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SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS UN Environment, Nordea and Carlsberg JORGE LAGUNA-CELIS Director of Governance Affairs UN Environment SASJA BESLIK Head of Sustainable Finance Nordea SIMON HOFFMEYER BOAS Global Sustainability Director Carlsberg

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Page 1: SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTSmauvestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/... · Global Sustainability Director Carlsberg . Transform your business and ... Chairman UK & Ireland The 17th Responsible

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

UN Environment, Nordea and Carlsberg

JORGE LAGUNA-CELIS

Director of Governance AffairsUN Environment

SASJA BESLIK

Head of Sustainable FinanceNordea

SIMON HOFFMEYER BOAS

Global Sustainability DirectorCarlsberg

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Jorge Laguna-CelisDirector, Governance Affairs Office

Thérèse Coffey MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Environment

Calvin St Juste Executive Director

Geoff Skingsley Chairman UK & Ireland

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In the pantheon of UN agencies, UN Environment is a tiddler, with fewer than 800 employees (compared to 6,000 at UNDP), a modest budget ($339m in 2016), and headquarters in Nairobi, the only UN agency that is based in the Global South.

But the small agency is big on ambition, and under the leadership of

ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

Ethical Corporation speaks to Jorge Laguna-Celis about why the Nairobi-based UN agency sees companies as central to its mission in the wake of the Sustainable Development Goals.

JORGE LAGUNA-CELISDirector of Governance AffairsUN Environment

3

WHY THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS IN THE

CROSS-HAIRS FOR UN ENVIRONMENT

Erik Solheim, the former Norwegian environment minister who replaced Achim Steiner as executive director in July 2016, UNEP has embarked on a campaign to dramatically increase its impact by drawing private sector know-how and funding into its work.

In an interview with Ethical Corporation, Jorge Laguna-Celis,

who is director of governance affairs at the UN agency, said the UNEP has worked with companies since the 1990s on issues such as the Montreal protocol on protecting the ozone layer and in the 25-year-old UNEP finance initiative, which has drawn the banking sector into the global climate negotiations and launched initiatives

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ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

4

such as the Principles for Sustainable Insurance, and the implementation of the G20 Task Force on Climate Related Risk with 14 leading banks.

Georg Kell, founding director of the UN Global Compact, says the UNEP FI has had “enormous positive impact on a truly global scale” and proven that UN entities can be “institutional innovators and pace-setters”.

But the UNEP’s involvement has deepened and broadened beyond the finance sector since the Sustainable Development Goals were signed in New York in September 2015, and under Solheim’s leadership, Laguna-Celis said.

Working with business is now part of UNEP’s “modus-operandi” he says. “The vision of our executive director Erik Solheim is very simple. In every division, every staff member, in every project he or she is working on, has to devote resources to engaging with the private sector.”

Engagement with the private sector is front and centre in a major initiative launched last year, the Clean Seas campaign, a challenge to governments, civil society and the private sector to join in a concerted attack on marine plastic waste. It explicitly calls on the latter to

◗ commit to reduce plastics use in production, product design and packing

◗ improve, measure and report actions to reduce marine plastic litter and microplastics and

◗ work with partners to raise the profile of this issue with their audiences

Coca-Cola is among the companies with which the UNEP is working closely. The world’s biggest beverage company, which uses 120bn bottles a year, announced in January new targets to collect and recycle all its packaging by 2030 and to lift its use of recycled content in its packaging from 10% to 50% by that date.

Similar commitments have been made by Unilever, Mars, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Marks and Spencer.

Such has been the groundswell of support that it is difficult to see UNEP’s fingerprints. Certainly, there is no UNEP logo or slogan in evidence. But Laguna-Celis says this is intentional.

“One of the things we’ve learned from the new strategy is that when we engage the private sector, UN Environment has to be an egoless leader. It is something we stress in all our meetings with the private sector.”

He said this is because companies want take credit for their action rather than be seen as following the lead of multilateral organisations or regulators.

