Month: July 2023

Time is of the essence when it comes to achieving change. At the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), we are driven by an ambitious vision of a global consumer goods industry that gives more than it takes – to the planet and its people, and recognize the urgency with which we need to accelerate our progress to move the industry forward.

In her latest blog, Amina Razvi, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition shares her reflections following the recent publication of our Annual Report for 2022, of our Annual Report, and the next steps we need to take to reach our industry-shared goals.

 

Read her blog post titled, Forging a Path Toward a Better Tomorrow on the SAC website.

BETHESDA, Md., July 14, 2023, /3BL/ – Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) announced the winners of its 2023 WHC Awards during the WHC Conservation Conference held in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 20-21. The WHC Awards honor excellence in corporate conservation, with awardees representing various national and international companies across industries.

The year’s top awards, signifying leadership in conservation, were won by Freeport-McMoRan, WM and Matador Ranch & Cattle.

“We are proud to recognize the excellent achievements of this year’s WHC award winners, including Freeport-McMoRan, WM and Matador Ranch & Cattle,” said Margaret O’Gorman, President, WHC. “All of the award recipients have demonstrated excellence in corporate conservation, and we are honored to work alongside them to support biodiversity, sustainability and conservation education.”

The Employee Engagement Award, given to WM, recognizes the exemplary contributions of one company’s employees towards their habitat and conservation education efforts.

The 2023 Gold Program of the Year Award, which honors the overall depth of one conservation program, was awarded to Matador Ranch & Cattle for its Beaverhead Ranch site in Dillon, Montana.

Freeport-McMoRan received this year’s Corporate Conservation Leadership Award, which recognizes one company’s overall achievement in conservation and commends their corporate commitment to biodiversity, conservation education and alignment with global conservation objectives.

In addition to these corporate and program-level awards, individual projects are recognized for excellence in each of the WHC Project Guidance themes. This award category offers projects of all sizes the ability to compete for recognition.

Freeport-McMoRan was the year’s most honored company, receiving the WHC Corporate Conservation Leadership Award as well as three project awards (Bats, Formal Learning and Species of Concern) recognizing their conservation and education work in Arizona and New Mexico.

The following is a complete list of 2023 WHC Award Winners:

WHC Corporate Conservation Leadership Award 
Freeport-McMoRan

WHC Employee Engagement Award 
WM

WHC Gold Program of the Year Award 
Matador Ranch & Cattle, Beaverhead Ranch | Dillon, Montana

Avian Project Award 
BP, Warm Springs Ponds | Butte, Montana

Awareness and Community Engagement Project Award 
Summit Materials, Hamm Sanitary Landfill | Perry, Kansas

Bats Project Award 
Freeport-McMoRan, Cyprus Tohono Corporation | Casa Grande, Arizona

Desert Project Award 
CEMEX, El Carmen Nature Reserve | Coahuila, Mexico

Forests Project Award 
SIBELCO, Unidade Jaguaruna | Santa Catarina, Brazil

Formal Learning Project Award 
Freeport-McMoRan, Port Nickel | Phoenix, Arizona

Grasslands Project Award 
WM, Kirby Canyon Recycling and Disposal Facility | San Jose, California

Green Infrastructure Project Award 
Davey Resource Group, WSSI Native Habitat | Gainesville, Virginia

Invasive Species Project Award 
California Resources Company, Bolsa Chica Wetlands Ecosystem Partnership | Huntington Beach, California

Invasive Species Coordinated Approaches Project 
Matador Ranch & Cattle, Beaverhead Ranch | Dillon, Montana

Land Conservation Agreements Project Award 
Boeing, Boeing South Carolina – Keystone/Fairlawn Project | North Charleston, South Carolina

Landscaped Project Award 
DuPont, Experimental Station Laboratories | Wilmington, Delaware

Mammals Project Award 
MEG Energy Corporation, Christina Lake Regional Project | Alberta, Canada

Marine Intertidal Project Award 
The Earth Lab, The Earth Lab – Ejido Sisal | Distrito Federal, Mexico

Other Habitats Project Award 
General Motors, Quito | Pichincha, Ecuador

Other Species Project Award 
Ontario Power Generation, Ontario Power Generation Wesleyville Site | Ontario, Canada

Pollinators Project Award 
Constellation, James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant | Oswego, New York

