Category: 3. Business

  • Bank climate commitments and green lending in emerging markets

    The transition to a low-carbon economy will require trillions of dollars in annual investment over the coming decades. Recognising this challenge, Article 2.1 of the Paris Agreement calls for “making finance flows consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development“, with policymakers emphasising that private capital, particularly bank lending, must complement public funding. While 500 financial institutions (representing over $100 trillion in balance sheets) have already developed voluntary transition plans (GFANZ 2025), it remains unclear whether such commitments reflect meaningful changes in bank lending, let alone real decarbonisation. This potential gap between pledges and practice is especially concerning in emerging markets, where the potential for energy efficiency gains is largest and climate vulnerability most acute.

    Existing evidence on voluntary climate commitments is mostly discouraging. European banks with extensive environmental rhetoric often maintain substantial exposure to carbon-intensive industries (Giannetti et al. 2023), and even when climate-committed banks reduce credit to high-carbon companies, borrower environmental performance is unlikely to improve (Kacperczyk and Peydró 2022). More recent studies reinforce this scepticism: banks joining the Net Zero Banking Alliance show no meaningful changes in lending patterns or borrower engagement (Sastry et al. 2024), while tightened Equator Principles have not shifted project finance away from brown projects (Berg et al. 2025). An exception comes from Green and Valleé (2024), who demonstrate that voluntary coal exit policies can reduce carbon emissions.

    Against this somewhat disheartening backdrop, in a recent paper (Bernad et al. 2025) we provide new evidence from emerging markets. More specifically, we examine how banks’ climate commitments relate to their internal practices across 33 low- and middle-income countries in Emerging Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa. Our unique survey data allow us to directly observe internal green lending practices. Our approach addresses some key gaps in existing research, which focuses almost exclusively on high-income countries with strong environmental regulation. In our emerging market context, different institutional constraints, financing patterns, and climate vulnerabilities may yield different outcomes (De Haas 2025).

    We construct our dataset by combining two main sources. First, we track banks’ participation in three climate initiatives: the Principles for Responsible Banking/Investment (PRB/PRI), the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). In our sample, 29% of banks had committed to at least one initiative – with 10% joining one, 13% two, and 6% all three. Second, the Third Banking Environment and Performance Survey (BEPS III), conducted across 33 economies during 2020-2021, provides unique data from structured interviews with 644 CEOs and credit heads at 335 banks about their environmental practices – information unobservable in studies relying on public disclosures. We use these responses to construct a Green Management Index (GMI) and Green Lending Index (GLI), analogous to indices developed by De Haas et al. (2025) for firms, while also incorporating geospatial data on bank branch locations.

    Green banks in poor countries: Stylised facts

    Figure 1 reveals that climate-committed banks score substantially higher on both indices than non-signatories. Foreign banks also outperform domestic ones on green management, as do large banks compared to smaller ones. Banks emphasising development and innovation show greener lending than those prioritising efficiency and profitability, while relationship-oriented banks outperform transaction-focused institutions – suggesting that long-term relationships facilitate environmental screening. These basic patterns already indicate that public climate pledges align with some genuine differences in banks’ internal managerial practices and may be more than just greenwashing.

    Figure 1 Distribution of Green Management Index and Green Lending Index, by bank type

    Notes: Figure 1 presents kernel density distributions to examine how banks’ GMI and GLI vary across five organisational dimensions: climate signatory status, ownership, size, corporate culture, and lending technology. Both indices are normalised to zero, with GMI ranging from -1 to 3 and GLI from -1.7 to 3.3.

    Main findings

    Our further analysis reveals three key findings. First, banks signing international climate initiatives score 0.83 standard deviations higher on green management and 0.47 standard deviations higher on green lending practices than non-signatories. These differences persist after controlling for ownership, size, culture, and lending technology. Climate-committed banks are more likely to employ dedicated environmental managers, maintain climate risk frameworks, and screen loans for environmental impact, suggesting genuine organisational differences rather than pure greenwashing.

