In today’s edition:

⚡️ Carbon accounting in the spotlight

🚜 Patagonia helping to save the soil

🌳 A “Game changing” biodiversity fund

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⚡️ Energy (1-minute read)

Carbon accounting comes under scrutiny

What’s happened: According to a research paper from King's Business School in London, the widely used carbon counting tool called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) can be manipulated by companies to appear less polluting than they actually are.

Details:

Why it matters: All of this could have an impact on investors. Previous research, including by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has found evidence that companies’ share prices fall when they disclose higher emissions. Based on this logic, the King’s academics predict (albeit using a very limited data set) that if companies globally switched from UK emission factors to the US ones, their share price could plummet by 1.9 per cent on average.

🚜 AgriTech (1-minute read)

Beer and Patagonia are helping save soils

Patagonia Provisions, the food arm of the outdoor clothing company, is making beer using Kernza grain to replace the use of conventional grains, like barley. As a perennial grain, Kernza lives for multiple years (unlike barley which lives for a single year), offering environmental benefits, including a deep root structure which prevents soil erosion, boosts nutrient retention, and sequesters carbon.

Importance: Farmers using perennials like Kernza help fight against soil erosion — a process of topsoil degradation accelerated by intensive agriculture. With an estimated 24 billion tons (equivalent to 48 million fully-loaded cargo ships) of fertile topsoil lost annually, without shifting to practices that boost soil health, global agricultural productivity faces a major threat.

Challenges: Kernzia is smaller than barley and requires a separate milling process, meaning competing with conventional grains on cost is difficult. Growing the market for Kernza beer and boosting the efficiency of the brewing and malting process will be crucial to scaling.

🌳 Nature (1-minute read)

Plans for “game-changing” global biodiversity fund given the green light

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) council has approved the establishment of a fund (the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund) to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework implementation. The Kunming-Mantrial Global Biodiversity Framework was agreed upon during the COP15 summit and set ambitious goals for the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems by 2030. Drawing on capital from governments, the private sector and charities, the fund (which will launch officially in August) is a big step toward achieving the goals of the biodiversity framework.

Doesn’t stop there: The GEF council also approved direct support for developing countries' efforts to protect biodiversity. A $1.4bn fund for low- and middle-income countries will help reduce the impact of climate change on at-risk species alongside boosting the use of sustainable agriculture, fishery and forestry practices.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote: “We believe in the need to move to a more circular economy to reduce the impact of mobile technology on the environment.” — The GSMA’s chief regulatory officer, John Giusti

Stat: Venture Capital funding for climate tech dips by 40% in the first half of 2023

Watch: Stockholm is building an entire neighbourhood out of wood

🗞 In other news…

🎣 Gone Phishing

Three of these stories are true, one we've made up. Guess which:

🌞 Climate meme of the week

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