NewzIntel.com

Category: Environment

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF INAUGURATES VARIOUS INFRASTRUCTURE AT NAVAL BASE KARWAR

    Source: Government of India (2)

    CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF INAUGURATES VARIOUS INFRASTRUCTURE AT NAVAL BASE KARWAR

    These infrastructure developments are part of the ongoing Phase IIA of Project Seabird

    Posted On: 05 FEB 2025 7:09PM by PIB Delhi

    General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff & Secretary, DMA inaugurated residential accommodation for Senior Sailors of Indian Navy and Main Distribution Sub Station as part of the Trunk facilities at Naval Base, Karwar on 04 Feb 25 with VAdm Krishna Swaminathan, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, Shri SG Dastidar, DAS, FA (DS) and other senior officers in attendance.

    The residential accommodation consisting of four towers with 240 dwelling units for Master Chief Petty Officers (MCPOs) and Chief Petty Officers (CPOs) has been constructed by M/S NCC Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad.

    The Main Distribution Sub Station at the Naval Base comprises four 33/11 KV – 35 MVA transformer capable of providing 65 MVA of stabilised power supply to operational piers, accommodation and utilities through seventy-seven state-of-the-art 33 KV Gas Insulated Switchgears, frequency convertors and voltage stabilizers. The three Captive Power Plants of 3 MVA capacity will provide power backup to the Naval Base. M/s ITD Cementation India Ltd., Mumbai has constructed the Main Distribution Sub Station.

    These infrastructure developments are part of the ongoing Phase IIA of Project Seabird which will support berthing of a large number of ships and submarines at Karwar. The project also includes a dual-use Naval Air Station, a full-fledged Naval Dockyard, Covered Dry Berths and several logistics facilities for ships and aircraft. The ongoing construction of Phase IIA of Project Seabird has created 7,000 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs. The Project conforms to the extant norms of Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). The Project aligns with the concept of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, sourcing over 90% of material and equipment from Indian vendors.

    _____________________________________________________________

    VM/SPS                                                                                                  30/25

    (Release ID: 2100103) Visitor Counter : 57

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: CFS urges public not to consume a batch of French raw milk cheese suspected to be contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    CFS urges public not to consume a batch of French raw milk cheese suspected to be contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli
    CFS urges public not to consume a batch of French raw milk cheese suspected to be contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli
    ******************************************************************************************

        The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department today (February 5) urged the public not to consume a batch of raw milk cheese imported from France due to possible contamination with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). The trade should stop using or selling the affected product immediately if they possess it.    Product details are as follows:Product name: MORBIER LAIT CRU DE SCEY AOP 7KG MEULEBrand: PERRIN VERMOTPlace of origin: FrancePack size: 6.56 kilogramsBest-before date: February 23, 2025Batch number: 34008Importer: Culina HK Limited    “The CFS received a notification from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed of the European Commission that the above-mentioned product is being recalled in France due to possible contamination with STEC. Upon learning of the incident, the CFS immediately contacted local importers for follow-up. A preliminary investigation found that the above-mentioned importer had imported into Hong Kong the affected batch of the product concerned,” a spokesman for the CFS said.    The importer concerned has stopped sale and removed the affected batch of the product from shelves and initiated a recall according to the CFS’s instructions. Enquiries about the recall can be made to the importer’s hotline at 2342 3221 during office hours.    “People will contract STEC-causing gastro-intestinal disease through consumption of contaminated water or undercooked and contaminated foods. Intestinal bleeding and serious complications such as hemolytic uraemic syndrome may also develop in some people,” the spokesman said.    The CFS will alert the trade to the incident, and will continue to follow up and take appropriate action. The investigation is ongoing.

     
    Ends/Wednesday, February 5, 2025Issued at HKT 19:55

    NNNN

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: YORK COUNTY – Shapiro Administration to Announce Public Access Coming This Spring to Historic Underground Railroad Site in Wrightsville

    Source: US State of Pennsylvania

    February 06, 2025 – Wrightsville, PA

    ADVISORY – YORK COUNTY – Shapiro Administration to Announce Public Access Coming This Spring to Historic Underground Railroad Site in Wrightsville

    Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn will visit the historic Mifflin Farm in York County to celebrate Black History Month and announce that the public will gain access to the site beginning this spring.

