Climate change: transitions to sustainability

Course reviews

• 
  Kevin McCarthy 24 February 2026 7:27PM

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  This proved to be an interesting, if highly dated, course that was clearly written at a time of far greater optimism than sadly is the reality today. Green transportation technology has obviously advanced considerably, though balanced by the new wave of powerful climate change deniers, who favour fossil fuel reinvigoration.
  
  Miscellany:
  
  3.3.1 “Figure 8 Sales of Fairtrade banana are rocketing. People are increasingly exercising citizenship via their shopping basket”
  
  The photo is of the Co-Op supermarket, they have supplied 100% Fairtrade since 2012 and ensured that where bananas were an ingredient these also needed to be Fairtrade since 2018. In short, the Co-Op’s sales cannot be stated as ‘rocketing’, thankfully for a good reason.
  
  If written today a comparative analysis between Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance would have provided examples of the classic trade-off?
  • the economic justice of Fairtrade (a fixed minimum price, a fixed premium, democratic cooperatives, long term contracts).
  • the environmental rigour of Rainforest Alliance (environmental management plans, pesticide controls, farm audits, traceability systems)
  
  Fairtrade + Organic being the optimal trade-off, despite M&S’s “Farming with Nature” programme and Waitrose’s “Foundation” projects.
  
  
  4.2.3 Figure 13 references https://www.sustainability-indexes.com/ which ceased to exist after RobecoSAM’s ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and CSA (Corporate Sustainability Assessment) ratings business was acquired by S&P Global (2020/2021).
  
  Unfortunately, I must disagree with the statement that “Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes give comparative evidence about corporate performance, measured according to easily accessible sustainability criteria such as the nature of corporate governance, measurements of environmental performance and the quality of engagement with external stakeholders”, given the underlying composition of the scores.
  
  The most important point to make is that true sustainability analysis still requires going back to every corporation’s own reports, to gain access to those “CSA categories“ that reflect real environmental impact (though still open to varying degree of corporate ‘gaming’, e.g., counting “recyclable” materials that are never actually recycled):
  1) Operational Eco Efficiency (Scope 1 & 2 Emissions, Energy, Water, Waste)
  2) Product Stewardship (Lifecycle Impact, Circularity, Materials)
  3) Climate Strategy (Targets, Pathways, Science Based Alignment)
  4) Supply Chain Environmental Standards (Scope 3, Audits, Materials)
  5) Biodiversity & Land Use (for relevant industries)
  
  Keeping in mind that yearly trends are more important than targets such as “Net zero by 2050”. Supply chain environmental standards are also key. External verification is essential throughout!
  
  Interface Inc. has a CSA Score of (only) 50 and an ESG Score of (only) 51 (out of 100) as of 23/2/2026, an indication that ESG Scoring rewards “Compliance Maturity”, not “Planetary Benefit”. NGOs thus criticise ESG for greenwashing. The CSA mixes real environmental metrics with disclosure driven governance metrics, and the latter often dominate the score. The CSA has hundreds of corporation-reported questions, industry specific weightings, and proprietary scoring logic. This opacity makes it hard for outsiders to challenge.
  
  The S&P scores are legible, standardised, and externally produced — which means fund managers can say:
  “We followed the ESG ratings; therefore, we acted responsibly.”
  
  For those who do consider that the S&P Global information meets their requirements:
  https://www.spglobal.com/sustainable1/en
  https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/landing/investment-themes/sustainability/
  https://www.spglobal.com/sustainable1/en/solutions/sustainability-climate-indices
  https://www.spglobal.com/sustainable1/en/solutions/esg-scores-data
  For example: Interface, Inc.
  https://www.spglobal.com/sustainable1/en/scores/results?cid=4994421
  
  
  4.4.1 Box 4 “FSC-endorsed Chain of Custody (COC) certificates in the world”, currently 50 to 55k (this figure fluctuates monthly).
  
  4.4.1 Figure 18 (a) …the FSC no longer maintains a global map (ceased 2020). Countries with small forest areas but high certification percentages (e.g., Latvia) looked “better” than large forest nations with huge, certified areas but low percentages (e.g., Brazil). FSC decided this was misleading. FSC is shifting toward site level GIS mapping, their new focus is “FSC on the Map” (voluntary GIS boundaries), not country level shading.
  
  To re-create the global map one would now need to use:
  • The FSC certified area per country (which is updated monthly)
  • FAO forest area per country (FRA 2020 or 2025)
  • Any mapping tool (QGIS, Excel PowerMap, Flourish, Datawrapper)
  
  4.4.1 Figure 18 (b) the FSC no longer publishes that graph in its public reports (ceased 2020/2021), though the underlying data is still available. The FSC now updates certified area monthly, and the old graph was based on annual snapshots. They retired it rather than maintain two parallel data series.
  
  7/6 It was not obvious why the section number ordering had been swapped?
  
  References
  
  http://www.interfaceinc.com/getting_there/[ ]Ray.html no longer exists, though the corporations sustainability pages do exist.
  
  Dobson (2000) still citable, though is largely superseded by Dobson's Citizenship and the Environment (2003).
  
  Findhorn Foundation website has seen major updates since the 2002 access.
  
  Hawken (1995) now has a 2010 edition.
  
  Porritt (2005) now has a 2007 "revised" "first" edition?
  
  Interface (2009) Interface now uses a consolidated ESG reporting site; the old metrics page no longer exists.
  
  Rosenau & Durfee (1995) now has a 2000 edition.
  
  Urry (1999) The original 1999 JWSR article is still online, though URLs have changed.

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• 
  Sikander Ali 16 October 2025 3:56AM

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  Good Climate change: transitions to sustainability

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