    Second, firms borrowing from climate-committed banks are 5.4% more likely to make green investments (over a three-year horizon). While we do not establish causality, this pattern – whether reflecting selection, influence, or both – demonstrates that banks’ environmental commitments tend to reflect some meaningful differences in client composition and behaviour.

    Third, using geocoded locations of 46,843 potential firm-bank pairs within a 5km radius, we document local assortative matching: green firms preferentially borrow from nearby climate-committed banks, particularly when firms make actual green investments (for example, investments in renewable energy generation on site, waste management, air pollution control, among others) rather than just maintaining green management structures. These geographic patterns reinforce evidence against greenwashing: purely cosmetic commitments would not produce systematic spatial differences in lending relationships. Our local-level findings extend Degryse et al.’s (2023) documentation of green-meets-green matching in global syndicated loans, to SMEs in emerging markets.

    Conclusions

    Combining unique survey data on banks’ internal practices with firm-level information and geocoded locations, we document three findings suggesting banks’ voluntary climate commitments may represent more than just greenwashing. First, climate-committed banks score 0.83 and 0.47 standard deviations higher on green management and lending practices respectively, employing environmental managers, maintaining climate risk frameworks, and screening loans environmentally. Second, their borrowers are 5.4% more likely to make green investments. Third, geographic analysis reveals environmentally oriented firms preferentially match with nearby climate-committed banks. These results contrast with the predominantly null findings in prior work. We attribute this difference to two factors. First, emerging markets provide greater scope for differentiation: baseline environmental standards are lower. Second, our unique survey data capture actual managerial practices – environmental managers, risk frameworks, loan screening procedures – that remain unobserved in studies relying solely on public disclosures or lending outcomes.

    References

    Berg, T, R Döttling, X Hut, and W Wagner (2025), “Do Voluntary Initiatives Make Loans Greener? Evidence from Project Finance”, Working Paper.

    Bernad, M, R De Haas, and J P Rud (2025), “Walking the Talk? Bank Climate Commitments and Green Lending in Emerging Markets”, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20640.

    De Haas, R (2025), “Sustainable Banking”, in A N Berger, P Molyneux, and J O Wilson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Banking (4th edition), Oxford University Press.

    De Haas, R, R Martin, M Muuls, and H Schweiger (2025), “Managerial and Financial Barriers to the Green Transition”, Management Science 71(4): 2890–2921.

    Degryse, H, R Goncharenko, C Theunisz, and T Vadasz (2023), “When Green Meets Green”, Journal of Corporate Finance 78, 102355.

    GFANZ – Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (2025), “2025: New Year Update from GFANZ Secretariat”.

    Giannetti, M, M Jasova, M Loumioti, and C Mendicino (2023), “Glossy Green” Banks: The Disconnect Between Environmental Disclosures and Lending Activities”, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 18268.

    Green, D and B Vallée (2025), “Measurement and Effects of Bank Exit Policies”, Journal of Financial Economics 172, 104129.

    Kacperczyk, M T and J-L Peydró (2022), “Carbon Emissions and the Bank-Lending Channel”, SSRN Electronic Journal.

    Sastry, P, E Verner, and D Marques-Ibanez (2024), “Business as Usual: Bank Net Zero Commitments, Lending, and Engagement”, VoxEU.org, 22 May.

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  • Stablecoins could see $1 trillion in inflows from emerging markets: Standard Chartered

    Stablecoins could see $1 trillion in inflows from emerging markets: Standard Chartered

    Standard Chartered predicts that stablecoin users in emerging markets could shift up to $1 trillion from traditional banks into US Dollar-pegged tokens by 2028.

    Standard Chartered says emerging markets could shift $1 trillion from banks into stablecoins

    In a report on Monday, Standard Chartered predicted that over $1 trillion could be transferred from emerging market banks to stablecoins by 2028, following an accelerated demand for US dollar–pegged tokens.

    The bank stated that adoption in these regions is being driven by a large unbanked population, who are increasingly using stablecoins as substitutes for US Dollar accounts. The report highlights that this trend could be accelerated by the enactment of the US GENIUS Act, which has a zero-yield rule for compliant issuers.