    In partnership with the Susquehanna National Heritage Area, DCNR has supported the conservation of the Mifflin House and the surrounding 79-acre landscape – an important Underground Railroad site and Civil War battlefield. Once complete, the site will feature walking trails and interpretive signage, highlighting its role in both the fight for freedom and the pivotal 1863 Gettysburg Campaign.

    The Susquehanna National Heritage Area manages Mifflin Farm and other key cultural sites in central Pennsylvania. Through its Mosaic initiative, DCNR is working to ensure outdoor spaces are more inclusive and accessible for all Pennsylvanians.

    WHO:
    DCNR Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn
    Susquehanna National Heritage Area President and CEO Mark Platts
    State Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill
    York County Commissioner Doug Hoke
    Genealogist Neicy Deshields-Moulton

    WHEN:
    Thursday, February 6, 12:00 PM

    WHERE:
    Mifflin Farm, Cool Springs Rd, Wrightsville, PA 17368

    Please email werobinson@pa.gov if you plan to attend.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Lankford Applauds POTUS’ Push to Hold FEMA Accountable, Advocates for Reform

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Oklahoma James Lankford

    WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) sent a letter to President Donald J. Trump to applaud his recent Executive Order to hold the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) accountable for their failed responses to disasters and to advocate for robust reforms.

    “I write to commend your recent Executive Order establishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Review Council. The current federal framework for responding to disasters is insufficient, and major reforms are necessary to ensure Americans are best supported in times of need,” Lankford wrote in the letter.

    Lankford also introduced four bills to continue to build on President Trump’s work to address FEMA’s failures and inadequacies. The Expediting Hazard Mitigation Assistance Projects Act gives the FEMA Administrator the authority to cut red tape on unnecessary environmental and historic preservation review requirements. The Direct Property Acquisitions Act creates a pilot program for communities to avoid lengthy delays by applying directly for property acquisitions. The Investing in Community Resilience Act with Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) incentivizes communities to create readiness and resilience measures before a disaster. The Stopping Political Discrimination in Disaster Assistance Act will prohibit discrimination based on political affiliation in federal disaster relief. This bill is cosponsored by Senators Roger Marshall, MD (R-KS), Rick Scott (R-FL), Ted Budd (R-NC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Thom Tillis (R-NC).

    View the letter here or below. 

    Dear President Trump:

    I write to commend your recent Executive Order establishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Review Council. The current federal framework for responding to disasters is insufficient, and major reforms are necessary to ensure Americans are best supported in times of need. As the Council engages with leaders to discuss potential reforms, I respectfully request that the Council consider the following:

    1. Reforming FEMA’s responsibilities and/or consolidating the federal disaster framework more generally. FEMA has two core responsibilities: managing security grants and serving as the leading agency for federal disaster relief. While both roles can be vested in a single agency, I am concerned that FEMA’s dual responsibilities are hampering its emergency response capabilities. At the same time, the current federal disaster framework involves too many agencies with a variety of other, non-emergency response duties, including the US Department of Commerce, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, US Department of Health and Human Services, US Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, among several others. I ask that your Council consider whether more federal emergency response capabilities should be consolidated under FEMA, which would reduce the number of agencies constituents need to work through when seeking federal disaster assistance, and whether other, current responsibilities should be placed elsewhere.
    1. Reassessing the federal government’s role in disasters. Under current law, the default federal assistance for major disasters is 75%, with opportunities to increase the federal cost share. The federal cost share is often increased to 100%. It is paramount that all levels of government involved in emergency response and recovery have skin in the game. I urge the Council to consider the benefits and drawbacks of a sliding cost share that begins at a lower percentage for federal support but can be increased based on the needs and capacity of the community in question. I also urge the Council to consider recommending how to limit ad hoc federal cost share increases and eliminate the possibility of a 100% federal cost share as it relates to FEMA’s disaster aid.
    1. Conducting an in-depth review of all federally funded disaster activities conducted by FEMA. The federal government’s labyrinthine disaster response and recovery programs have not been subject to the scrutiny needed to assess whether it is achieving its goals or whether its funding would be better spent with limited strings attached at the state and local levels. I ask that the Council provide a comprehensive analysis of these programs and make a formal, performance-based recommendation on how the funding for these programs should be spent.
    1. Exploring ways to speed up FEMA-led disaster projects. Federal funding for disaster relief comes with countless conditions, many of which unnecessarily prolong the duration of projects. I urge the Council to assess whether conditions on federal disaster aid, including conditions such as Environmental and Historic Preservation (EHP) reviews, harm the disaster recovery process for communities. 

