Happy Monday Tuesday. 👋
Welcome back to another episode of The Grumpy Optimists. I hope you all had a great long weekend if you’re somewhere in the world that celebrates Easter. For those of you in the UK, the weekend's highlight was the clocks going forward and having that extra hour of sweet sweet sunshine on an evening.
As ever, this week we’re looking at all things positive climate news, from Microsoft removing 95,000 tons of carbon via biochar to NVIDIA making weather forecasts more accurate and our response to extreme weather events more resilient; there’s a lot of good to cover. Let’s get into it, shall we?
👀 Articles to read
🪨 Microsoft signs a 95,000-ton biochar deal. Biochar is produced by heating biomass (in this case AgriWaste from crops like corn and wheat) without oxygen. This creates a stable form of carbon that can be buried in soil for centuries-long carbon sequestration and improves soil fertility. This is just one of many of Microsoft’s investments into carbon removal.
👕 Shein ads to be banned in France. The French parliament voted, as every country should do, to impose penalties on low-cost clothing to cover its environmental impact. Fast fashion has always been bad for the planet but Shein is another best in itself. The company releases 7,200 new models of clothing daily. That’s bonkers numbers. The post below from Kyla Scanlon really helps sum up the problem.
⚖️ Fashion brands get a slap on the wrist from the UK. Under the new green claims code, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has given ASOS, Boohoo and George at Asda a clear warning to change the way they advertise their environmental claims. Examples include avoiding phrases like ‘sustainable fabrics’; instead, they must be specific and say ‘recycled’ or ‘organic’. The brands are also not allowed to use nature in imagery when talking about products to signify the item is better for the planet than it really is. This is a strong step towards regulating greenwashing and making it easier for consumers to make better buying decisions.
💰 Secondhand clothes to make up 10% of global fashion sales. To cap off what seems to be a fashion segment of this week’s episode, here’s one for all the Depop and Vinted kings and queens. Pre-owned clothes surged by 18% last year to £156bn, meaning that secondhand fashion is on track to reach 10% of global fashion sales next year. That’s pretty damn impressive.
🐦 Scottish water and English North Sea closed to bottom trawling. With 93% of the carbon stored on the UK’s seafloor stored in the mud and sandy sediment around its waters, it’s crucial not to disturb and release the carbon. That’s why it’s fantastic that from April, restrictions begin on bottom trawling, protecting not only stored carbon but also fish and bird species.
🥛Kerry launches a dairy-and-oat hybrid range of products. Kerry Food Group will launch Smug dairy products as a ‘category-first’ combining oat and dairy. The product has 40% less saturated fats and 54% fewer CO2e emissions per kg than traditional dairy. Think of this as the hybrid car version of the dairy world.
🇺🇸 US to spend $6bn decarbonising steel, ice cream and food production. The funding will support 33 projects across 20 states spanning industries such as iron, steel, aluminium, food and beverage, concrete, and cement. The aim is to develop replicable and scalable technologies that set a new standard for clean manufacturing. The funding is projected to eliminate 14 million metric tons of pollution annually, equivalent to removing 3 million cars from the road.
🌍 NVIDIA launches Earth Climate digital twin. NVIDIA has unveiled its Earth-2 climate digital twin cloud platform to address the economic losses caused by extreme weather events due to climate change, totalling $140 billion. Earth-2 generates high-resolution images 12.5 times faster and 3,000 times more energy efficient than current models, making precise weather forecasting and disaster management easier.
🤔 How can brands become a B Corp? This is a subtle plug for my company, Zevero, but this week, we wrote a blog to help companies understand how to become a B Corp and the benefits for brands. You can read how we help companies like Wieden+Kennedy get 11.1 points out of up to 13.5 in the environmental section.
🤝 Climates X Memes
That’s all for today, folks. I hope you have a wonderful week. This episode was written after a weekend where my body shut down after taking two days off work for the first time in months. I’ve learnt my lesson, working weekends is good for me…right? This was also written after singing this song in the shower far too much this weekend.
Oh, and while you’re here, why don’t you recommend The Grumpy Optimists to a friend, a colleague or a family member? I love that we’re creating a community of people with a grumpy optimism mindset.
George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