    “While the recently passed US GENIUS Act aims to mitigate deposit flight by prohibiting US-compliant stablecoin issuers from paying direct yields, stablecoins are still likely to be adopted even in the absence of yield,” Standard Chartered wrote.

    Standard Chartered also forecasts that stablecoin savings in emerging markets could grow from about $173 billion to roughly $1.22 trillion by 2028, implying over $1 trillion in potential deposit outflows from traditional banks. The growth is expected to come from wider retail adoption, shifting stablecoin savings from concentrated large holders to a broader base of smaller accounts.

    “At scale, small holdings will be significant; this growth is likely to occur mostly in EM [Emerging Markets], where demand for a liquid, 24/7, trustworthy alternative to local banks is greater,” the report added.

    The report highlights Egypt, Pakistan, Colombia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka among the countries most vulnerable to potential bank deposit outflows. It also points to India, China, Brazil and South Africa as markets where rising demand for stablecoins could accelerate a shift from traditional banking systems to digital assets.

    Standard Chartered previously forecasted the stablecoin market to reach $2 trillion by 2028, as crypto adoption rises globally. 

    Meanwhile, nine European banks, including ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank and Danske Bank, are planning to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin aimed at providing a European alternative to US dollar-backed tokens.

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  • OpenAI lifts another AI laggard with big plans for AMD

    OpenAI lifts another AI laggard with big plans for AMD

    OpenAI bestowed its blessings and backing on another tech company Monday, inking a deal with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, instantly making it one of the hot companies investors hope will be at the forefront of the artificial intelligence boom.

    The shares of AMD soared more than 30% after the company behind ChatGPT said it plans to take up to a 10% stake in the chipmaker. This marks the latest example of Sam Altman’s multibillion-dollar deal-making frenzy that’s reshaping the American chip industry, where the upstart OpenAI seems to have the power to pick new winners, revive laggards and move public markets through its partnerships.

    According to the multiyear deal, OpenAI will purchase AMD’s AI chips that will go into data center facilities that, in total, can draw six gigawatts of electrical power to run the chips. The first one-gigawatt deployment will begin with AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs in the second half of 2026.

    “This partnership is a major step in building the compute capacity needed to realize AI’s full potential,” Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, said in a news release. “AMD’s leadership in high-performance chips will enable us to accelerate progress and bring the benefits of advanced AI to everyone faster.”

    OpenAI received a warrant to purchase up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock, which is about 10% of the chipmaker. The stock acquisition won’t happen all at once and is designed as a multiyear commitment, in which OpenAI can buy shares of AMD at a low price of $0.01.

    The stocks vest only on achieving specific milestones tied to AMD reaching certain share-price targets, and if OpenAI continues to buy and deploy AMD chips at a massive scale. The first stock tranche vests with the initial one-gigawatt deployment, with additional tranches vesting as purchases scale up to six gigawatts, the news release said.

    The deal is expected to bring in tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD.

    “This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win, enabling the world’s most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem,” said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and chief executive of AMD, in a news release.

    Globally, companies are expected to spend $375 billion on artificial intelligence infrastructure in 2025.

    The race to build artificial general intelligence — a hypothetical AI system capable of performing all cognitive tasks performed by humans — has kicked off the need to build large-scale AI data centers that house specialized chips called graphics processing units.

    Nvidia is the leading provider of such graphics chips and commands 70% of AI chip sales. However, as demand for various types of AI workloads increases, both startups and legacy rivals have sought to offer more affordable alternatives to Nvidia’s chips.

    Altman has repeatedly talked about chip shortage and has sought to diversify OpenAI’s chip supply, signing a $10-billion deal with Broadcom earlier last month to design custom AI chips.

    OpenAI is currently valued at $500 billion, with 700 million weakly active users.

