Circularity, Regulations & EV Range: Top 5 Stories This Week
13 August
Pure water technology uses processes like reverse osmosis and deionisation to remove impurities from water, resulting in ultra-pure water with very low levels of contaminants – including plastic waste.
Ecolab, a global sustainability leader in water, hygiene and infection prevention solutions, is entering an agreement to acquire Ovivo’s Electronics business.
Ovivo is a leading global provider of breakthrough ultra-pure water technologies for semiconductor manufacturing.
This acquisition is set to further Ecolab’s expertise in water management systems.
How European ESG Regulations Impact Businesses in 2025
11 August
Simplification can be anything but simple, particularly when sustainability regulations impacting around 50,000 European companies are at stake. The year 2025 has brought a lot of change, and some pushback, to the table.
The European Commission’s Omnibus Simplification Package was introduced in response to concerns over complex sustainability regulation, but the resulting turbulence could have caused further complexity. The first draft was released in February 2025 after business and political leaders called for reductions in regulatory and reporting burdens, particularly for SMEs.
Saskia van Gendt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Blue Yonder, says: “Some view this as a step back from transparency, but I see it as a necessary recalibration.
“Sustainability teams are increasingly stretched, spending disproportionate time on compliance rather than impact. The omnibus gives companies, especially SMEs, breathing room to focus on initiatives that actually drive environmental and social progress.”
Read the full story in the August 2025 edition of Sustainability Magazine.
14 August
More than 460 million tonnes of plastic are produced every single year, of which an estimated 20 million end up polluting the environment, according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
As the fifth round of the United Nations plastics treaty negotiations (INC-5.2) in Geneva takes place, a draft text presented by the Chair has sparked near-universal rejection from both countries and civil society.
With talks still ongoing, the outcome could shape the global approach to ending plastic pollution for decades to come.
INC-5.2 is looking to create a draft text that reflects ambition, enforceability and the will of the global community.
Yet, the latest proposal excludes one of the treaty’s most vital components, an article on reducing plastic production.
“A successful agreement must reflect those differences while keeping our shared goal in focus: keeping plastics in the economy and out of the environment,” writes Chris Jahn, President and CEO at the American Chemistry Council, on LinkedIn.
13 August
The Royal Meteorological Society estimates that contrails could be more responsible for global warming than carbon emissions.
The society reports that consistent contrail clouds can trap heat in the atmosphere by disrupting the balance between the sun's incoming solar radiation and the heat being emitted from the Earth's surface.
Google has partnered with American Airlines to test solutions for this over a six month period.
Max Vogler, Software Engineer at Google, says: “Our predictions are accurate enough to significantly reduce climate impacts.
“In our study with American Airlines, pilots were able to avoid more than half of the contrails by using our flight paths.
“This has also been confirmed by independent researchers.”
11 August
The public's concern surrounding the range of EVs could be coming to an end after General Motors' test of a truck.
A 2026 Chevrolet Silverado EV Max Range Work Truck, which was estimated to have a range of 493 miles, has broken records by going 1059.2 miles on a full charge during a range test.
This breaks the record set by Lucid which reached 749 miles.
Kurt Kelty, Vice President, Battery, Propulsion and Sustainability at General Motors, says “Getting this kind of range on a full charge doesn’t happen by accident.
“It takes deep integration across battery chemistry, drive unit efficiency, software and vehicle engineering and that’s exactly what the team delivered.
“This achievement is a great example of how far our EV technology has come, and the kind of innovation we’re building on every day at GM.”
