as we wouldn't have found the right answer. In fact, Everest, with its 8,849-meter-high summit, may be the highest point above sea level, but not above the center of the earth... Cosmographer and Sciences-Po teacher Maxime Blondeau reveals on LinkedIn why Mount Chimborazo, a 6,263-meter-high Andean volcano 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's 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 greater at the equator than at the poles, and Chimborazo is practically on the equator line, which puts it much further from the center than the Himalayan peaks."
This week's riddle is much more down-to-earth. Which company this week "weighs" more than our 40 French flagships in the CAC 40? Here's a hint: it's not in the luxury goods, automotive, oil or finance sectors. An additional clue, because we like you: its founder and still CEO was born in Tainan, the cultural capital of Taiwan.
Happy reading and have a great weekend!
[As a reminder, (RE)SET, founded in 2019, is the first independent consultancy dedicated to economic and environmental transition and cut out for action. "(RE)SET: resources to win environmental and economic battles!" Necessarily partial, sometimes biased, always committed, this media review with its often lively, even impertinent tone in no way commits (RE)SET to its consulting activities, but it does paint what we consider to be an interesting portrait of the state of the transition as reflected in the press and research. A snapshot of the debate, the forces at play, the oppositions, the convergences, which we hope will be useful for your decisions and the construction of your transition strategies].