    Altman has been seeking to invest billions of dollars in computing resources to support OpenAI’s efforts to win the AI race. In January, alongside Japanese investor Softbank and database provider Oracle, OpenAI committed $100 billion to build AI infrastructure in the United States. As part of the “Stargate project,” the companies plan to invest $500 billion over the next four years.

    OpenAI signed a deal in May to build out a one-gigawatt data center complex in the United Arab Emirates, a deal that was brokered by the Trump administration. Oracle, Nvidia, Softbank, Cisco and G42, a royals-backed Emirati AI company, are set to back the project.

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  • Food firms scramble to meet the high-protein craze

    Food firms scramble to meet the high-protein craze

    Christine RoTechnology Reporter

    Christine Ro A supermarket shelf with high-protein products, including drinks and yoghurts.Christine Ro

    Several months ago Andie started playing around with a fitness app. It recommended that she substantially increase her protein intake.

    The hard part for her was doing so without also increasing calories.

    “So I started trying to find high-protein alternatives to things I was already consuming,” she explains.

    This included yogurt, milk, coffee, cereal and pasta.

    “I realized that everything tasted pretty much the same to me, and I started then actively seeking these products.”

    So she was excited when a Canadian restaurant chain introduced high-protein lattes earlier this year. Andie, who did not want to give her surname, drinks them without sweetener, and describes it as a “decent” product.

    Is it a more expensive diet?

    Living in Vancouver, Andie says prices are already quite high. “High protein is usually a couple of dollars extra, so it’s not a big difference.”

    Like Andie, you may have noticed on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus a high-protein craze sweeping the food sector.

    Surveys show consumers increasingly care about the protein content of their food.

    In the US between March 2024 and March 2025, there was 4.8% volume growth in sales of products labelling themselves as protein-rich, compared to the previous year, according to research group NielsenIQ.

    Milk has been one beneficiary of the protein craze.

    Last year saw the first increase in milk consumption since 2009, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture.

    That’s partly being attributed to the enthusiasm for protein.

    The so-called back-to-cow movement includes products like bovine colostrum, the protein-rich milk cows produce soon after giving birth.

    The protein trend has been especially driven by the expanded availability of protein from whey, typically a by-product of cheese production. Whey protein is a billion-dollar sector that continues to grow.

    Getty Images A woman reaches into a supermarket fridge to select a carton of milk. Getty Images

    Milk sales have bounced back in the US after years of decline

    While dairy is doing well, plant-based alternatives to dairy products are going through some lean times.

    The sales volume of milk alternatives has started to decline, mainly driven by lower consumption in the Americas. Almond milk especially is losing market share.

    Slowing sales are reflected in slowing chatter online. While US searches for “oat milk” outnumbered Google searches for “whole milk” in 2020, in 2025, that has reversed. People are searching more for various types of cow milk now than ever before.

    One reason is the perceived naturalness of foods from cows, including collagen and beef tallow.

    According to NielsenIQ, milk’s global market value is almost eight times larger than that of milk alternatives ($69.3bn; £50.8bn, compared with $8.4bn; £6.2bn).

    Milk’s market value is also growing much faster.

    Plant-based manufacturers are responding to the demand for high-protein drinks by mentioning protein more on their packaging, and reformulating their products to include more protein.

    Serena Bolton Smiling into the camera and wearing a green top, Federica Amati stands next to a book shelf.Serena Bolton

    Federica Amati says the popularity of high-protein foods is down to marketing

    Nutritionists are often frustrated by the fervour over protein. They point out again and again that most residents of rich countries already consume more protein than they need.

    The exceptions may be for certain groups, including the severely malnourished, the elderly, women going through menopause, and people with chronic inflammatory conditions.

    Federica Amati is a research fellow at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. She is also the head nutritionist for the nutrition company Zoe.

    Dr Amati worries that “people are being hoodwinked into thinking ‘high protein’ on a label necessarily means that it is healthy. Honestly, it’s another health halo.”

    While excess consumption of protein is not likely to harm most people’s health, “consuming more protein than your body can use during midlife is linked to an increased risk of multiple diseases, including cancer,” Dr Amati warns.