    Lastly, it is essential that the Council solicit feedback from leaders with substantial knowledge of disaster recovery efforts. Oklahoma is no stranger to natural disasters, and we are often forced to grapple with the ensuing wreckage and trauma. Despite these challenges, Oklahomans have consistently risen above the fray to help one another in recovery. Given our experience with natural disasters, I respectfully request that the Council solicit feedback from emergency management leaders in Oklahoma.

    In God We Trust,

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: New ‘Tree Tracker’ Webpage and Interactive Tool Launches

    Source: US State of New York

    Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the launch of a new webpage and interactive tracking tool to help document progress toward New York State’s goal to plant 25 million trees by 2033. Hosted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and developed in cooperation with the Office of Information Technology Services, the webpage and Tree Tracker allow State agencies, organizations, private entities, and individuals to report the location and number of trees planted into the tracking tool, measuring progress in the statewide effort.

    “New York is taking decisive action to protect our environment and strengthen communities’ ability to withstand severe weather,” Governor Hochul said. “Our progress toward the 25 Million Tree goal is a testament to the power of community-driven action, and the new Tree Tracker will make it easier for New Yorkers to track our progress, share updates and contribute to a healthier environment for the future.”

    Trees planted in 2024 and on count toward the statewide total. Every entry records the number and location of trees planted. Entries can also include additional information such as planting date(s), tree species, and tree size. The webpage displays an interactive map of planting projects across New York State, and tallies trees planted by region, county, and municipality for visitors to track planting across the state as the initiative progresses toward the 25 million tree goal.

    In addition to linking to the Tree Tracker, the 25 Million Trees webpage provides information on how to plant trees, how to care for them to aid their survival, and where to go for more technical assistance.

    Department of Environmental Conservation Interim Commissioner Sean Mahar said, “Working with the New Yorkers we serve, the 25 Million Tree Goal is helping to address our sustained efforts to protect communities and natural resources across the state. Every tree planted is a step toward a healthier, greener New York. The Tree Tracker will empower New Yorkers to share their stories with us as our partners in this historic effort, which will have a lasting impact on the environment.”

    The Nature Conservancy’s New York Executive Director Bill Ulfelder said, “The Nature Conservancy is pleased to see New York State unveil new tools to document progress towards New York’s goal to plant 25 million trees by 2033. Achieving this goal would help New York meet its carbon reduction goals while protecting clean drinking water, restoring wildlife habitat, and reducing the risks of extreme heatwaves, which can be fatal in neighborhoods without trees.”

    Governor Hochul launched the 25 Million Trees Initiative in her 2024 State of the State address, allocating $32 million in Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act Funds to modernize the State’s tree nursery and harness technology to track forestation efforts in New York and $15 million in the Executive Budget to support resilient reforestation projects. The Initiative is invigorating statewide tree planting efforts, sending an unmistakable market signal to private nurseries, and growing the state’s vital forest products industry. The Initiative advances the climate equity and reforestation goals outlined in New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and contributes to New York’s broader efforts to reduce the pollution contributing to climate change.

    The 25 Million Trees Initiative also highlights funding opportunities for afforestation and reforestation projects in New York State. Private landowners had access to $4.5 million for projects expanding and restoring forests through the Establishing Large Forests (ELF) Grant Program, and $15 million is currently available to municipalities, not-for-profits, and State agencies to create forested natural areas servicing urban communities through the Community Reforestation (CoRe) Grant Program until March, 12, 2025.

