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Solar Finance Seizes Up; New CEO for Ben & Jerry's; VW's Electric Bus | | | | |
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| Welcome back: A Danish renewable-energy company is pushing ahead with an offshore wind project in Asia as the industry faces increasingly onerous regulatory headwinds in the U.S. Orsted said this week that it has secured $3 billion in financing for a project offshore Taiwan. The news is in contrast to recent developments in the U.S. where delays and increased costs at a wind project off the coast of New York led the company to declare a $1.7 billion impairment earlier this year. Another renewables company was forced to suspend operations on its offshore project in the state following a halt-work order from the U.S. government. The industry has faced headwinds since the inauguration of President Trump, who has been vocal in opposing wind as an energy source. But it is finding opportunities further afield. Meanwhile, global demand for oil is only set to rise, according to OPEC this week, with no peak in sight. Read on for more sustainability news. | |
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The Wall Street Machine for Financing Rooftop Solar Is Seizing Up | |
| |  | | Solar panels on homes in Pasadena, Calif. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images | | | | |
| Surging defaults on loans used to buy residential solar panels are cascading through Wall Street, catching bond investors and private-credit funds in their wake. Some bonds tied to GoodLeap, a financial-technology firm that lends money for solar installations, have stopped paying interest, people familiar with the matter said. The payments stopped because far more homeowners are defaulting on the loans than initially forecast, they said. Solar bonds are one niche in the growing ecosystem built by nonbank lenders like GoodLeap, which use artificial intelligence and financial-market expertise to let Americans borrow with a click of the mouse. The "fintechs" connect consumers with debt investors eager to lend to them, but higher interest rates have pushed loan payments up and more borrowers are falling behind, the WSJ's Matt Wirz reports. Last year, 4,492 megawatts a day of solar-panel capacity was installed in U.S. homes, up from 2,864 megawatts a day in 2019, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Falling panel prices fueled the surge, but so did easy credit. GoodLeap and competitors like Sunnova Energy International and Mosaic funneled loans to homeowners through local dealers who sold panels door-to-door. Now cracks are starting to spread through the network, showing how the potent combination of private-credit and complex bonds can backfire. Several GoodLeap competitors filed for bankruptcy court protection in June, and some bonds backed solar loans trade at deep discounts. | |
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Unilever Picks New Ben & Jerry's CEO, Escalating Dispute With Board | |
| |  | | Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, at a campaign in Washington to spotlight wasteful military spending. Photo: Cliff Owen/Associated Press. | | | | |
| Unilever has appointed a new CEO for Ben & Jerry's, stepping up a dispute with the ice-cream brand's independent board. Jochanan Senf, a longtime Unilever executive who previously served as managing director of Ben & Jerry's Europe business, will start in the new role this month, the WSJ's Natasha Khan reports. Unilever is embroiled in a legal fight with Ben & Jerry's independent social-mission board over issues including the removal of the brand's previous chief executive, David Stever. The board in a March legal filing accused Unilever of ousting Stever because he had defended the brand's social-activism efforts. In an unusual provision of the acquisition agreement Unilever struck with Ben & Jerry's more than two decades ago, the brand's independent board retains decision-making about its social mission and marketing. The board and Unilever have fought bitterly for years over the brand's social activism—particularly its public stances on Israel and the Palestinian territories. | |
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How Volkswagen's Electric Bus Went From American Flagship to Flop | |
| |  | | A Volkswagen bus and an ID.Buzz electric bus at the New York International Auto Show in April. ADRIENNE GRUNWALD FOR WSJ | | | | |
| Volkswagen's electric bus was born out of a scandal. In January 2016, less than four months after the company admitted to cheating on emissions tests, VW executive Herbert Diess introduced the concept of an electric camper van to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the WSJ's Sean McLain and Stephen Wilmot write. Diess saw the people carrier as a way to recapture what made the company popular in 1960s America: fun, affordable vehicles. Making them electric would help dispel the stench of its emissions scandal. But the vehicle is shaping up to be yet another American misadventure for VW, reaching dealers years late, over budget and just in time for a trade war. Built in Germany, the model was delivered to its first U.S. customer days after the election of Donald Trump, who would go on to introduce a 25% tariff on imported cars and roll back government support for EVs. With a battery range of less than 250 miles per charge, the ID.Buzz doesn't compare favorably with other EVs. The German-led design also failed to account for some uniquely American tastes: It often needs to be fitted with extra cupholders. Capping the model's troubles, all the vehicles shipped to the U.S. were recalled in April because the third-row seats allowed three passengers to squeeze into a space with only two seat belts. | |
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- Global oil supply to rise faster than expected, IEA says. (WSJ)
- U.S. utilities plot big rise in electricity rates as data center demand booms. (FT)
- Frontier coalition signs $41 million carbon removal deal with bioenergy startup Arbor. (ESG Today)
- Nestlé is on track to halve emissions by 2030. (Trellis)
- Mars unveils emissions reduction progress, launches $250M green investment fund. (ESG Dive)
- Ford agrees voluntary redundancies for troubled e-car site in Cologne. (Reuters)
- Why armed forces can no longer ignore climate change. (Bloomberg)
- It's time to update how your company talks about sustainability. (Harvard Business Review)
- Why America still can't get disaster alerts right. (WSJ)
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