Remediation Project Award 
Ashland, Research Center, DE | Wilmington, Delaware

Reptiles and Amphibians Project Award 
BP, Warm Springs Ponds | Butte, Montana

Rocky Areas Project Award 
Exelon, Goat Hill Serpentine Barrens Restoration | Nottingham, Pennsylvania

Species of Concern Project Award 
Freeport-McMoRan, Tyrone | Tyrone, New Mexico

Training Project Award 
ITC Holdings, ITC Transmission Line Right-of-Way at Tomlinson Arboretum | Clinton Twp., Michigan

Wetlands and Water Bodies Project Award 
Ontario Power Generation, Ontario Power Generation Wesleyville Site | Ontario, Canada

Award finalists and winners were chosen from Conservation Certification applications submitted between January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022 that were granted certification. Information on award criteria can be found here.

About WHC

For 35 years, WHC has been promoting and certifying ecological stewardship action on corporate lands through partnerships and education. Since only 10-15% of the world’s land surface is protected, private lands provide an essential opportunity for restoring and protecting biodiversity. As the only international conservation NGO focused exclusively on the private sector, WHC provides a framework for voluntary conservation action on a wide variety of corporate lands. WHC’s corporate members represent some of the leading national and multinational corporations seeking to support sustainable ecosystems and the communities that surround them. These efforts have resulted in more than 1,000 certified programs across 47 states and 28 countries.

Nasdaq

As of July 7, 2023, the European Commission has closed the comment period of the standards developed for the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Soon, the European Commission will adopt their final version of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) for political approval. This approval process could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months and is expected to result in the official ESRS publication before the end of 2023, in time for companies to begin reporting in 2024. Nasdaq’s ESG Solutions team will publish an update when these standards are finalized, but for now, here’s an update on the ESRS of CSRD.

What are the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)?

The first set of sector-agnostic draft standards, comprising the 12 ESRS drafts, were submitted by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) under the CSRD on November 2022. They included two cross-cutting standards, five environmental topic standards, four social topic standards and one governance topic standard. The most recent draft was released by the European Commission for comment in early June 2023 and is altered from the initial draft. While it contains much of the same material, some changes have been made.

Recent Changes to the ESRS

The most substantial change in the latest draft is the application of materiality. The same two cross-cutting standards (ESRS 1 and ESRS 2) and 10 topic standards remain; however, all topic standards and their data points are now subject to a materiality assessment. Unlike many voluntary frameworks, the EU has been clear that double materiality is the standard that companies will be held to, incorporating both financial and impact materiality.

In addition to the wider scope of standards that are now subject to a materiality assessment, other substantial changes to the standards include:

1. Some previously mandatory metrics are now voluntary, including biodiversity transition plans and certain indicators about “non-employees” in the undertaking’s own workforce

2. Phasing-in of certain standards for smaller undertakings, defined as companies with fewer than 750 employees, who may choose to omit:

Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data and the disclosure requirements specified in the standard on “own workforce” in the first year that they apply the standardsThe disclosure requirements specified in the standards on biodiversity and value-chain workers, affected communities, and consumers and end-users in the first two years that they apply the standards.

3. An expanded glossary of terms and acronyms

4. Better interoperability with other standards and frameworks and alignment with EU legal frameworks

Nasdaq can help companies prepare for reporting to CSRD and other voluntary and regulatory frameworks through our ESG technology and advisory solutions. Moreover, Nasdaq offers tools, like Nasdaq OneReport, to help companies prepare for current and future ESG regulatory requirements.

Nasdaq OneReport’s EU ESG Regulatory Reporting Readiness Module helps EU-based companies (or others affected by these regulations) to stay up-to-date and respond to these developments.The tool’s robust workflow supports dozens of voluntary and regulatory standards, such as SFDR and EU Taxonomy reporting, as well as CSRD once guidance is finalized.Nasdaq OneReport provides robust cross-referencing and guidance, with thousands of maps across frameworks and standards, to help companies save time and money in collecting and disclosing the highest quality data to relevant stakeholders.

ESRS Adoption Timeline

The ESRS are still expected to be finalized and signed into law for use by the beginning of 2024. A more detailed timeline can be found here via Nasdaq article, CSRD Update: Impacted Businesses and How to Prepare for Mandatory Reporting.

