Month: July 2023

The 2022/2023 edition of the initiative led schools, students, and families to discover small daily actions that are good for the environment and can contribute to the responsible use of water and to avoid its waste. It drew to a successful close with widespread participation.

PORCARI (LUCCA), Italy /3BL/ – More than 5,300 classes and 117,500 students, with the support of 7,800 parents, friends, and relatives, joined – together with teachers and instructors – in the 2022/2023 edition of “Mi Curo di Te” (I’ll Take Care of You), the environmental education program promoted by WWF Italy and Regina (Sofidel Group) to discover, understand and love our planet. The project is part of RiGenerazione Scuola, the national plan of Italy’s Ministry of Education and Merit for the ecological and cultural transition of Italian schools.

Building on the knowledge of the UN 2030 Agenda, the ninth edition of the project steered children and young people towards discussing the topic of water scarcity and pollution and the impact of these phenomena on the state of health of the oceans, seas, rivers, and lakes. Teachers of the participating classes downloaded the teaching kit with interactive games, teaching sheets, and digital quizzes from the dedicated website to introduce the topic addressed in the classroom and organize workshops and hands-on activities.

Finally, the students gave free rein to their creativity in a class product that was the result of their reflections on the topic: a poster for elementary schools that described the details, curiosities, and emotions aroused by the course they took; a class slogan for middle schools, aimed at raising awareness of the responsible use of water resources and the daily actions that each person can adopt to help limit water waste.

Of the 1,130 elementary and middle schools in Italy that took part in the initiative, 20 won awards. Below are the rankings:

Elementary School “S. D. Savio – T. Fiore” in Gravina in Puglia (Bari); Middle School “A. Balzico” in Cava de’ Tirreni (Salerno).Award: 1,000 Euro worth of vouchers for teaching materials;Elementary School “G. Modugno” in Barletta (Barletta-Andria-Trani); Middle School “Angri Galvani-Opromolla” in Angri (Salerno).Award: 600 Euro worth of vouchers;Elementary School “L. Settembrini” in Maddaloni (Caserta); Middle School “Piana – Capo d’Orlando (Messina). Award: 400 Euro worth of vouchers.

All schools ranked up to 6th place– along with four elementary and four middle schools drawn at random (among those not awarded prizes) – also received a supply of Regina products and teacher access to the WWF Italy’s platform OnePlanetSchool.

Elena Faccio, Sofidel Group Creative & Communication Director comments: “Each edition of ‘Mi Curo di Te’, for nine years, has shown us that children and young people are very attentive to issues related to sustainability and environmental protection. The large participation in the project also confirms the awareness that the new generations have of the urgency of having to do something useful, starting with everyday gestures, and their ability to raise awareness and involve adults in virtuous practices.”

Martina Alemanno, WWF Italy Education Office Manager adds: “The educational project ‘Mi Curo di Te’ allows classes to get to know and deepen the topics of the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, learning how to take care of our planet starting from daily actions. Through courses like these, which involve the younger generations, teachers and families, we can encourage changes in behavior and lifestyle choices capable of creating a better, healthy, and equitable future for all. Education is the first tool to produce the cultural change necessary for a sustainable future, so that tomorrow’s citizens become real agents of change, equipping themselves with knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that enable them to make informed decisions and act responsibly.”

The project is ready to restart at the beginning of the 2023/2024 school year: the topic of the new edition will be linked to the 12th Sustainable Development Goal of the UN 2030 Agenda: “Responsible consumption and production” (SDG 12).

To learn more, visit the website (in Italian): www.micurodite.it

About The Sofidel Group     

The Sofidel Group, a privately held company owned by the Stefani and Lazzareschi families, is a world leader in the manufacture of paper for hygienic and domestic use. Founded in 1966, the Group has subsidiaries in 12 countries – Italy, Spain, the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Romania, and the USA – with more than 6,400 employees. A member of the UN Global Compact and the international WWF Climate Savers program, the Sofidel Group considers sustainability a strategic imperative and is committed to promoting sustainable development.  For more information, visit  www.sofidel.com.         

