Resources Sustainability

Malaysia lockdown could spell disaster for key palm oil industry (17 Mar)

Malaysia’s decision to restrict movement nationwide in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus is raising fears it could imperil the country’s vital palm oil industry. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said late on Monday (March 16) that the country will be limiting non-essential businesses operations as well as banning all visitors from entering the country and residents from travelling overseas from March 18 for two weeks. There is a lack of clarity on the sectors and parts of the supply chain this new directive will cover, and palm oil growers are worried that it will hamper harvesting as well as mill and refinery operations.

Source: Straits Times

Blueprint launched to manage Earth’s fragile peatland carbon sinks (18 Mar)

A blueprint for how countries can keep carbon in fragile land-based carbon sinks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been unveiled by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Launched on Wednesday, the guidelines for peatland mapping and conservation come as around 15 per cent of the world’s peatlands have already been drained mainly for cropping, grazing, forestry and extraction. Hotspots of peatland degradation are located especially in Europe, Russia and Northern America, southeast Asia, East Africa and the Amazon basin.

The FAO’s online mapping technology has already been successfully implemented for the first time in Indonesia – which has 40 per cent of all tropical peatlands. The country has been particularly active in taking action to change drainage and deforestation practices that, since the 1980s, have led to extensive fires.

Source: UN News

Malaysia exempts palm plantations from virus closures ensuring global supply (18 Mar)

Malaysia has directed palm plantations to continue operations even as the country shuts businesses to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, a producer group said on Wednesday, ensuring steady supplies of the tropical oil to global markets. Malaysia is the world’s second-largest producer of palm oil, which is used in everything from cosmetics to cookies and accounts for about 65% of global edible oil exports. The country has closed its borders and restricted internal movement by shutting schools and businesses from Wednesday until March 31, after its tally of infections climbed to the highest in Southeast Asia, at 790 cases and two deaths. Closure of palm plantations as a part of the measures earlier had caused concerns in top importers, including India. But the Commodities Minister on Wednesday agreed to exempt palm plantations from the restricted movement order, Nageeb Wahab, chief executive of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, told Reuters.

Source: Reuters

Green Finance

LGIM to launch its first fossil fuel-free pension fund after pressure (15 Mar)

The UK’s biggest fund manager, Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), has bowed to client pressure and agreed to launch its first fossil fuel-free ethical pension fund later this year. LGIM made the decision after a number of clients raised concerns that stocks such as Shell were still being included in its range of ethical funds. While the full stock list for the new fossil fuel-free fund has not yet been confirmed, it will exclude oil companies and take a wider ethical stance by barring investments in tobacco, weapons makers and pure coal manufacturers. LGIM, which has more than £1tn in assets, said the fund will be open to corporate pension schemes and individuals.

Source: The Guardian

HSBC rolls out new green loan in bid to make green finance easier, less costly for SMEs (16 Mar)

HSBC has introduced a new green loan for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that will accept applications based on Singapore industry certifications. This does away with the need for typically onerous green finance frameworks, which larger corporates are required to establish before applying for green loans. The frameworks show that the use of loan proceeds will be in line with internationally recognised green standards. Since developing such frameworks involve assessing entire business models and getting external reviews, doing away with the need for green finance frameworks in this loan could provide significant time and cost savings. These factors can make or break SMEs’ decision to utilise green finance.

Source: The Business Times

BlackRock stands by climate priorities, sees tougher shareholder votes (18 Mar)

BlackRock executives who set the asset manager’s influential proxy votes on Tuesday, March 17 outlined tougher priorities tied to climate change and executive pay for the upcoming corporate annual meeting season. The comments fleshed out details about how the US$7 trillion asset manager would cast its shareholder votes at a time of economic uncertainty. Although the coronavirus pandemic is consuming corporate attention, BlackRock will not cut company directors slack as it decides whether to back their re-election. It will continue to assess whether boards have made progress against goals BlackRock has advocated for several years such as those tied to climate issues. It will also ask companies to provide details recommended by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and threatened to vote against non-executive directors in cases where there are insufficient disclosures. BlackRock’s comments come as investors weigh what impact the coronavirus will have on efforts to slow climate change.