    “An important point on this, though, is that plant-based sources of protein don’t seem to increase cancer risk.”

    And because most people don’t have unlimited money to spend on food, high-protein products could be an unhelpful distraction.

    “The price of fresh whole foods is going up so shoppers are best off buying more whole foods, and the standard already high-whey natural Greek yogurt without the markup,” Dr Amati comments. “And remember, most of us can get plenty of the protein we need if we’re eating enough whole foods.”

    If anything should be seen as a hero nutrient, according to many nutritionists, it should be fibre rather than protein.

    Dr Amati believes: “The popularity of high-protein products in general is entirely due to marketing. Manufacturers can easily [and cheaply] add extra protein to their products and whack the price up.”

    Verley Stéphane Mac Millan wearing a white lab coat and smiling into the camera.Verley

    Stéphane Mac Millan wants the dairy industry to “move into the 21st century”

    Businesses are responding to that demand.

    At French start-up Verley a gleaming row of stainless steel tanks, called fermentors, hold special microorganisms being fed on sugars.

    Eventually they’ll produce beta-lactoglobulin, a protein found in whey.

    The team at Verley, a French startup, will then purify the protein, including extracting the lactose.

    The end result is a high-protein powder that is essentially dairy, but which Verley says is suitable for vegans as no cows are involved.

    The process is both traditional and cutting-edge, believes Stéphane Mac Millan, Verley’s CEO.

    On the one hand, fermentation has a long history in French food culture, including in cheesemaking.

    On the other hand, Verley wants to modernise dairy by honing the nutritional benefits while reducing the environmental impacts. Dairy production requires large amounts of water and land, while generating large amounts of greenhouse gases.

    “A goal really is to help the dairy industry move into the 21st century,” Mr Mac Millan says.

    Mr Mac Millan is betting that nutrition-conscious consumers will care increasingly not only about getting enough whey protein, but about getting specific forms of it.

    He says that some US consumers are now seeking out beta-lactoglobulin, which is high in the amino acid leucine, rather than non-specific whey protein.

    The increasing number of people using weight-loss injections could also help drive the company’s growth, Mr Mac Millan believes. People concerned about rapidly losing muscle might reach for high-protein products.

    He acknowledges that Verley’s protein will be more expensive than whey protein initially. “But considering that we are bringing more to the table and we are sustainable, it’s normal that there is a premium.”

    The company is also hoping to bring costs down with greater scale. It is currently seeking regulatory approval in various countries.

    Overall, when it comes to nutrition, the general public is more likely to listen to friends, families and influencers than to experts like him, acknowledges Jack Bobo, executive director of the Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

    This is partly related to the aspirational nature of much fitness content on social media, particularly targeting young men. Most viewers and listeners are not elite athletes, but many are seeking to eat and drink as if they were.

    One difficulty is that consumers are somewhat fickle. Soymilk is among the cheapest and highest-protein alternative milks, yet it has lost ground to the newcomers even as the protein craze has intensified.

    And social media moves faster than the people making or regulating food.

    For the time being, it seems to be smart business to focus on protein – whether it’s truly beneficial or not.

    More Technology of Business

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  • Brookfield raises $20bn in second energy transition investment fund

    Brookfield raises $20bn in second energy transition investment fund

    Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

    Brookfield Asset Management has raised $20bn for one of the largest private funds dedicated to investing in energy transition assets, benefiting from interest from investors in powering the artificial intelligence boom.

    The Canadian group said the fund was closed after commitments from existing and new investors, including $2bn from Alterra, launched by the United Arab Emirates two years ago, and $1.5bn from Norges Bank Investment Management.

    Brookfield’s holding company, Brookfield Corporation, would contribute about a quarter of the fund, said a source briefed matter.

    More than $5bn has already been funnelled into clean energy investments, including the $6.6bn acquisition of French renewable energy and battery storage developer Neoen last year.

    The Brookfield Global Transition Fund II has also secured about $3.5bn in co-investment into its portfolio from investors who participated in the Neoen deal, including Singapore’s Temasek Holdings.