Media Contact:     

Brianna Fitzpatrick 

Mulberry Marketing Communications 

bfitzpatrick@mulberrymc.com 

Patrick O’Connell, CFA| Director—Fixed Income Responsible Investing Research 

Tiffanie Wong, CFA| Director—Fixed Income Responsible Investing Portfolio Management; Director—US Investment-Grade Credit 

Markus Peters| Senior Investment Strategist—Fixed Income

Corporate bonds that fund environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives continue to capture investor hearts and minds. But ESG-labeled bonds come in different stripes, so investors need to discern among the good, the bad and the occasional ugly ones merely posing as ESG bonds.

Two types in particular offer bookend examples of why extra scrutiny is important: use-of-proceeds bonds (UOPs) and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs).

Project-Based vs. Target-Based: ESG Bond Goals Have Expanded

ESG-labeled bonds have come a long way quickly, and innovation shows no signs of slowing. Two primary segments now drive the universe: project-based and target-based. UOPs, which are project-based, include green bonds and social bonds that firms issue to finance their environmental or social programs. The nearly $1 trillion UOP bond market has a longer history and is relatively price efficient.

SLBs are a more nascent submarket that still suffers from growing pains, in our view. One reason is that SLBs are target-based, more flexible in their intent and therefore subject to broader interpretation of whether they’re working as advertised.

For instance, rather than using bond proceeds for a specific initiative, SLBs are designed to incentivize issuers to raise ESG standards across their business. Issuers set key performance indicators (KPIs) to help gauge progress toward the goals, and nearly all SLBs provision a potential coupon step-up if the goals aren’t met. But since KPIs are self-determined, ensuring consistent and ambitious results can be challenging, and step-ups may not occur even if ESG targets are seemingly missed.

Further, when issuers miss relevant KPIs, we view the step-up much like compensation for a credit quality downgrade, in which the higher coupon helps insulate investors from bond price deterioration. Missing KPIs also means that investors aren’t meeting their ESG goals—a key reason they invested—which we believe warrants further investigation.

Thus, SLBs—more than most other ESG-labeled bonds—need close watching for potential greenwashing, the practice of a company misleading investors about its commitments to environmental improvement. And until these challenges work themselves out, the SLB market is subject to disparate spreads and other idiosyncrasies, our research shows.

Side by Side, ESG-Labeled Bond Differences Jump Out

A comparison of greeniums—the negative yield premium of a green bond relative to conventional bonds issued by the same company—illustrates the SLB market’s less mature and inconsistent nature.

Given the SLB market’s nascency, its sample size is significantly smaller. Still, we found that UOPs currently have an average greenium of 1.5 basis points (bps), higher than the negative premium, or discount, of -2 bps for SLBs, on average. But more strikingly, the distribution of greeniums in the UOP market is much more normal (Display, left) than in the SLB market, where greeniums seem sporadic (Display, right). We attribute this difference partially to the UOP market’s relatively greater depth and, in part, to disparate KPI ambition levels. As the SLB market matures and the number of SLBs grows, we expect this disparity to moderately shrink and its market to become more orderly.

ESG scoring also helps investors compare issuers—and better gauge potential success. We apply our proprietary ESG scores to firms based on multiple criteria, such as industry type, ESG goals and policies and pending legal actions, to name a few.

Today, UOPs’ ESG score averages 6 on a 10-point scale—1 point better than that of SLBs. But as with greeniums, the distribution of ESG scores for SLBs appears more erratic (Display). In our analysis, this suggests a greater risk for greenwashing among SLBs. Like greeniums, however, the distortion also reflects the current scarcity of SLBs in a newer market.

Three Sustainability-Linked Bonds in Practice

The SLB market’s Wild West characteristics call for investor vigilance and careful selection. Some issuers struggle, others recover after stumbling and still others do a fine job meeting their KPIs.

For example, Italian utility Enel was an early innovator of SLBs, with targets based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, such as greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and using more renewable energy sources. Enel met its ambitious sustainability goals in 2022, avoiding a coupon step-up or negative impact on spreads versus its conventional bonds.

