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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Labor Dept. drops Biden-era ESG fiduciary rule
This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. The Department of Labor informed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday that it will abandon the Biden administration's rule allowing pension plan fiduciaries to consider ESG factors and other 'collateral benefits' in tiebreaker situations, according to court documents. A lawyer with the Department of Justice's civil division appellate staff said in a letter that 'the Department has determined that it will engage in a new rulemaking on the subject of the challenged rule.' The new rulemaking process will be included in the Trump administration's spring regulatory agenda, according to the May 28 letter. The Biden administration's rule was challenged by a coalition of 26 Republican-led states, though had thus far held up in the face of litigation. The Labor Department asked for a temporary pause in the legal proceedings last month as it weighed rescinding the rule. A judge granted a 30-day pause, directing the agency to provide an update on what further actions it planned to take, with Wednesday's filing representing the government's response. The Biden administration's Labor Department finalized the rule, 'Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights,' in 2022, and it has been in effect since January 2023. At the time, the agency said the rule overturned guidance from the first Trump administration which had a 'chilling effect' on fiduciaries. The rule allowed retirement plan fiduciaries to consider ESG and other collateral benefits to break a tie when two or more investments 'equally serve' the financial interests of the plan and it would be imprudent to invest in both or all options. The Republican-led states leading the lawsuit have argued that the rule runs afoul of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. However, a federal district court judge has twice ruled that the rule was permissible. Texas Northern District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk first dismissed the lawsuit in September 2023, though that ruling relied on the now-overturned Chevron doctrine. After hearing arguments in the case, the Fifth Circuit later remanded the case back to Kacsmaryk for a ruling in light of that change. Kacsmaryk again ruled that the rule does not violate ERISA in February. While the planned timeline for a new rule proposal will be unknown until the administration releases its regulatory agenda, the May 28 court filing said the Department of Labor 'intends to move through the rulemaking process as expeditiously as possible.' Recommended Reading State of the Labor Dept. ESG rule in a post-Chevron landscape Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Sustainability platform Watershed launches free global emissions database
This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. Watershed, a sustainability software startup, has launched a free version of its global emissions database, the Comprehensive Environmental Data Archive, to help companies 'address critical gaps in emissions reporting data to inform more impactful climate action.' The startup — which helps companies measure, report and reduce their carbon footprint — unveiled Open CEDA last week and said the database covers 148 countries, 400 industries and 95% of the global gross domestic product. Open CEDA considers 60,000 emissions factors when evaluating a company's footprint, provides annual updates on a company's decarbonization progress and measures emissions in compliance with the GHG protocol, per its website. Watershed's platform takes data directly from companies' systems to create an 'audit-ready' carbon footprint report and supports businesses in understanding their climate disclosure obligations. The sustainability startup currently manages around 1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent across its portfolio, according to its website, which is almost double the volume it was managing last year. Watershed had reported managing around 479 million tonnes of carbon equivalent in February 2024. The company has a 2030 goal of collaborating with its customers to reduce or remove 500 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere, which accounts for nearly 1% of annual global emissions. Watershed's current client list includes BlackRock, Bain Capital, Carlyle, KKR, Visa, Walmart, FedEx, Etsy, Paramount and others. 'Simply put, better data leads to better decisions,' Watershed Co-Founder Christian Anderson said in a May 22 release. 'By opening up CEDA to the public, we hope to give organizations of all sizes a more accurate foundation from which to make critical choices about their sustainability action.' Watershed said it will continue to offer clients a paid version of CEDA as well. The version includes additional features, such as breakdown of emissions categorized by scopes 1, 2 and 3, and a comprehensive analysis that helps companies understand differences in emission factors, among other offerings. The company said Open CEDA is recommended for 'organizations or companies measuring for the first time,' whereas CEDA is recommended for 'more advanced sustainability programs and service providers,' per its website. Last year, Watershed secured $100 million during a Series C funding round, which it said would allow it to continue developing climate programs for clients and redouble its investments in Europe. The financing was led by San Francisco-based investment firm Greenoaks and raised the company's valuation to $1.8 billion at the time. Recommended Reading Climate software startup Watershed clinches $100M in funding
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
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FTC, DOJ weigh in on Republican states' coal antitrust case against ‘Big Three' asset managers