“With the Clean Seas campaign, you don’t see the big logo of the UN Environment programme there. You see a slogan, an idea on which anyone can come on board whether it’s a UN organisation, a private sector company or a government.”

He adds: “We have provided the infrastructure for this campaign, the resources and the intellectual backing but we then hand it over and ensure that it is owned. …. We don’t want to be seen leading aggressively.”

Governments are also critical actors in the war on plastic. More than 40 governments have heeded the call to legislate against single-use plastic bag use and microplastics, including France, China, and Italy, Rwanda, Eritrea, and Kenya.

African governments were earliest to take action, with punitive plastic bag bans in place for over a decade in Rwanda and Eritrea, and Kenya finally passing legislation last year after several attempts. Is it any coincidence that the UNEP is headquartered in Nairobi?

“The fact that we are located in Africa, and that many of our activities are in the Global South is because environment and development are inextricably linked,” says Laguna-Celis. “We have a special responsibility in Kenya, not only because it’s our headquarters, but because of the leadership taken by President [Uhuru] Kenyatta in his last term to ban plastic bags.”

He said the UNEP has helped garner international support for the move, though there has been criticism from some NGOs that cracking down of plastic packaging disproportionately harms the poor.

One of the biggest sources of ocean plastic is small sachets of difficult to recycle plastic and aluminium. Consumer goods companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble sell hundreds of billions of sachets in developing countries each year, because they allow poorer people to buy small quantities of otherwise unaffordable products. Last year Unilever announced that it had developed a technology called CreaSolv to cost-effectively recover and recycle the plastic in the sachets.

Laguna-Celis accepts that the war on plastic could have some unintended consequences. “But on the other side, Kenyans are very inventive people. They have an incredible capacity to develop new types of carrying containers … Nothing is wasted. Sometimes a plastic bottle has

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

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BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE, KENYANS ARE VERY INVENTIVE PEOPLE. THEY HAVE AN INCREDIBLE CAPACITY TO DEVELOP NEW TYPES OF CARRYING CONTAINERS … NOTHING IS WASTED.

many, many lives, with people refilling or repurposing it.”

Another area where UNEP has looked to the private sector is in funding for the protection of biodiversity and forests.

In September 2016 UNEP partnered with BNP Paribas, ADM Capital, The World Agroforestry Centre and the Indonesian government to launch the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility to invest in projects to improve smallholder productivity and reduce deforestation in Indonesia.

This was followed by a $1bn deal last year with Rabobank of the Netherlands to fund land restoration and forest protection initiatives as part of the bank’s sustainable food campaign. And at December’s One Planet conference in Paris it announced another milestone agreement with BNP Paribas to collaborate on raising $10bn in funding for renewable energy access, agroforestry, water access and responsible agriculture through sustainable finance facilities.

Laguna says the UNEP’s role in these partnerships is to act as a facilitator and catalyst. “We can provide politicians the alternatives that have worked elsewhere, the lessons learned from our experience and our scientific knowledge and ensure we have an engaged government; with investors we can lower the risk of their transactions by ensuring there are guarantees by other international institutions or specific governments so we can unlock the potential of private finance to support an economically sustainable objective.”

Going forward, Laguna says, UNEP wants to scale up its work on biodiversity, which he says has not

received the same amount of attention as climate change.

“We are working very closely with partners in the convention on biodiversity to ensure that the private sector is aware of the business opportunities in a large global partnership for protecting biodiversity.”

The organisation has taken a lead on tackling the illegal trade in wildlife, working with partners such as Beijing Airports, Kenya Airways and Emirates through the Wild for Life partnership.

It is also working with the government of Botswana and the World Bank to place a financial value on biodiversity and wildlife in natural capital accounting, particularly in the value it brings to tourism.

One key priority is pollution, marine environment of great concern. “We are extremely alarmed that science tells us the amount of plastic waste in the oceans, and a stop has to be made.”