    The fund bought out the former UK National Grid Renewables US onshore business, rebranded as Geronimo Power, earlier this year. It also committed additional funding this year to Brookfield’s Everen joint venture in India, focused on developing wind, solar and battery storage, along with Alterra.

    The fund targets investments in longer-term technologies, such as nuclear and carbon capture storage also. A previous Brookfield fund included an investment in Westinghouse, the US nuclear power company, in a joint venture with Canadian uranium miner Cameco.

    The Canadian group’s first energy transition fund raised $15bn. It was jointly led by then vice-chair Mark Carney, now Canada’s prime minister, and Connor Teskey, president of Brookfield Asset Management. Carney has since put his Brookfield holding into a blind trust.

    Teskey said its second transition fund would help Brookfield succeed in its strategy of investing in technologies that deliver clean, abundant and low-cost energy and transition solutions underpinning the global economy.

    “Energy demand is growing fast, driven by the growth of artificial intelligence as well as electrification in industry and transportation,” said Teskey. “Against this backdrop we need an ‘any and all’ approach to energy investment that will continue to favour low carbon resources.”

    US President Donald Trump has described renewable energy as a “joke”. He told more than 150 world leaders at the UN recently: “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”

    Global electricity demand is rising rapidly, however, as a result of construction of power-hungry internet data centres required to fuel the AI boom, as well as the electrification of transport and other industries. This is fuelling a surge in investment in power plants, transmission lines and other infrastructure.

    Climate Capital

    Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here.

    Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here

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  • Robe River Joint Venture to Invest in Development of New Deposits at West Angelas Mine in Western Australia | 2025 | Releases

    Robe River Joint Venture to Invest in Development of New Deposits at West Angelas Mine in Western Australia | 2025 | Releases





    Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (“Mitsui”, President and CEO: Kenichi Hori) has decided to invest in the development of three new deposits at West Angelas iron ore mine owned by Robe River Joint Venture (“Robe River J/V”), which is jointly owned by Mitsui, major resource company Rio Tinto and Nippon Steel to maintain its production capacity. The development is expected to cost A$998million in total (approximately 94.8billion yen), of which Mitsui will invest A$329million (approximately 31.3billion yen). The project has now received the major necessary approvals, and the first production is scheduled to commence in 2027.

    Robe River J/V began shipments in 1972 and has since played a key role in stabilizing Mitsui’s long-term earnings base as one of its core businesses. The new deposits will maintain West Angelas’s annual production capacity of 35million tons (of which Mitsui has approximately 12million tons) for years to come. This project will leverage existing facilities, railways and port infrastructure, minimizing development costs maintaining the cost competitiveness of the existing operations.

    Global demand for crude steel is expected to continue increasing, driven by further growth in Asia. Mitsui’s annual equity share of iron ore production for FY March 2025 was approximately 62million tons. With the participation in the Rhodes Ridge iron ore project, Mitsui aims to expand its annual equity production to more than 100million tons in the future. The development of new deposits at the West Angelas iron ore mine forms part of Mitsui’s broader strategy to further strengthen the long-term earnings base of our core businesses. Mitsui remains committed to contributing to the stable supply of essential mineral and metal resources for society.

    Company Profile










    Name Robe River Joint Venture
    First Shipment 1972 (Operations at West Angelas commenced in 2002)
    Interest Ratio Rio Tinto 53%
    Mitsui 33%
    Nippon Steel 14%
    Development Schedule of New Deposits Development Start: October 2025
    First Production: 2027

    Locations of iron ore mine owned by Robe River Joint Venture

    West Angelas mine

    West Angelas mine






    Mitsui’s Materiality


    “Build brighter futures, everywhere” as our corporate mission, and to gain the trust and expectations of our stakeholders to realize a better tomorrow for earth and for people around the world, we have identified six material issues (“Materiality”) for Mitsui’s sustainable growth. We anticipate this particular project/ business to contribute especially to the realization of “Establish a foundation for sustainable and stable supply” and “Foster a well-being society”