More regulations to come from the EU include:

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) aims to “establish a European framework for a responsible and sustainable approach to global value chains, given the importance of companies as a pillar in the construction of a sustainable society and economy.” The proposed legislation would apply to larger EU LLCs and companies in high-impact sectors as well as non-EU companies who meet the employee and net turnover thresholds. While it has been proposed, the final text is still subject to political negotiations.The 10 Sector Specific ESRS are still to come. The EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board has pushed its release of sector-specific ESRS another year. The sector-specific standards were originally projected to be released in October 2023.

As these announcements continue to evolve, please check back for more updates from Nasdaq’s ESG Solutions team. For more information about how Nasdaq ESG Solutions can help your company prepare for reporting, contact us here: nasdaq.com/solutions/corporate-esg-solutions/contact.

People spend much of their day in their cars. They drive to work in the mornings, pick up kids in the afternoon, and load the car with groceries in the evening. They rarely think about the little piece of plastic that makes it all possible. But for the millions of people who’ve lost their driver’s licenses, it isn’t something they take for granted.

Losing a driver’s license can have life-altering consequences. It makes daily tasks like going to the grocery store difficult and can prevent someone from getting a job or qualifying for services, according to Debbie Clayman, senior vice president and associate general counsel at Truist. “That affects their ability to be part of the community,” she says.

That’s why she and other Truist teammates in Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina are providing volunteer legal services, called “pro bono,” to help people who can’t afford attorneys restore their driving privileges. Because it’s more than a driver’s license. It’s the engine that allows people to support themselves and their families.

Truist’s pro bono legal team isn’t just helping someone build a better life, according to Clayman. It’s building a better community.

“They often describe it as life-changing”

Truist’s legal teammates collaborate with law firms and nonprofits to lead license restoration clinics. With partner Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, for example, Truist volunteers have helped nearly 300 people develop driver’s license restoration plans.

And demand for their services is high. In North Carolina, more than 1.2 million people have lost their licenses because unpaid fines and fees or failing to appear in court, says B. Leigh Wicclair, director of the Restorative Justice Project at the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center.

“And that can happen even if it’s the person’s first time ever missing court or getting a ticket,” Wicclair says. “And we’re talking about really low-level tickets: speeding, having a taillight out, that sort of thing. So that’s 15% of all adult drivers in the state.”

Navigating a complex legal process can be intimidating—and expensive. For people living on meager incomes, it can feel impossible.

“People describe feeling like they’re in a hole they just can’t get out of,” Wicclair says.

Truist teammates, who have worked with Wicclair’s organization, are helping fill a critical gap not covered by other legal aid, she says. “If it weren’t for the pro bono volunteers, there just wouldn’t be the service available.”

Truist attorneys also volunteer with Drive-To-Work, a Virginia nonprofit that helps people who were previously incarcerated restore their driving privileges. Teammates lead virtual clinics for inmates who will soon be released and are preparing to rejoin their communities.

Drive-To-Work President and CEO Sara Wilson has seen the difference a driver’s license can make.

“They often describe it as life-changing,” she says.

Providing pro bono help where it matters most

The legal team at Truist has a history of pro bono volunteerism. Following the merger, Ellen Fitzsimmons, Truist chief legal officer and head of public affairs, saw an opportunity to formalize efforts both companies had been so committed to. She asked teammates to create ways to do even more impactful service by developing a Truist companywide pro bono program.

The team also helps with criminal record expunction and with eviction diversion counseling, helping keep people in their homes through mediation and financial education.

Teammates have organized clinics to help health care heroes and first responders with their wills, assisting with generational wealth planning.

“Whether it’s a will or a license restoration clinic, it’s helping people build their life back up and get on a financial footing to succeed and contribute to their community,” says Alex Chudoba, Truist associate general counsel.

“Our goal is to figure out the community’s needs and how to serve those needs through our program or service.”

A culture of volunteerism

Legal teammates are ready to expand the pro bono work. Truist’s goal is to have every attorney participate in one pro bono or volunteer event every year.

The pro bono team identifies opportunities that can have a large and positive ripple effect. Like a two-hour clinic that helps a first responder craft a will that’s going to secure a family’s financial well-being for generations or a session that helps restore the driver’s license of a working single parent.

“Putting together resources, we can do a little work on behalf of each of us, and collectively, we’re going to do a lot of good in the community,” says Clayman.

Read more stories of other Truist teammates who are living Truist’s purpose, to inspire and build better lives and communities.