Missed targets aren’t the end-all, but they should warrant closer review. Greece-based Public Power Corporation, for instance, missed its 2022 year-end decarbonization target, and as a result its coupon was stepped up 25 bps in March 2023. The company missed its ambitious target (a 40% reduction in GHGs from 2019 to 2022) mainly due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. PPC had planned to shutter its coal plants and replace them with natural gas, which it suddenly couldn’t procure from Russia. However, the firm has reiterated its plans to grow renewables and shut all coal facilities by 2028. The market seemed to look past this hiccup: PPC’s greenium had reached new highs by June 2023.

Not every challenging situation gets a pass. Brazil’s JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, was hit by a whistleblower complaint about alleged misrepresentations behind its $3.2 billion in SLBs. In January 2023, the global advocacy group Mighty Earth pointed to JBS’s rising GHG output—particularly Scope 3, or indirect, emissions—which contradicts its pledge to reduce GHGs annually toward net zero by 2040. As the Securities and Exchange Commission investigates, the bonds are being scrutinized by the market. The SLBs’ greenium tumbled once news broke in January 2023, and aside from a brief recovery, they continued to underperform the firm’s comparable unlabeled issues as of June 2023.

The SLB market is dotted with opportunity. But because SLBs are the newcomer to the ESG space, the market will take time to settle down, much like the breaking-in period we saw for UOPs. Meantime, the good SLBs can offer compelling yield and close alignment with investors’ ESG objectives, while the bad and the ugly ones should be approached with caution. To know the difference, it’s up to investors to do their homework, including fundamental credit research and closely monitoring each company’s progress toward its sustainability goals.

The views expressed herein do not constitute research, investment advice or trade recommendations and do not necessarily represent the views of all AB portfolio-management teams and are subject to revision over time.

Learn more about AB’s approach to responsibility here.

ALSIP, Ill., July 11, 2023 /3BL/ – Griffith Foods is proud to announce its near-term science-based emissions reduction targets have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a collaboration between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)!

With its Purpose to Blend Care and Creativity to Nourish the World, Griffith Foods is honored to join the SBTi initiative. By collaborating with other forward-thinking organizations, Griffith Foods is taking swift action to align with the latest climate science recommendations and doing its part to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. The company is leveraging the resources and guidance provided by SBTi to overcome obstacles and facilitate the widespread adoption of these targets. Moreover, Griffith Foods’ near-term carbon reduction targets are independently assessed and approved by the SBTi, helping to ensure the credibility and transparency of its efforts.

Kim Frankovich, Global Vice President, Sustainability shares “As a global food product development company, we, together with our growers, suppliers, customers, and industry partners must accelerate lowering emissions in the food supply system, where more than one third of global emissions reside.” TC Chatterjee, Chief Executive Officer added “With a regenerative mindset, we are on a journey to transform how and what we source. This includes incorporating sustainable system design thinking into our product development processes and helping our employees around the world acquire new capabilities to enable the transition to a world where global emissions are halved by 2030 and net zero emissions is achieved by 2050. Together we will help build sustainable food system networks that restore nature and improve livelihoods.”

Griffith Foods’ near-term science-based targets approved by the SBTi are:

Commitment to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 50% by fiscal year 2030 from a fiscal year 2020 base year.Commitment to reduce scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 23% per tonne of product produced by fiscal year 2030 from a fiscal year 2020 base year.

Griffith Foods will soon report their 2022 climate progress, along with progress in Sustainable Sourcing, Health and Nutrition, and Wellbeing and Fulfillment.

For more information on Griffith Foods’ Sustainability, visit https://griffithfoods.com/sustainability.

To learn more about The Science Based Targets initiative, visit https://sciencebasedtargets.org.

Griffith Foods is a family-owned global developer and manufacturer of customized food ingredient solutions guided by their Purpose of “We Blend Care and Creativity to Nourish the World”. The company’s product capabilities range from seasonings and breading, to marinades and sauces blended to exacting specification that are culturally authentic, taste great and are wholesome. Founded in 1919 and headquartered in Alsip, Illinois USA, Griffith Foods has grown and expanded globally to include a presence in over 30 countries. For more information, visit www.griffithfoods.com.