    • Establish a foundation for sustainable and stable supply

      Establish a foundation for sustainable and stable supply

    • Create a community coexisting with nature

      Create a community coexisting with nature

    • Foster a well-being society

      Foster a well-being society

    • Cultivate societies that respect human rights

      Cultivate societies that respect human rights

    • Empower our people to build brighter futures

      Empower our people to build brighter futures

    • Build an organization with integrity

      Build an organization with integrity





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  • Spot gold hits record high amid safe haven demand and Fed rate easing hopes – Reuters

    1. Spot gold hits record high amid safe haven demand and Fed rate easing hopes  Reuters
    2. Gold hits record high above $3,900/oz on Fed rate cut bets, global uncertainty  CNBC
    3. ‘Gold-plated Fomo’ powers bullion’s record-breaking rally  Financial Times
    4. Can anything shut down the gold rally?  Investing.com
    5. Risk of gold price correction mounts as $4,000 target looms – Bank of America  KITCO

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  • Regulator approves Cboe Australia’s listing bid to boost market competition

    Regulator approves Cboe Australia’s listing bid to boost market competition

    Oct 7 (Reuters) – Cboe Australia’s application to operate as a listing market has been approved by the country’s corporate regulator on Tuesday, enabling it to compete directly with the Australian Securities Exchange and other market operators.

    Cboe, launched in Australia in 2011 as a competitor to the ASX (ASX.AX), opens new tab, can now list new companies, offering Australian investors increased access to investment options such as initial public offerings and dual-listed foreign entities.

    Sign up here.

    This decision aligns with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) goal of fostering a competitive and robust local listing market, it said.

    “Australia’s capital markets are strong and resilient, but they must continue to adapt to evolving global market dynamics and meet the future needs of our economy,” ASIC Chair Joe Longo said in a statement.

    “This move will provide more choice for companies to list in Australia, build more links to offshore markets and create more options for investors,” Longo added.

    The move comes amid heightened competition in Australian equities markets, which has already led to reduced trading costs and broader access to products like exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

    Cboe Australia currently has 20% of Australia’s equity market turnover, representing almost A$2 billion ($1.32 billion) of trades each day, ASIC said.

    ($1 = 1.5119 Australian dollars)

    Reporting by Adwitiya Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

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  • Why SAF is expected to play a larger role in near- and medium-term decarbonization than zero-emission aircraft – International Council on Clean Transportation

    1. Why SAF is expected to play a larger role in near- and medium-term decarbonization than zero-emission aircraft  International Council on Clean Transportation
    2. ‘This is real progress’: airlines on sustainable aviation fuels and the chances of net zero flying  The Guardian
    3. What If We Required Airplanes to Use More Biofuels?  Energy Institute Blog
    4. E&E News: Sustainable aviation fuel offers lifeline to ethanol, researchers say  POLITICO Pro
    5. Sustainable Fuel Focus Shifts To U.S. States  Aviation Week Network

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  • Cloudy with a chance of soot: The role of fuel composition in aviation’s non-CO2 impact

    Cloudy with a chance of soot: The role of fuel composition in aviation’s non-CO2 impact

    Jet fuel can be produced from several different sources, including fossil fuels, feedstocks of biological origin, and captured carbon. Depending on the feedstock used, the lifecycle carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the fuel can vary widely. Robust sustainability criteria prioritizing minimal life-cycle carbon intensity can help to ensure that sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) are truly low carbon, which is crucial to achieving aviation’s 2050 net-zero target.

    Unlike CO2 emissions, the non-CO2 emissions associated with combusting aviation fuels are not dependent on the feedstock of the fuel, but rather its composition. Specifically, fuel composition plays a key role in determining the particulate matter (PM) emissions and contrail impact of combustion within a given aircraft engine. We’ll start by understanding how these are related.

    Regardless of the feedstock used to produce it, jet fuel can be engineered with varying levels of specific types of hydrocarbons (such as aromatics and naphthalenes), as long as the resulting fuel meets relevant standards set by ASTM International—an organization that sets technical standards for a range of industries. ASTM has separate standards for conventional fossil jet fuel and SAF.