    New York’s 25 Million Trees Initiative also contributes in part to the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers’ call for planting 250 million trees around the Great Lakes region by 2033.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ICYMI: Governor Newsom cuts red tape to help Los Angeles quickly recover and rebuild

    Source: US State of California Governor

    Feb 5, 2025

    What you need to know: Governor Newsom has taken unprecedented action to cut red tape and remove regulatory barriers to help Los Angeles recover and rebuild quickly – including by suspending CEQA and Coastal Act permitting requirements.

    LOS ANGELES — In response to the unprecedented disaster caused by the recent firestorms in Los Angeles, Governor Newsom has taken significant executive action to remove red tape and suspend regulatory barriers, from suspending permitting requirements to fast-tracking cleanup efforts.

    “We will not let red tape block people from rebuilding and getting back into their homes. The state is here to assist the Los Angeles community recover, not to hinder their efforts.”

    Governor Gavin Newsom

    Recovery and rebuilding, faster than ever

    Governor Newsom has launched historic recovery and rebuilding efforts, cutting red tape and suspending regulations to help make the recovery process faster than ever before. Moving proactively to remove barriers that would prevent a quick recovery, Governor Newsom began issuing orders and suspending regulations related to rebuilding in the days immediately after the firestorms began.

    ✂️ Suspending permitting requirements. Governor Newsom waived permitting requirements based on the California Coastal Act and the California Environmental Quality Act on January 12.

    🏠 Creating more temporary housing, faster. To help provide necessary shelter for those immediately impacted by the firestorms, the Governor issued an executive order on January 16 to streamline the construction and occupancy of accessory dwelling units, increase availability of trailers and other temporary housing, and suspend fees for mobile home parks. 

    ⚠️Fast-tracking clean-up and recovery. With an eye toward recovery, On January 12, the Governor directed fast action on debris removal work and mitigating the potential for mudslides and flooding in areas burned. Three days later, he signed an executive order to allow expert federal hazmat crews to start cleaning up properties as a key step in getting people back to their properties safely.
     
    📝 Tax and mortgage relief for disaster victims and businesses. On January 11, California postponed the individual tax filing deadline to October 15 for Los Angeles County taxpayers. Additionally, the state extended the January 31, 2025, sales and use tax filing deadline for Los Angeles County taxpayers until April 30 — providing critical tax relief for businesses. Governor Newsom suspended penalties and interest on late property tax payments for a year, effectively extending the state property tax deadline. The Governor also worked with state– and federally-chartered banks that have committed to providing mortgage relief for survivors in certain zip codes.

    ✔️ Waiving licensing fees for small businesses. The Governor issued an executive order on January 29 to support small businesses and workers, by providing relief to help businesses recover quickly by deferring annual licensing fees and waiving other requirements that may impose barriers to recovery.

    ❤️ Making it easier for survivors to quickly get help. The Governor fast-tracked more relief for survivors on January 27 by waiving or suspending regulations that could make it more difficult for survivors to access important services, such as child care, education, rental housing, health care, and tax relief.

    View all the actions Governor Newsom has taken in response to Los Angeles firestorms

    Get help today

    For those Californians impacted by the firestorms in Los Angeles, there are resources available.Californians can go to CA.gov/LAfires – a hub for information and resources from state, local and federal government.  

    Individuals and business owners who sustained losses from wildfires in Los Angeles County can apply for disaster assistance:

    If you use a relay service, such as video relay service (VRS), captioned telephone service or others, give FEMA the number for that service.

    Recent news

    Feb 4, 2025

    News What you need to know: People impacted by the recent fires in Los Angeles may be eligible for new food benefits. A family of four with a monthly income up to $3,529 per month may be eligible to receive $975. Los Angeles, California – As part of California’s…

    Feb 4, 2025

    News SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the following appointments:Mark Tollefson, of Rancho Cordova, has been appointed Chief Deputy Director at the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Tollefson has been Undersecretary of the California State…

    Feb 4, 2025

    News What you need to know: Governor Gavin Newsom today issued an executive order removing bureaucratic barriers, extending deadlines, and providing critical regulatory relief to help LA fire survivors rebuild, access essential services, and recover more quickly. LOS…