“One of the lessons we’ve learned is that when UN Environment engages

with the private sector we have to be an egoless leader. Private sector wants to be associated and show that they are doing this for their value, their shareholders and their long-term strategic objectives, but they don’t want to be seen following regulators or multilateral organisations.

To solve issue of plastics 3 actors: political leadership at the highest political level in places like Rawanda, “It’s almost a decision a president takes”

Laguna, who will be speaking at Ethical Corporation’s Responsible Business Europe Summit in June, says the message he wants to bring to sustainability leaders is that that they should “sit at the table as equal partners with decision makers and with us. We have seen the power that comes from partnering with companies that have a drive and willingness to change and lead their sectors towards more sustainable business models. We want to work with them and help them achieve their goals.” ■

ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

5

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

JORGE LAGUNA-CELIS WILL BE SPEAKING AT THE 17TH RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS EUROPE SUMMIT

LONDON

june

13-142018 ACCESS THE FULL AGENDA AND SPEAKER ROASTER HERE

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ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

Sasja Beslik, head of sustainable finance for the Swedish bank, explains why his team decided to put a hold on investment in the social media platform in the wake of this week’s Cambridge Analytica revelations.

Facebook has a market cap of close to 500 billion dollars. 2.2 billion users, or 29% of the global population, are using the network on a monthly basis.

This indicates that the company has established a solid, profitable and strong business model.

But can it persist in the long-term and is the business model sustainable?

The amount of personal data available for monetisation by Facebook is massive. The social media platform is bigger and more widely used than WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram combined. Every second, there are five new profiles registered at Facebook, and each day close to five billion pieces of content are shared.

Facebook’s revenues grew to $40bn in 2017, largely thanks to the 1.8trn data pieces it shares annually

SASJA BESLIKHead of Sustainable Finance

Nordea

WHY NORDEA’S RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT FUNDS HAVE

DROPPED FACEBOOK

REVENUE GROWTH

$40bn2017

$153m2007

29% OF GLOBAL

POPULATION

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SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

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Facebook’s revenues have grown from $153m in 2007 to $40bn in 2017 – an increase of over 26,000% – and the majority of the revenue is thanks to these 1.8 trillion data pieces shared on annual basis. Simultaneous to this exponential growth, the company has revised its data privacy policy more frequently than its peers since inception in 2004, to further weaken consumer protection and monetise data.

For example, in its current data privacy policy there is nothing stated in regard to protecting sensitive data, requirements of consent by third parties for handling data, enhancing privacy in general or minimising data collection and retention. The business model is at great threat unless the company lives up to adequate privacy commitments.

Users have long been concerned with how their data is being used for advertising purposes and Facebook belongs to the bottom quartile when it comes to privacy and data security among its peers. As such, Facebook has significant exposure to reputational, litigation and regulatory risks. The number of controversies relating to data privacy are stocking up and occurring more frequently than ever before.

Over two days, Facebook recently lost nearly 50 billion dollars in market cap on the news that Cambridge Analytica accessed data from 50 million users without consent.

The message clearly suggests that the business model of Facebook is unsustainable.

Furthermore, Facebook has been under investigation by regulators in Belgium, Germany, Spain, UK, Netherlands and France. Regulators in Austria, Thailand, Indonesia, and the European Union has sent warnings

due to weak internal policies. Fines have been imposed to the company by a number of regulators as well.

The message clearly suggests that the business model of Facebook is unsustainable.

Nordea’s Responsible Investment team initiated thematic research on the topic in 2017 meeting with a number of think-tanks and investors in North America.

On the background of this, in combination with coming regulation on data privacy such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU posing significant challenges on Facebook, Nordea has put a temporary hold on investments in the stock for our sustainable funds on 21 March 2018.The ban is valid for three months and will be reviewed at the end of the period. In the meantime, we will be monitoring the situation and evaluate how Facebook deals with regulators and conforms to stakeholder expectations such as ourselves. ■

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ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE, KENYANS ARE VERY INVENTIVE PEOPLE. THEY HAVE AN INCREDIBLE CAPACITY TO DEVELOP NEW TYPES OF CARRYING CONTAINERS … NOTHING IS WASTED.