    Conventional fossil jet fuel, which makes up nearly all aviation fuel used today, typically has a fuel hydrogen content of about 13.8%. Fuel hydrogen content has been found to be the best correlating parameter when assessing the relationship between fuel composition and non-volatile particulate matter (nvPM) emissions, or soot. These ultrafine particulates can be measured at the aircraft engine exit in the solid phase, typically under 100 nm in diameter. On the other hand, volatile particulate matter (vPM) does not exist at the engine exit and forms in the exhaust plume, where it later condenses into particles. vPM formation in aircraft has been tied to compounds such as sulphates in fuels and vented engine lubrication oil.

    SAF tends to have a higher hydrogen content than typical fossil jet fuel and little to no aromatics and sulfur, which translates into fewer PM emissions. Modeling results from a 2022 study by Teoh et al. estimated that fleetwide adoption of 100% SAF in the North Atlantic would result in 52% lower nvPM emissions. Likewise, experimental results from the 2024 ECLIF3 project, the first in-flight test campaign running on 100% SAF, measured a 35% reduction in nvPM particles.

    Now for how this relates to contrails. This is a bit more complicated, because contrail formation is dependent on both engine emissions and meteorological conditions. While there is uncertainty about the climate impact of individual contrails, there is agreement that collectively, they have a net warming impact. The ideal meteorological conditions for persistent contrail formation include hot engine exhaust, cold temperatures, and high humidity. Areas where the meteorological conditions are conducive to contrails are called ice supersaturated regions, or ISSRs. When an aircraft is flying through an ISSR, ice crystals can nucleate around particulate matter at the engine exit and emissions plume, spreading to form contrails.

    Recent modeling and flight tests indicate that nvPM reductions from SAF use can enable reductions in persistent contrail formation in rich-burn engines, which make up most of the existing fleet. The modeling results from Teoh et al. noted above estimated a 44% reduction in contrail radiative forcing resulting from the modeled decrease in nvPM emissions; climate modeling using the ECLIF3 experimental results showed a 26% reduction.

    Although further flight testing is needed to rigorously quantify this relationship for different engines, there is a clear, observed trend of reduced contrail radiative forcing in rich-burn engines resulting from SAF use. When weighing the benefits of SAF relative to conventional fossil jet fuel, the impact of SAF thus widens considerably if you include the additional air quality and climate benefits coming from reduced PM emissions and contrail formation.

    Importantly, the ability of SAF to contribute to non-CO2 emissions reductions will be limited by its penetration into the aviation fuel supply. In 2024, SAF made up only about 0.3% of global jet fuel use; even in the most ambitious existing SAF mandate, which took effect in the United Kingdom this year, SAF blends reach 10% in 2030. Uniform blending of SAF at low percentages greatly dilutes any non-CO2 emissions benefits. In this context, avoidance may be a more cost-effective and accessible solution to address contrails in the near term.

    Meanwhile, to maximize the potential non-CO2 emissions reductions from fuel composition, airlines could explore the feasibility of hydroprocessing fossil jet fuel until SAF is widely available. Hydroprocessing includes refinery processes, such as hydrotreatment and hydrocracking, that add hydrogen to a fuel at high temperatures and pressures, greatly reducing aromatic and sulfur content and, consequently, PM emissions. When considering this option, non-CO2 climate and air quality benefits should be weighed against potential tradeoffs at refineries coming from the required energy input for these processes. However, initial studies indicate that the overall climate benefit of using hydroprocessed jet fuel could outweigh penalties from additional refinery emissions and serve as a promising near-term mitigation strategy as SAF production grows in parallel.

    It is clear that the chemical properties of jet fuel play a key role in aviation’s non-CO2 impact. As the aviation sector works to mitigate its climate impact, policymakers could consider targeted use of low-carbon SAF on contrail-prone routes and using hydroprocessed fossil jet fuel to unlock near-term climate benefits and improved local air quality.

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