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senator Murray, Ecology Director Sixkiller, Councilmember Zahilay, WA Head Start Association Director Call Out How Trump’s Ongoing Illegal Funding Freeze is Hurting WA State, Putting Critical Projects and Jobs at Risk

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Washington State Patty Murray

    Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, led a virtual press conference highlighting how President Trump’s ongoing, illegal funding freeze is hurting people and organizations across Washington state—forcing them to make impossible choices, costing jobs, and putting critical projects and hundreds of millions of dollars for everything from infrastructure improvements to culvert removal at risk. Joining Senator Murray for the press call were King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, Washington State Department of Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller, and Joel Ryan, Executive Director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP.

    “People need to understand the Trump administration is still holding up billions of dollars, under Trump’s illegal Day One Executive Orders. We’re talking about funding Congress passed into law—funding that is owed to communities in Washington state and across the country,” Senator Murray said on this morning’s press call, outlining some of the ways President Trump’s ongoing illegal funding freeze from his Day One Executive Orders is putting critical projects and jobs in Washington state at risk:

    • “The Washington State Department of Transportation has told me Trump is blocking money to repair electric chargers, to install heavy duty chargers for trucks, to make critical repairs to bridges in order to protect the safety of millions of drivers, and to install new chargers along major roads like I-90, US-97, US-2, US-195, and US-395.
    • “Trump is holding up road projects to make streets safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers—a safe streets project in Richland, critical safety barriers in Spokane are just a few of the examples.
    • “Trump’s illegal freeze is, as we speak, blocking wildlife preservation work all over our state, and critical culvert replacement projects to help save our salmon.
    • “There are port projects right now on hold across Washington state, including for electrical infrastructure, and shore power for vessels. Absolutely essential electric transmission and distribution projects are on hold and in jeopardy.
    • “World class organizations in Washington state have told me they may have to lay people off this week—hundreds of people—because of Trump’s illegal funding freezes.

    “Make no mistake: the chaos is not over. There are still billions of dollars being illegally held up—and so many jobs in Washington state that are on the line I am going to continue fighting this and pressing the administration every way I can to get them to end these illegal funding freezes,” Murray concluded. “I’m going to continue doing everything I can as Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee to stand up and hold this administration to account, so we can get the money Congress passed into law flowing again to folks back home in Washington state.”

    “This is money that should be flowing into our communities, creating jobs, protecting public health, and improving the environment. Instead, it is being delayed at the expense of the people who need it most,” said Casey Sixkiller, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology.

    “King County is already grappling with a $150 million budget shortfall, putting essential services at risk. A freeze in federal funding would make this crisis even worse, threatening vital programs like healthcare, housing support, transportation, and services for veterans and seniors. For the people who depend on these services every day, these cuts aren’t just numbers—they’re lifelines that keep our community safe, healthy, and connected. Without immediate action and support, many of our most vulnerable neighbors will face even greater hardship,” said King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay.

    “This past week and half have been chaotic and disruptive roller coaster ride for Head Start programs here in Washington State. The half day shutdown caused by the Trump Administration caused confusion and nearly led to thousands of children and families losing access to childcare. Yesterday we continued to receive reports that Head Start programs were struggling to access their federal grant dollars with one program as of today still unable to gain access. Across the country there remains over 40+ Head Start programs impacting more than 20,000 children dealing with this ‘rolling blackout’ putting very low income children and families at risk of losing services,” said Joel Ryan, Executive Director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP.

    TIMELINE OF EVENTS

    January 20th: Within his first hours in office, President Trump signed a number of executive orders that illegally block funding that was signed into law to rebuild America’s infrastructure, lower families’ energy costs, create new, good-paying jobs, strengthen our national security, and more.

    January 27th: Trump expanded his funding freeze dramatically when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a sweeping, illegal memo directing a near-blanket freeze on virtually all federal funding, with carveouts for Social Security, Medicare, and “assistance provided directly to individuals.” Senator Murray immediately wrote a letter to OMB alongside House Appropriations Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) raising alarms about the sweeping directive and calling the acting director to restore funding, as the law requires.

