According to Shipbreaking Platform, a Brussels-based NGO campaigning for the environmental and human rights issues linked to shipbreaking practices, in 2021 alone, 583 ocean-going commercial ships and floating offshore units with a total of 14 million gross...
Category: Industry
Starting from scrap: transition to low-carbon steel can go faster with increased use of second-hand metal
New research by Sandbag indicates that a better use of end of life steel objects would help to speed up the reduction of emissions from the sector in Europe…
Starting from scrap : The key role of circular steel in achieving climate goals
Report | Starting from scrap The key role of circular steel in achieving climate goals. This report aims at highlighting the role circularity can have in the fast decarbonization of the steel sector. How can European industrial and climate policy accelerate this...
Preventing double counting: Sandbag challenges methodology on green hydrogen (RFNBO).
Sandbag welcomes the opportunity offered by the European Commission to provide feedback on the draft Delegated Act defining a method for assessing greenhouse gas emission savings for certain fuels. However, we are concerned that, despite the commendable intention to...
Why Free Allocation in the EU ETS Must Stop Urgently
Free allocation (FA) under the EU ETS has been criticised for directing large amounts of taxpayers’ money towards incumbent polluting plants, turning the polluter-pays principle on its head and not being sustainable in the long run. It also creates competitive...
Urgent: CBAM needed to abolish free allocation under the EU ETS
Why was the CBAM proposed in the first place? In July 2021, the EU announced its Fit for 55 package - a sweeping set of climate and energy policy proposals which forms the EU’s approach to combat the effects of climate change. This package is the EU’s toolkit for...
Supply-demand analysis of EU ETS reform: Letting Industry Loose
This note aims to put numbers on the amendment proposed by the European Commission to the Directive ruling the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) as part of its Fit-for-55 package, and its impact on the supply and demand balance of emission allowances (EUA). In...
Untangling the knots – Clearing the way to fast green hydrogen deployment
As the EU and some of its Member States are piling up subsidy schemes to try and kickstart a market for green hydrogen, projects are starting to attract public funding for applications with often low levels of technological readiness, economic viability, or even...
European Parliament clings to false solutions in Hydrogen Strategy vote
Committee MEPs are set to approve a report laden with risks to the EU's renewable energy transition on Monday 22 March. They want to see so-called "low-carbon hydrogen" - which is produced with climate-destroying fossil fuels - eligible for public funding and policy...
Benchmarks and Free Allocation: Details reveal problems in the EU ETS
Sandbag is actively campaigning for changes to the EU ETS benchmarking system and an end to free allocation in the upcoming EU ETS reform. In the meantime, the current EU ETS remains in place. On the 1st January we entered into Phase IV of the EU ETS, and the European...