The Triple Bottom - 🌱 Space Junk

Climeworks becomes the first supplier of long-term, technology-based carbon removal to Microsoft 
What happened? Microsoft and Climeworks have closed a 10-year carbon removal offtake agreement - where Climeworks will permanently remove 10,000 tons of CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere on Microsoft’s behalf using Direct Air Capture (DAC).
DAC? Technologies that use chemicals (liquid or solid) to bind to CO2 and extract it from the atmosphere. The CO2 can be permanently stored in deep geological formations or used, for example in food processing or combined with hydrogen to produce synthetic fuels. 
Importance: Such long-term commitments are crucial to help scale the carbon removal industry as it provides planning security to both sides and long-term financing efforts to support the scale-up of DAC = Accelerate mainstream adoption

VW and Audi sign circular supply chain deal for electrical vehicle batteries
Volkswagen of America and Audi have signed a deal with Redwood Materials to recover and recycle end-of-life EV battery packs from their vehicles. Once collected, 95% of the metals found in the batteries will be recovered and used to create new battery components to be re-used in future vehicles. The importance? As the drive to adopt EVs continues, it’s predicted that 12mn tons of lithium-ion batteries will be retired between 2021-2030 = a mountain of electronic waste. End-of-life batteries present manufacturers with an increasing and infinitely recyclable resource. Creating a circular supply chain will improve the environmental footprint of lithium batteries, decrease costs, overcome current battery supply issues and increase the accessibility to EVs.

India has banned all single-use plastics amid national pollution crisis
The country is the world’s third-largest producer of plastic waste, trailing only the United States and China. The manufacture, sale or import of widely used items such as plastic cutlery, ice cream sticks, and film on cigarette packs are banned. Plastic bags, another major pollutant, are not on the list, but the government has mandated an increase in thickness to make them easier to reuse. 
Elsewhere: China has announced a phase-out of plastic bags by the end of 2022, but there is still no national ban in the United States.

UK National Health Service (NHS) world first Drone Chemotherapy deliveries
What's happened? NHS cancer patients will be the first globally to experience drone chemotherapy - starting its trial run in the Isle of Wight, chemo will be flown directly from the pharmacy on the mainland to St Mary’s Hospital, where staff will distribute it to hospital teams.
Green lens: Drone chemo will save on fuel and money, making cancer care much more convenient for patients living on the Isle of Wight – who often need to travel to the mainland. Each drone delivery also replaces at least two car journeys and one hovercraft or ferry journey per delivery, saving on emissions.
Big picture: The UK’s NHS aims to become the world's first “net zero” health service by 2040. Innovation is aplenty check out the first ever net zero surgery conducted earlier this year.

• How NASA technology can help save whale sharks -- the world's largest fish

• Green Tech Boom Threatened as Solar Prices Surge to Decade High

• Developments in South Asian transport infrastructure is helping women into work - research shows that female employment rises when journey time falls

• EY’s Sustainability Chief warns that ESG faces reckoning after being “hijacked” by marketeers - calls for greater scrutiny and regulation of the space.