    January 28th: Senator Murray joined millions of Americans in decrying the chaos and pain President Trump’s freeze caused—as reports poured in from across the country about how it risked shuttering Head Start programs, cutting off disaster relief, jeopardizing cancer research, and much more. The White House, in trying to clarify the scope of the memo, instead created more chaos, confusion, and headaches for the American people.

    January 29th: Senator Murray again slammed Trump’s devastating freeze cutting off funding families count on—noting that even programs the administration said were back online were, in fact, still shuttered, and she called on Trump to stop withholding funding. Then, facing nationwide backlash, President Trump had his OMB revoke its memo. But President Trump vowed to keep his freeze of hundreds of billions of dollars in funding tied up by his executive orders in place—and his aides continued their vows to block more funding signed into law.

    RIGHT NOW: President Trump continues to hold up vast swaths of funding implicated by his illegal executive orders—and chaos and confusion pervade over whether funding implicated by his now-rescinded OMB memo has been fully restored.

    His executive orders direct agencies to, among other things, halt disbursement of funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, foreign development assistance, and virtually any funding his administration deems “woke.”

    President Trump’s ongoing freeze is holding up funding Congress delivered—often on a bipartisan basis—to:

    • Rebuild America’s roads and bridges.
    • Connect families to high-speed internet access.
    • Upgrade transit and transportation infrastructure.
    • Lower Americans’ energy costs.
    • Create new, good-paying clean energy jobs.
    • Strengthen America’s national security.
    • Much more.

    President Trump must rescind his executive orders—and stop blocking funding the American people are counting on. His failure to do so will:

    • Kill good-paying American jobs.
    • Delay—or altogether scrap—infrastructure projects all across the county.
    • Raise American families’ energy costs.
    • Create more chaos, confusion, and uncertainty that hurt families, businesses, small businesses, and local organizations and governments.
    • Gut efforts to tackle the climate crisis and ensure every American has clean air and water.
    • Halt work cleaning up Superfund sites contaminated with hazardous waste and substances.
    • Undermine our national security and credibility on the world stage.
    • Much more.

    A fact sheet on the issue of impoundment—Trump’s unconstitutional scheme to withhold federal funding headed to communities across America—is HERE.

    Senator Murray’s full remarks, as delivered on today’s press call, are below and video is HERE:

    “Thank you everyone for joining us today. Last week, we saw a level of chaos and recklessness from the Trump administration that’s truly unlike anything I have seen in my lifetime, when the administration moved to brazenly and illegally freeze federal grants across government and across the country. 

    “The panic and the confusion were widespread. Because there was a long, long, list of programs President Trump tried to put on the chopping block.

    “Then, less than 48 hours later, in the face of intense public backlash and outrage from people all over the country—they admitted they were disastrously wrong and revoked the OMB memo.

    “But it’s really important that this fight is far from over. Not only is there still significant confusion—funding that was supposed to be turned back ‘on’ that is still not, it’s still locked up—but, just as importantly, people need to understand the Trump administration is still holding up billions of dollars, under Trump’s illegal Day One Executive Orders.

    “We’re talking about funding that Congress passed into law—funding that is owed to communities in Washington state and across the country.

    “Now, the harm they are causing with these funding freezes is hard to overstate, because this has never been done before. 

    “And we’ve been working around the clock to figure out exactly what all of this means, and who is affected—because they have been far from clear.

    “But today I want to give you all a sense of what folks across our state have told me about what Trump’s ongoing, illegal funding freezes have meant for them.

    “The Washington State Department of Transportation has told me that Trump is blocking money to repair electric chargers, to install heavy duty chargers for trucks, to make critical repairs to bridges in order to protect the safety of millions of drivers, and to install new chargers along major roads like I-90, US-97, US-2, US-195, and US-395.

    “Trump is still holding up road projects that make streets safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers—a safe streets project in Richland, critical safety barriers in Spokane are just a few of the examples.

    “Trump’s illegal freeze is, as we speak, blocking wildlife preservation work all over our state, and critical culvert replacement projects to help save our salmon. 

    “There are port projects right now on hold across Washington state, including for electrical infrastructure, and shore power for vessels. Absolutely essential electric transmission and distribution projects are on hold and in jeopardy.