“Can Facebook persist?”: Sasja Beslik,

Nordea’s head of sustainable finance

OSK

AR L

IND

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

SASJA BESLIK WILL BE SPEAKING AT THE 17TH RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS EUROPE SUMMIT

LONDON

june

13-142018 ACCESS THE FULL AGENDA AND SPEAKER ROASTER HERE

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ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

SIMON HOFFMEYER BOASGlobal Sustainability DirectorCarlsberg

8

CARLSBERG’S

MISSIONZERO-CARBON

other companies, governments and NGOs as key to success in meeting Carlsberg’s four stretching targets to cut its carbon footprint, water waste, irresponsible drinking and workplace accidents all to zero by 2030.

Not only is Carlsberg one of over 300 companies to have signed up to Science-Based Targets, the methodology developed by CDP, WRI, WWF and the UN Global Compact to help companies align their emissions reduction plans with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global warming below 2C.

We want to be part of starting a virtuous circle of making a race to the top instead of race to the bottom when it comes to carbon emissions

Carlsberg, along with Tesco and BT, decided to go one step further and align their climate action with keeping

global temperature rises to 1.5C. (See 10 steps firms can take towards a 1.5 degree world)

The urgent need for such leadership from business was made clear by UN Environment ahead of the COP23 climate talks in November, when it highlighted that the commitments to cut greenhouse gases made by countries in Paris, even if fully met, would go only a third of the way towards the emissions cuts required by 2020 to keep global temperature rises to well below 2C.

Boas pointed out that if Carlsberg had targeted being compliant with a 2C rise in global temperatures, it could have meant a 36% cut in the breweries’ emissions by 2030. The group’s management, under new CEO Cees ‘t Hart, believed the company could – and should – do more. “Our

The Danish brewer’s sustainability chief Simon Hoffmeyer Boas tells Terry Slavin why collaboration is key to achieving its new strategy of achieving zero CO2 emissions, water waste and accidents by 2030.

The need to collaborate may be a well-rehearsed mantra by companies when they announce ambitious new sustainability strategies, but for Carlsberg the title says it all: together towards zero.

Simon Hoffmeyer Boas, the Danish beer company’s director of sustainability, sees working with

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

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ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

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management had seen our projections on risks and opportunities by 2030, such as from carbon pricing and more erratic weather, and interruptions of supply, and thought a 36% reduction was not enough. They challenged us to make a roadmap to zero emissions from our breweries and outline what investment would be needed,” Boas said.

“Even though it will be highly difficult to achieve it, they said that’s the one to go for. We don’t know certain things, like how fast technology will evolve until 2030 to help us improve the carbon footprint. But by taking a chance and showing leadership, we will be part of starting a virtuous circle of making a race to the top instead of race to the bottom when it comes to carbon emissions.”

Now that we have taken that decision, he said, “it is more likely that suppliers and solutions will pop up to help us do it.”

That was the experience of US carpet company Interface after it adopted its Net Positive sustainability strategy without knowing how it would achieve it. (See Proof positive that people and planet equals profit)

But companies can’t simply set a goal without a game plan. So what is Carlsberg’s strategy for get its carbon footprint to zero by 2030? Job number one, Boas said, is a “relentless focus on energy efficiency across our breweries, replicating good practice from one to the other”.

Like the other companies that are aiming for 1.5C, Carlsberg is being advised by the UK’s Carbon Trust, which recommended that the immediate cost savings can be reinvested in solutions, such as renewable energy, that have a longer payback.

The RE100 is an amazing initiative

that shows the power of companies coming together and making clear, concise commitments to change the world we are living in

Carlsberg, whose 500 brands include Tuborg and Kronenbourg, is exiting coal power and targeting 2022 for all its operations to be powered with 100% renewable energy. In November it announced the first brewery to make the switch: its brewery in Falkenberg, Sweden is now fuelled 100% on biogas and green electricity after energy supplier Ørsted (formerly Dong), replaced natural gas with biogas.