Sources: Channel NewsAsia, Financial Times, Reuters

Study: global banks ‘failing miserably’ on climate crisis by funneling trillions into fossil fuels (18 Mar)

The world’s largest investment banks have funnelled more than £2.2tn into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement, prompting warnings that they are failing to respond to the climate crisis. Analysis of the 35 leading global investment banks, by an alliance of US-based environmental groups, said that financing for the companies most aggressively expanding in new fossil fuel extraction since the Paris agreement has surged by nearly 40 per cent in the last year. Despite banks proclaiming support for the Paris agreement, the Principles for Responsible Banking and the Equator Principles, data show that these pledges have made little difference to bank financing for the fossil fuel industry.

Sources: The Guardian, Business Green

Social Sustainability

Hong Kong employers ‘irresponsible’ as survey reveals 50,000 helpers not given masks (17 Mar)

A survey of 1,127 domestic workers in Hong Kong conducted by non-governmental organisation, the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body earlier this month found that up to 14 per cent have not been given any surgical masks or hand sanitisers during the coronavirus crisis, raising fears employers are leaving them vulnerable to infection. With about 380,000 domestic workers in Hong Kong, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, the NGO estimated over 50,000 had not been issued with the protective items. More than half of respondents said their workload had increased in the past month, as employers required them to do more cleaning and children stayed home due to the ongoing school closures. In addition, one in every five helpers in Hong Kong were not given a single rest day in the past month. The city’s laws mandate one day off every week. For those who had their weekly day off and were allowed to leave the house, some were asked by their employers to return home earlier than usual. Betty Yung Ma Shan-yee, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers Association, rejected the findings. She claimed that employers had not banned their workers from going out although some were worried they could be infected if they went out too often. Teresa Liu Tsui-lan, managing director of the Technic Employment Service Centre, also said that employers had given their helpers masks.

Sources: South China Morning Post, AsiaOne

Palm oil firm has farmers jailed for harvesting from land it stole from them (17 March)

Police in Indonesia have jailed three indigenous farmers for allegedly stealing oil palm fruit from a plantation company that is itself accused of stealing their land. This occurred in Penyang village, East Kotawaringin district, in the Bornean province of Central Kalimantan. The first two indigenous farmers were arrested on February 17 for allegedly harvesting palm fruit on land claimed by the villagers but cultivated illegally by PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada (HMBP). On March 7, the police also arrested prominent land rights activist James Watt who tried to report the matter to higher authorities in Jakarta. Since 2010, the district chief, the district council and Komnas HAM had determined that PT HMBP was operating outside its concession and ordered the company to hand the land back to the villagers. However, it was not until October 2019 that PT HMBP said it would relinquish control of only a fraction of the disputed land, either completely or partially, offering to manage it in collaboration with the villagers. According to the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the community took the statement at face value, and believed the land was theirs once again to harvest from. But PT HMBP saw it differently and filed criminal charges against the farmers. The Central Kalimantan police have denied the arrests are directly linked to the land dispute, characterising the charges as purely criminal. But activists call it a blatant attempt by the company to quash opposition to its land grab, citing among other irregularities the late-night arrest of James Watt.

Source: Mongabay

Smaller increase in female directors at Singapore’s top 100 firms last year (17-18 March)

Although there are more women on the boards of the largest listed companies here, there remains plenty of room to improve, with some firms still with no or few female directors, the Council for Board Diversity (CBD) said on Tuesday, March 17. The CBD is a 20-member council established by the Ministry of Social and Family Development in 2019 under the patronage of Singapore President Halimah Yacob. It found that the largest 100 primary-listed companies on the Singapore Exchange had achieved 16.2 per cent of female board participation as at Dec 31. This is a slight improvement on the 15.2 per cent recorded at the end of 2018. There were also fewer all-male boards, with only 19 companies last year without any female directors, down from 50 in 2013. The council said companies should have the goal of at least two to three women on their boards as a start. Those in search of female board candidates could reach out to executive headhunting firms, which can conduct international searches, the council added.

Sources: The Business Times, The Straits Times