    “And there are many other projects, organizations, and people—who are being harmed right now by the President’s reckless funding freeze.

    “Medical researchers in Washington state who are worried that their work will somehow be considered ‘woke,’ when in reality, it’s actually pretty darn important we understand the roots of health disparities—things like why the maternal death rate is so much higher for Black and Native American women.

    “Trump’s executive orders also froze lifesaving foreign assistance for people all around the globe.

    “And world class organizations in our state, in Washington state, have told me they may have to lay people off this week—hundreds of people—because of Trump’s illegal funding freezes.

    “It is just completely unclear when, or if these projects are going to get the funds they are counting on, and owed, from the bills Congress passed into law long before Trump came into office. 

    “So, make no mistake: the chaos is not over. There are still billions of dollars being illegally held up—and many jobs in Washington state are now on the line.

    “I am going to continue fighting this and pressing the administration every way I can to make them end these illegal funding freezes.

    “Democrats will speak out, we will challenge Trump’s illegal actions in the courts, we will demand accountability, and we will put the pressure on the administration and on our Republican colleagues. 

    “But we also need our Republican colleagues to say ‘enough.’ We need them to join us. 

    “Now, we learned something extremely important last week: that when the American people–all across our state, all across the country–speak out with one voice, and when regular people stand up, it makes a difference. 

    “So this fight is far from over—and I’m going to continue doing everything I can as Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee to stand up and hold this administration to account, so we can get the money Congress—by both parties, Republicans and Democrats–passed into law flowing again to folks back home in Washington state.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: United Nations/Environment – France’s ratification of the UN agreement on marine biodiversity (5 Feb. 2025)

    Source: Republic of France in English
    The Republic of France has issued the following statement:

    On 5 February, France deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General its ratification instrument for the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, known as the BBNJ Agreement.

    This deposit completes the ratification process, following Parliament’s unanimous adoption of the bill presented by the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, on 5 November 2024.

    France is fully mobilized to achieve the 60 ratifications necessary for the agreement to come into force, between now and the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), which will be held in Nice in June 2025.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why personal climate action matters – according to experts

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition

    EL_Images/Shutterstock

    Do you feel powerless?

    You probably aren’t responsible for the investment decisions of an energy company, nor do you have a hand in government policy. But still, you are reading about climate change – a problem that can easily seem intractable to most people.

    The Veganuary campaign reported record participation this year: 25.8 million people worldwide tried a lighter lifestyle without meat and dairy in January, knowing that enormous emission sources sit beyond their immediate control. If such resolve to fix our planet exists, how can people exercise it?

    This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage comes from our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed.

    You might be used to thinking of climate change in terms of your carbon footprint. That’s no accident, says science communicator Sam Illingworth (Edinburgh Napier). A public relations firm, hired by oil giant BP, invented the concept in 2004 as part of a deliberate effort to shift attention from corporate culpability, he says.

    “In my research into climate communication, I see how stories of guilt resonate with communities already facing misplaced blame,” Illingworth adds.

    You’re not alone

    “Net zero heroes” are set up to fail, Illingworth says. But realising this only makes collective action more important, and shows the futility of trying to bear the weight of the problem on your own.



    Read more:
    You don’t have to be a net zero hero – how focus on personal climate action can distract from systemic problems

    Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Earth is an interconnected community of living and non-living things says ethicist Patrick Effiong Ben of the University of Manchester. African philosophers like Jonathan Chimakonam and Aïda Terblanché-Greeff have a helpful concept for thinking through the weightiness of your decisions: complementarity.

    Life on Earth is connected in often subtle and unpredictable ways.
    Lois GoBe/Shutterstock

    “Complementarity holds that the relationships that unite individual things can extend to prove the value of every contribution, no matter its size,” Ben says.



    Read more:
    Think your efforts to help the climate don’t matter? African philosophers disagree

    You can test this notion by choosing to eat a plant-based diet or forgo flying and observing your influence on others. If you’re sceptical, just think how many of your habits or turns of phrase are borrowed from loved ones. Steve Westlake, a behavioural psychologist at Cardiff University, says that your pro-environment choices can ultimately alter what other people consider “normal”.