Boas said the 86 breweries will use all available solutions, from onsite installations, power purchase agreements to buying renewable energy certificates with guarantees of origin. It already has the world’s fourth-biggest brewery solar installation in China, with 8,000 solar panels generating 21% of the site’s electricity.

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Carlsberg signed up to RE100 platform, which is organised by the Climate Group, on 13 June, the same day – he describes it as “the proudest day in my career” – as the Danish drinks company unveiled its new strategy. This was no coincidence; Boas sees membership of the RE100 as important to Carlsberg’s carbon-cutting success.

He points out that the total amount of commitments pledged by RE100 companies is equivalent to the carbon footprint of Poland or the state of New York.

“The RE100 is an amazing initiative that shows the power of companies coming together and making clear, concise commitments to change the world we are living in.”

Besides setting targets, the initiative involves knowledge-sharing, and could potentially serve as a platform for companies to jointly source renewable energy. “We haven’t done it yet as we joined in July, but it’s realistic that we will reach out to other RE100 companies to jointly create renewable energy. If you have a joint goal that goes outside the industry and competition, it is much easier to cooperate.”

Such collaboration will be crucial if Carlsberg is to meet its even more ambitious goal of reducing CO2 emissions through its entire supply chain, what it calls its “beer in hand” footprint, by 30% by 2030, against a

BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE, KENYANS ARE VERY INVENTIVE PEOPLE. THEY HAVE AN INCREDIBLE CAPACITY TO DEVELOP NEW TYPES OF CARRYING CONTAINERS … NOTHING IS WASTED.

SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

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testing 2015 baseline.Boas explains that the 30%

reduction in its total emissions was not a result of its 1.5C science-based target. The methodology is exacting about scope one and two (direct) emissions but stipulates only that companies with more than 40% of their emissions falling outside these should set targets for reducing shared emissions, without setting out what these should be.

The Carlsberg Circular Community has spurred innovations such as the world’s first bio-based beer bottle

With packaging accounting for 40% of Carlsberg’s total carbon footprint, compared to 14% from its 86 breweries, a big focus is on reducing the environmental impact of aluminium, glass and cardboard, Boas says.

The commercial case for this is strengthened by reputational risk, and it is an area Carlsberg has been involved in for some time. In 2014 it set up the Carlsberg Circular Community, where it partners with different innovators to rethink the design and production of packaging materials. The aim is to eliminate waste and optimise materials for high-quality reuse and recycling, known as “upcycling”.

Innovations include the green fibre bottle, which will be the world’s first bio-based beer bottle, made from sustainably sourced wood-fibre that is 100% biodegradable, the result of a cooperation between Carlsberg, Danish startup EcoXpac, Innovation

Fund Denmark, Swedish forestry company Billerudkorsnäs and the Technical University of Denmark.

In the UK, Carlsberg worked with consumer packaging company Rexam (now Ball Corporation) to develop the first aluminium beverage can to get cradle-to-cradle bronze certification.

In November, Georgia-based WestRock Co also earned bronze cradle-to-cradle certification for the Kronenbourg 1664 six-pack carton, made with 15% recycled content.

“We’ve worked on partnerships in the Carlsberg Circular Economy for three or four years now,” says Boas. “That partnership angle is what we

Kronenbourg

will continue using in the Together Towards Zero programme, because we’ve seen it be so effective. The fact that the suppliers know about the material is much more valuable than just us telling them what to do.”

In Denmark Carlsberg helped advise the government on setting up the national deposit return scheme and recycling legislation

But packaging design is arguably the easy bit. The bigger challenge is collection at the end of life, preventing branded products from ending up in the wrong places, which is where the reputational risk comes in.

In its home market Carlsberg collaborated with competitors, the drinks trade and the Danish government on setting up the national deposit return scheme, similar to the one now planned for Scotland, and in helping draft legislation to enable more recycling.