This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice issued a joint statement last week supporting a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a coalition of Republican-led states alleging that BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street violated antitrust laws and conspired to artificially restrict the coal market. 'The [FTC and DOJ] have interests here in ensuring the correct application of the antitrust laws, including in America's energy markets,' the May 22 statement said. 'Doing so protects Americans from anticompetitive behavior that reduces the production of domestic energy, raises energy prices for consumers and businesses, and undermines America's energy dominance.' The joint statement of interest begins to lay out how Attorney General Pam Bondi will direct the DOJ to fulfill an executive order from President Trump targeting state climate change and ESG policies and initiatives. The statement cites this order, as well as another declaring a national energy emergency, as aspects of the United States' interest in the case. Paxton initially filed the lawsuit against the nation's three largest asset managers in November, supported by 10 other Republican-led states. The lawsuit alleges BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street acquired 'substantial' holdings in public coal companies and then pushed those companies to reduce their output. Paxton accused the companies of forming 'a cartel to rig the coal market' in a press release at the time. BlackRock and State Street called the allegations 'baseless' in separate comments to ESG Dive at the time, and all three asset managers filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in March. Their motion said the states have offered 'no plausible facts' to support their claims and said the 'case spins a farfetched theory.' While the FTC and DOJ's statement affirms that antitrust laws allow for passive investing, corporate governance-focused shareholder advocacy and active investing 'that doesn't harm competition,' they said the allegations in this case go further than that and alleges 'the coordinated use of the power of horizontal shareholdings to distort output and prices in energy markets.' The agencies said the nation's official view is that the asset managers have misunderstood the standards and exceptions to the applicable antitrust laws, and the court should reject the motion to dismiss. DOJ said in a release that this represents 'the first formal statement by the agencies in federal court on the antitrust implications of common shareholdings.' 'We need competition in coal production now more than ever to help fuel American energy dominance,' DOJ Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said in an accompanying release. 'We will not hesitate to stand up against powerful financial firms that use Americans' retirement savings to harm competition under the guise of ESG.' BlackRock said in a May 22 statement that the agencies' 'support for this baseless case undermines the Trump Administration's goal of American energy independence.' 'As we made clear in our earlier motion to dismiss, this case is trying to re-write antitrust law and is based on an absurd theory that coal companies conspired with their shareholders to reduce coal production,' BlackRock said. 'Forcing asset managers to divest from coal companies will harm their ability to access capital and invest in their businesses and employees, likely leading to higher energy prices.' The FTC authorized staff involvement in a 2-0-1 vote with one recusal, the agency said May 22; Trump fired the agency's two Democratic commissioners in March. The agency said the statement shows that 'asset managers and institutional investors may be held liable under Section 7 of the Clayton Act when they use their stock holdings in multiple competitors to achieve anticompetitive goals.' A Vanguard spokesperson told ESG Dive that 'the facts show Vanguard has stayed well within [the legal] construct.' 'Though we have concerns with many of the legal interpretations promoted by the agencies, Vanguard appreciates their explicit acknowledgement that the antitrust laws allow these three things: 'passive fund investing,' 'shareholder advocacy for better corporate governance' and 'active investing that doesn't harm competition,' the firm said in an emailed statement Wednesday. State Street did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Recommended Reading BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street sued by Texas, red states Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pennsylvania judge dismisses county climate lawsuit against oil majors
This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. A Pennsylvania judge dismissed a lawsuit that Bucks County brought against a group of oil majors and the American Petroleum Institute on Friday with prejudice, meaning the county will not have an opportunity to refile. Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr disagreed with the oil industry defendants — which included BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil, among others — that the county lacked the capacity to sue and the court lacked the personal jurisdiction to decide the case. However, he ruled the court was 'compelled to dismiss' the case because it lacked the subject matter jurisdiction, according to court documents. The oil industry has had varying levels of success in defending itself against state and locality-led litigation seeking to hold companies financially liable for the physical impacts of climate change. Oil companies have seen cases brought by New Jersey and New York City dismissed this year, while bids to dismiss lawsuits from Connecticut, California and the city and county of Honolulu, Hawaii have thus far been unsuccessful. Bucks County's lawsuit was filed in March 2024, alleging that the major oil companies and API deceptively marketed their products, which have 'exacerbated the costs of adapting to and mitigating' the impacts of climate change. The suit also claimed that Bucks County 'has suffered, is suffering and will continue to suffer injuries' due to the defendants' conduct. ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 and Shell were also among the companies named as defendants in the lawsuit. Corr ruled in his motion to dismiss that the lawsuit failed 'to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because Pennsylvania cannot apply its own law to claims dealing with air in its ambient or interstate aspect.' 