Rio Tinto this week announced it will join the First Movers Coalition, a global initiative to help commercialise zero-carbon technologies by harnessing purchasing power and supply chains. More than 50 companies with a collective market value of about $8.5 trillion across five continents now make up the coalition to create early markets for innovative clean…
Global challenges amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic have made Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues even more pressing for policymakers, boards and executives. To promote alignment among existing ESG frameworks, the World Economic Forum, with Partners including Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC, has identified a set of universal metrics and disclosures – the Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics. During the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings…
Mining and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe says the Mpumalanga towns of Ermelo, Middleburg, Witbank, Hendrina and those within range of the coal-fired power stations would perish if the power stations were to be switched off. Addressing investors at the Limpopo Provincial Mining, Energy & Industrialisation 2022 Investment Conference on Thursday morning, Mantashe told delegates that…
Anglo American Platinum announced the launch of a new employee share ownership plan (“ESOP”), envisaged to be implemented during Q4 2022. The ESOP will see employees receiving Anglo American Platinum listed shares to the value of R8,000 each per year, in addition to participation in the evergreen ownership of 2% of Rustenburg Platinum Mines (“RPM”),…
Barely a week after the oversight committee of the Parliament Portfolio Committee on Minerals and Energy had departed, the Free State town of Jagersfontein received yet another deluge on Tuesday night from the collapsing walls of Jagersfontein tailings. Whilst the collapse did not occur in the sleepy hours of the morning, roads were reportedly immediately…
A global coalition of 108 leading wind energy companies and associations, representing 81 percent of installed wind energy worldwide, has challenged governments to take dramatic action to scale up wind and renewable energy in this decade. In a 16-page statement issued world-wide titled Global Energy Manifesto for COP27, the Coalition called for annual global wind…
South Africa’s Presidential Climate Finance Task Team has their work cut out for them: in a few weeks the team will have to thrash out and publish details of the US$8.5 billion just energy transition partnership ahead of COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022. According to the Presidential Climate Commission’s First Annual Review…
While global investment in renewable energy has increased, a new Bloomberg report shows that half of the countries that pledged to phase out coal at the COP26 talks saw an increase in coal generation in 2021. The continued use of coal-fired energy has resulted in a 7% increase in sector emissions beginning in 2021. More…
With the global rush to wean economies off fossil fuels, Total Energies and Shell are racing against the clock to make hay while the Just Transition sun shines on oil, fueling hopes that Namibia’s largest oil discoveries since independence could double its economy by 2040. Total Energies and Shell announced earlier this year that they…
Business groups have urged the South African government to postpone the implementation of new carbon tax increases until after 2035. Business Unity South Africa (Busa), Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), and others have called for the government to consider a higher carbon price only “after 2035,” a delay in annual carbon tax increases until “at…