But the going has been trickier in its 11 Asian markets, where recycling infrastructure is weak. There the company has focused on retrieving its bottles for refilling through incentivising suppliers to collect and return bottles by paying a small price for them. “The biggest challenge is to make the system cost-effective. That involves a lot of hard work.”

In 2016 5.6 billion bottles were refills of returned bottles, though this was lower than in 2015 as Carlsberg divested 10 breweries in China that sold primarily refilled bottles. It also reduced the proportion of refillables in the packaging mix in eastern Europe, according to its 2016 sustainability report. In total around 40% of all that Carlsberg puts out it the market globally are in refillable packaging.

Water is the other big focus area of Together Toward Zero, and with water intrinsically a shared resource, “together” is even more crucial than in energy and recycling. Boas points out that it takes 3.2 hectolitres of water to make 1hl of Carlsberg beer. “Water is absolutely key for us,” says Boas. “No water, no beer. That’s why we set a 50% target on water by 2030, 25% by 2022.”

The targets were set after Carlsberg partnered with WWF to carry out a water risk assessment of all its breweries, looking at physical risks such as scarcity, flooding and droughts and for environmental issues such

BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE, KENYANS ARE VERY INVENTIVE PEOPLE. THEY HAVE AN INCREDIBLE CAPACITY TO DEVELOP NEW TYPES OF CARRYING CONTAINERS … NOTHING IS WASTED.

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ETHICAL CORPORATIONMAY 2018

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as water quality. It has prioritised15 high-risk sites in India, Nepal, China and Vietnam.

Carlsberg is actively seeking partnerships in local markets, be they with NGOs, local governments, or coalitions that include competitor companies to help it meet its targets.

Multi-stakeholder approaches to water stewardship have worked well in Africa, where Heineken and SAB Miller are among 33 companies that have signed up to the International Water Stewardship Programme, though Carlsberg is not present in Africa.

“Other companies have done similar actions,” Boas says, “But we are focusing on Asia, where we are. … We need skilled partnerships who will be able to bring these [commitments] to life.”

To borrow the slogan of arch-competitor Heineken, the green fibre bio-bottles could give Carlsberg an edge on reaching the parts other beers cannot touch

Asked whether he thinks going zero carbon will open up new markets, Boas is definitive. “Yes. 100%.”

He points to the green fibre bottle, which Carlsberg went public with three years ago at the 2015 World Economic Forum in order to flush out potential collaborators. A pilot is planned this year.

“When we did the initial concept testing it showed that the younger generation and women had a bigger purchase intent from buying beer in a green fibre bottle.”

The latter, in particular, is a vast, largely untapped market, with only 23% of women ranking beer higher than wine or liquor, according to a 2016 Gallup pool. To borrow the slogan of arch-competitor Heineken, the bio-bottles could give Carlsberg an edge on reaching the parts other beers cannot touch.

“If we can sell a sustainable bio-based bottle and sell more beers, then that’s fantastic,” says Boas. It also helps to win support for the ambitious new green strategy with investors.

Marketing themselves as green to consumers is something that some of the most environmentally conscious companies are reluctant to do, partly for fear of holding themselves up to charges of greenwash if they fail to deliver.

The Carlsberg brand will likely adopt a new slogan “Probably the best beer for the world”, but this will only be used in specific advertising, such

as the launch of the new green fibre bottles, and won’t be a rebranding. Boas says that is not because Carlsberg is at risk of greenwash, since he believes the ambitious targets speaks for themselves, but for fear of not connecting with consumers.

“Consumers today are bombarded with messages,” Boas says. “To me a green message is not relevant to the consumer unless he has something he can interact with, such as a new type of packaging …. It has to be relevant. It has to be concrete, and it has to be in line with what they experience from us.” ■

Carlsberg’s green fibre bottle

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SPEAKER SPOTLIGHTS

SIMON HOFFMEYER WILL BE SPEAKING AT THE 17TH RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS EUROPE SUMMIT

LONDON

june

13-142018 ACCESS THE FULL AGENDA AND SPEAKER ROASTER HERE