'Today we join a growing chorus of state and federal courts across the United States, singing from the same hymnal, in concluding that the claims raised by Bucks County are not judiciable by any state court in Pennsylvania,' Corr wrote. Bucks County argued that it was not seeking to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but seeking compensatory damages for what it alleged was deceptive marketing practices from the defendants. If the case were focused on regulating the emissions of the companies, that would fall into federal court jurisdiction, as those laws and regulations are governed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act, according to the May 16 motion. However, Corr aligned his decision with the dismissal of New York City's climate lawsuit, altering a quote from a Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision in that case, and said 'artful pleading cannot transform [Bucks County's] Complaint into anything other than a suit over global greenhouse gas emissions.' 'While Bucks County does everything it can to avoid the issue of emissions, it cannot avoid the fact that if there were no emissions there would be no damages,' he said. The Pennsylvania judge said the county has looked to make the case about the deceptive marketing aspect because it 'recognizes the inescapable fact that if this case is about emissions, Pennsylvania courts have no subject matter jurisdiction.' Corr found the court lacked the jurisdiction due to a finding that any cause of action in the complaint are 'so intertwined with emissions.' Bucks County Commissioner Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia said when announcing the complaint that the lawsuit is the jurisdiction's 'tool to recoup costs and fund public works projects like bolstering or replacing bridges, retrofitting county-owned buildings and commencing storm water management projects.' The annual number of climate lawsuits against the largest fossil fuel producers have nearly tripled since 2015, and a recent Trump executive order ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to take actions to state and jurisdictional civil actions against oil producers. While the Biden administration had previously dissuaded the Supreme Court from intervening in cases about jurisdiction and state-level climate lawsuits, Bondi could potentially direct the Department of Justice to support oil producers in future litigation.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mastercard announces solar, geothermal projects for its facilities
This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. Mastercard announced Tuesday it will build a solar array on a site expanding 40 acres that it acquired at its Missouri tech hub and will update the heating and cooling systems at its Purchase, New York headquarters with geothermal energy to help reduce its emissions. The O'Fallon, Missouri tech hub is the global payments company's largest facility, while the Purchase headquarters currently consumes the most natural gas out of any of Mastercard's global offices, the company said in an email to ESG Dive Monday. Both sustainability-focused projects serve to help the company stay on track for its 2040 net-zero target and build climate resilience, Mastercard Chief Sustainability Officer Ellen Jackowski said in an interview Tuesday. Mastercard announced in 2021 that it had accelerated its net-zero target date by a decade, from 2050 to 2040, with interim targets to reduce its scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 38% and its scope 3 emissions 20% by 2025. These targets, based on a 2016 baseline, have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, which confirms that corporate net-zero targets are aligned with leading climate science. The payments company has sourced 100% of its global power needs from renewable energy sources since 2019, Jackowski said, but the latest projects will allow the company to take it a step further. 'For us to stay on track to hit net zero, where we source our energy from, is increasingly important,' she said. 'And for us, that means a commitment to using renewable energy.' Mastercard opted for solar power in Missouri and geothermal for its New York headquarters because 'they make sense for those areas,' Jackowski said. The CSO added that the payments services company had been having a hard time sourcing renewable energy for its tech hub, before finding land nearby it could acquire. The company then worked to engage with the community to explain how the project could mutually benefit both the company and locality. 'As more extreme weather events happen, having consistent access to energy is really important,' Jackowski said. 'So part of this strategy is also about resilience. The resilience for ourselves when these extreme events happen, and then also for the surrounding community.' The acquisition of acreage for solar panels to power the tech hub will allow Mastercard to take the power intensive facility off of the local grid once operational. Construction on the facility has recently started, a company spokesperson said. The company said in the release that it will preserve half of the acquired land and restore all of the trees it removes to complete the project. Mastercard said in its Earth Day announcement that its Purchase headquarters is currently responsible for 'more than half of [its] direct combustion of fossil fuels,' and the company saw 'an opportunity to drastically reduce emissions' as the time came to replace its natural gas-powered heating and cooling system. The company is in the process of drilling 160 holes, 600-feet-deep on the front lawn of its headquarters that will then connect to a heating and cooling system. The system that will siphon heat from the building in the summer and store it to be pumped back into the building in the winter will also be powered by renewable energy sources, according to the April 22 release. 'It's not just exciting from a progress point of view, but obviously all of our employees can physically see these things,' Jackowski said. 'They see the drilling going on as they're walking into work at our headquarters. They can see it out the window where we're building the solar field [in Missouri].' The company's 2023 sustainability report was the first time Mastercard said its revenue growth had decoupled from its emissions. The company reported 13% year-over-year growth in net revenue, while the company's total emissions decreased 1% over the same time period. The company's 2024 report, currently in the works, will 'continue on that trajectory,' according to Jackowski, who said that is still 'very rare' to see. Recommended Reading Uber taps former Tesla exec to oversee sustainability strategy, shift to EVs Sign in to access your portfolio
