Today’s ESG Updates
- BHP Delays Decarbonisation: Internal documents reveal BHP has systematically delayed actions tied to its Pilbara decarbonisation program, raising concerns over execution credibility and emissions targets.
- Brazil Shows Climate Ambition: New policy requiring at least 10% of fund portfolios to support research institutions or localise foreign technology signals Brazil’s push to build a domestic green industrial base — not just attract capital.
- Pope Leo XIV on AI: The Pope’s new manifesto frames artificial intelligence not as a neutral tool, but as a force capable of accelerating inequality, instability, and even “unending war.”
- Scotland as Europe’s AI Power Hub: Scotland is promoting “green data centres” through national planning policy, leveraging abundant renewables and technical talent — despite unresolved questions around what truly qualifies as “green” AI infrastructure.
Leaked BHP documents reveal decarbonisation scandal
Leaked internal documents reveal BHP has systematically slammed the brakes on its Pilbara decarbonization program. A board-approved 50-megawatt solar farm at Jimblebar was shelved. A landmark 500-megawatt renewables project capable of powering a small city was pushed back to the 2030s with no capital allocated until 2031. An iron ore processing plant that would have cut emissions equivalent to 350,000 cars was abandoned despite being “well-aligned” with its climate plan. Meanwhile, BHP is spending over half a billion dollars on new diesel haul trucks it once planned to replace with electric vehicles by 2027.
In a May 2025 memo, BHP declared its current decarbonization plan had a “low probability of success” and openly discussed delaying electrification of its truck and rail fleets until 2035, 2040, or simply doing nothing. The memo admitted delaying action carried “reputational risk” and threatened the company’s “licence to operate”—then recommended delay anyway.
BHP insists it has cut emissions by 36% since 2020 and that the technology for 240-tonne battery-electric haul trucks isn’t ready. The industry body claims no Pilbara-scale operation has ever run a fully electrified fleet because the technology “simply does not exist.” On the other hand, a company that built its brand on climate leadership quietly constructed an exit ramp from its own promises.
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Further reading: World’s biggest miner BHP backtracks on climate action with key projects put on ice, leaked documents reveal
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Brazil plans the largest green auction in its history
On Monday, the government announced a 50 billion reais—roughly $10 billion—in an auction under its Eco Invest program, the fifth and final round before the current administration leaves office. It is an ambitious attempt to turn public climate into a hook for private capital from the United States, Europe, and China.
The structure is deliberately leveraged. Six innovation funds will each receive 1.5 billion reais in public capital from the Climate Fund, with private investors permitted to chip in up to twice that amount. An additional credit line of one billion reais per fund will support project financing, and winning bids must include between 15% and 45% foreign capital.
The sectors targeted are green fertilizers, battery systems, critical minerals processing, sustainable fuels, green chemistry, automation and AI in production, and the circular reuse of industrial waste. It is positioning Brazil as both a processor and a manufacturer in the energy transition, rather than merely a supplier of iron ore and soy.
Whether Eco Invest becomes a model for climate finance or a rushed closing statement depends on whether the next government enforces the same rules. For now, Brasília has at least written a credible check.
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Further reading: Brazil plans $10 bln Eco Invest auction, eyes foreign investors
Related Articles
Here is a list of articles selected by our Editorial Board that have gained significant interest from the public:
Pope Leo XIV warns about the AI prioritising conflict and misinformation
Magnifica Humanitas is a 43,000-word manifesto that treats artificial intelligence not as a neutral tool but as a potential catalyst for “unending war.” Leo XIV warns that autonomous weapons have advanced “practically beyond any human reach to govern them,” and that AI systems are systematically prioritizing conflict and misinformation over truth. The remedy, he argues, is political courage: “slowing things down when everything is accelerating,” backed by robust legal frameworks and oversight independent of industry.
The document’s moral scope extends well beyond software. In a pointed rebuke to the Trump administration, Leo repudiated the Catholic Church’s centuries-old “just war” doctrine—recently cited by Catholic Vice President JD Vance to justify the Iran war—as an “outdated” license for violence. He issued a historic apology for the Church’s complicity in transatlantic slavery. He condemned the “new forms of slavery” embedded in AI’s supply chain, where children mine rare earth elements in brutal conditions so that “computational flow may continue uninterruptedly.”
At the Vatican launch, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah offered a striking admission: even frontier labs operate under commercial incentives that “can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing.” It was a rare corporate validation of the pontiff’s central anxiety.
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Further reading: Colombia clears exploratory phase of Ecopetrol-led geothermal project
Scotland shoots for green AI, struggles with loose definitions
An analysis by Action to Protect Rural Scotland reveals that Scotland’s flagship planning framework, NPF4, contains no definition of a green data center. The term appears as a national priority, with the comforting assurance that these facilities will have an “overall negligible impact” on emissions targets. Yet the analysis underpinning that claim was conducted in 2022—before ChatGPT existed.
The consequences are already materializing. More than a dozen datacentres are seeking planning permission, including an £8.2 billion AI growth zone near Glasgow. Collectively, they could demand 6.2 gigawatts of power—one and a half times Scotland’s entire winter peak. One Edinburgh project branded itself “green” while installing 200 diesel backup generators, equivalent to 100,000 idling cars. The planning committee accepted the label, noting that no definition exists in policy.
Meanwhile, the UK’s energy system operator is actively encouraging developers north of the border, where grid constraints are lighter and renewables more plentiful. Yet over a hundred datacentre projects nationwide have requested gas connections because the grid cannot accommodate them—raising what officials delicately call “an interesting question” for Britain’s climate goals.
The Scottish government insists it is securing investment aligned with its net-zero ambitions. However, a policy framework cannot efficiently predate the technology it is regulating.
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Further reading: Scotland’s ‘green datacentres’ policy ignores emissions impact of AI, analysis shows
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Heavy machinery operating in a mine Cover Photo Credit: Johannes Plenio