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Global Citizen Festival Returns on September 23 to Drive Critical Efforts to End Extreme Poverty NOW: For Equity, For The Planet, For Food and For Jobs

Proudly Presented by Citi and Cisco, and Supported by Global Partners Accenture, Delta Air Lines, P&G, TimesLIVE, and Verizon; Campaign Partner World Wide Technology; with Live Nation and iHeartMedia

Join the Global Movement Ending Extreme Poverty: Earn tickets to Global Citizen Festival by taking action on the Global Citizen app and at www.globalcitizen.org

NEW YORK, July 11, 2023 /3BL/ – International advocacy organization Global Citizen today announced the Global Citizen Festival will return to the iconic Great Lawn of Central Park in New York City on Saturday, September 23. The free, ticketed event will drive urgent action to End Extreme Poverty NOW, headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ms. Lauryn Hill. Megan Thee Stallion, Conan Gray and Stray Kids are also set to perform.

For the first time in a generation, the number of people living in extreme poverty is rising. The 2023 Global Citizen Festival campaign takes aim at the major issues perpetuating extreme poverty, including the impacts of climate change on the Global South, the inequities affecting women and girls around the world, and the global hunger crisis, and will call on governments to protect and defend advocates everywhere. The campaign will unite millions of voices, amplified by the world’s biggest artists, to demand urgent action from world leaders gathering in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Tickets to the 2023 Global Citizen Festival are free and can be earned by joining the movement and taking action on the Global Citizen app or at www.globalcitizen.org on the following issues:

Women and adolescent girls around the world continue to face challenges including unequal access to education, access to quality healthcare, routine immunization, family planning support and menstrual products, impeding opportunities for economic empowerment and perpetuating the cycle of extreme poverty. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 257 million women globally want to avoid pregnancy but lack access to safe, modern contraceptives.

In order to meet this need, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, which provides lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services, requires an additional $100 million from long standing gender equality champions including Norway, Canada, and Japan, which holds this year’s G7 Presidency, as well as businesses, and philanthropic foundations. Education Cannot Wait stands ready to provide quality education to 20 million children living through emergencies and protracted crises, but urgently needs another $670 million from governments such as France, Australia, Japan and Finland.

Climate change is ravaging the world’s most vulnerable countries, and the nations that contributed the least to the crisis are being impacted hardest. Continuing on the momentum generated at last month’s ‘Power Our Planet: Live in Paris’ event, this year’s Global Citizen Festival will pressure governments and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to urgently mobilize funding to enable climate-vulnerable countries to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Italy, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia must deliver on their climate finance promises and help close the $16.7 billion annual shortfall; Germany and all MDBs must add pause clauses into new loan agreements should a developing country be struck by a natural disaster or pandemic; and the U.K., Brazil and the U.S. should agree to a new maritime transport levy to fund the fight against climate change. Countries including the U.K., Australia and Japan need to follow through on their pledges to reallocate their IMF Special Drawing Rights, and rechannel them through the African Development Bank.

Leaders from the private sector are asked to join the Official UN Race To Zero, set science-based targets, and publish time-bound action plans. They should also commit to making sustainable, transformative investments in low income and climate-impacted countries to stimulate job growth and resilient economies.

The global food and malnutrition crisis continues to decimate communities around the world. According to the Global Report on Food Crises 2023, more than 250 million people are facing acute levels of hunger, with many on the verge of starvation. Africa has sufficient arable land to be the world’s bread basket; instead, rural communities are being devastated by the impacts of climate change and conflict, as smallholder farmers are unable to work or generate sufficient food for their populations.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has the potential to improve the lives of up to 110 million small scale farmers and their communities now. Governments such as Norway, Australia or France need to step up their commitments to double adaptation financing and raise $2 billion for a successful IFAD replenishment at the end of 2023, so impacted communities can adapt to climate change and improve food security for themselves and the world.

“COP27, this year’s G7, the World Bank Spring Meetings and the Paris climate finance summit all failed to deliver tangible results, or disruption of the world’s unjust systems,” said Hugh Evans, Co-Founder & CEO of Global Citizen. “But complacency can’t win. If we want to see breakthroughs on development and climate change, we need the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and all G7 nations to meet the urgency of the hour. Every single citizen has a vital role to play, and together, we must be laser-focused on driving results and impact in September.”

Global Citizen Festival is presented by Citi and Cisco. Global Partners are Accenture, Delta Air Lines, P&G, TimesLIVE and Verizon; Campaign Partner World Wide Technology; with Live Nation, iHeartMedia, and Location Partner New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The Global Citizen Festival broadcast is produced by Done and Dusted.

Global Citizen is also grateful for the support of leading media companies across the world including: iHeartMedia, AIM Group, Arena Holdings, Atmosphere TV, Bandsintown, Bella Naija, Captivate, EIB Network, Grocery TV, GSTV, Interstate Outdoor, MX Location, New Tradition, Orange Barrel Media, OUTFRONT Media, Penske Media, Seen Media, Six Flags Theme Parks, Spotify, Trooh Media, Vanguard Media, Vox Media, The Wall Street Journal and Zikoko.

The 2023 Global Citizen Festival campaign and its policy goals are supported by: African Climate Reality Project; Aspire Artemis Foundation Inc.; Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens; BASICS International; Bays Planet Foundation; Beyond Bretton Woods; Blended Finance Taskforce; Brave Foundation; Center for Environmental Peacebuilding; Chanja Datti; Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean; Common Good Marketplace; Connected Development; Don’t Gas Africa; E3G; Earth For All; ECB Sustainable Youth Foundation; Education Cannot Wait: The UN Global Fund for Education in Emergencies; Extinction Rebellion (XR) Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB); Focus 2030; Friends of the Global Fund Europe; GAIN; Gender and Economic Research Center; Germanwatch; Glasgow Actions Team; Global Alliance for a Green New Deal; Global Education and Leadership Foundation (Values 20 India); The Global Fund; Global Health Advocates; the Global Kid; Global Nation; Green Republic Farms; Hungry for Action; IEC Global Impact Fund; International Climate Change Development Initiative; International Climate Financing WG; International Fund for Agricultural Development; JA Africa; Jane Goodall Institute France; Jara; Lagos Food Bank; LEAP Africa; Loss and Damage Youth Coalition; Malala Fund; Marafiki United Green Youths Initiative; Millennials Movement; Moody’s; The ONE Campaign; ONG Jeunes Volontaires pour l’Environnement (JVE); Only One; OurCause; OWIT Brussels – Organization of Women in Trade;; Plastic Punch; Power to Girls Foundation; Primavera Zur; Project Everyone; Recycling Scheme for Women and Youth Empowerment (RESWAYE); Re:Wild; Save the Children; SDG2 Advocacy Hub; Shamba Centre for Food and Climate; Sharing Strategies; She Leads Climate Action; Stage For Change; Strategic Youth Network for Development; Sungulo Comm NPC; Support Humanity Cameroon (SUHUCAM); Sustainable Development Solutions Network; Sustainability and Climate Podcast; UN Joint SDG Fund; United Nations Foundation; Uniting To Combat NTDs; Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI); and Women At Risk International Foundation.

For more information visit globalcitizenfestival.com, download the Global Citizen app, and follow Global Citizen on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

– Ends –

About Global Citizen Global Citizen is the world’s leading international advocacy organization on a mission to end extreme poverty NOW. Powered by a worldwide community of everyday activists raising their voices and taking action, the movement is amplified by campaigns and events that convene leaders in music, entertainment, public policy, media, philanthropy and the corporate sector. Over the past 10 years, $43.6 billion in commitments announced on Global Citizen platforms has been deployed, impacting nearly 1.3 billion lives. Established in Australia in 2008, Global Citizen’s team operates from New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, Melbourne, Toronto, Johannesburg, Lagos and beyond. Join the movement at globalcitizen.org, download the Global Citizen app, and follow Global Citizen on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Applications are now open for media credentials to attend and cover the 2023 Global Citizen Festival. Please complete the application form here

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