    “In a survey I conducted, half of the respondents who knew someone who has given up flying because of climate change said they fly less because of this example. That alone seemed pretty impressive to me,” he says.



    Read more:
    Climate change: yes, your individual action does make a difference

    “They explained that the bold and unusual position to give up flying had: conveyed the seriousness of climate change and flying’s contribution to it; crystallised the link between values and actions; and even reduced feelings of isolation that flying less was a valid and sensible response to climate change.”

    What’s stopping us?

    Often, is is not apathy that holds us back, but a seeming lack of options. In the UK, where I live, a train is by far the better travel choice emissions-wise but it is usually much more expensive than a flight that covers the same distance.

    Environmental psychologists Christina Demski (University of Bath) and Stuart Capstick (Cardiff University) criticise the laissez-faire approach of successive governments that have “[gone] with the grain of consumer choice” while failing to recognise that many people would gladly choose the green option if they could afford or access it.



    Read more:
    To address climate change, lifestyles must change – but the government’s reluctance to help is holding us back

    This desire to do something meaningful is continually frustrated, they say, but it will not vanish as the crisis worsens. Everyone alive and yet to live needs a liveable climate. Securing it is within our technical and material means.

    The human species has no home but this one.
    Canities/Shutterstock

    Just listen to this from sustainability researcher Joel Millward-Hopkins (Université de Lausanne, previously University of Leeds):

    “Fortunately, in new research we found that using 60% less energy than today, decent living standards could be provided to a global population of 10 billion by 2050. That’s 75% less energy than the world is currently forecast to consume by 2050 on our present trajectory – or as much energy as the world used in the 1960s.”



    Read more:
    How 10 billion people could live well by 2050 – using as much energy as we did 60 years ago

    Instead of seeing your new vegan diet as a personal choice, think of it as a political act taken in solidarity with people and other species bearing the brunt of climate change say political philosophers Alasdair Cochrane (University of Sheffield) and Mara-Daria Cojocaru (Munich School of Philosophy).



    Read more:
    Veganism: why we should see it as a political movement rather than a dietary choice

    And remember that it isn’t all sacrifice. The joy that is possible with more expensive and more energy-hungry lifestyles is fleeting says Capstick, but contentment, he argues, is low-carbon.



    Read more:
    Climate change: greener lifestyles linked to greater happiness – in both rich and poor countries

    – ref. Why personal climate action matters – according to experts – https://theconversation.com/why-personal-climate-action-matters-according-to-experts-248960

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Innovating to detect deepfakes and protect the public

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Case study

    Innovating to detect deepfakes and protect the public

    Collaborating to find ways to mitigate the growing threat from AI-generated deepfakes is an urgent national priority. 

    The rise in deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence (AI) has been scarily rapid – a projected eight million will be shared in 2025, up from 500,000 in 2023. This sheer scale combined with greater sophistication and convincingness means finding ways to quickly detect and mitigate this ever-growing threat is an increasingly urgent priority. 

    Concerns over criminal manipulation of digital text, images and video are not new, but the proliferation in recent months of generative AI tools that enable anyone, anywhere to quickly, easily and cheaply create deepfake images has significantly changed the game.

    As deepfakes threaten to hit the mainstream across a range of harmful activity, from online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) to fraud and election interference, there is a corresponding drive to develop the tools and methods needed to tackle them at the required scale and pace. 

    In its role as an innovative enabler connecting frontline government and law enforcement with cutting-edge technology from industry, the Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) is at the heart of this ramp-up in activity designed to find practical solutions to arguably the greatest challenge of the online age. And 2024 was a year where the marriage of cutting-edge technology, collaboration and fresh thinking enabled significant strides forward. 

    Circular collaboration 

    Clear results that accelerate crucial deepfake detection in a range of domains have been made across a series of focused commissions carried out by ACE. And just as importantly, learnings and practical experiences developed in one commission have been shared with others to pass on deeper knowledge and skills.  

    The biggest event in this space was the Deepfake Detection Challenge. Initiated by the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, ACE and the renowned Alan Turing Institute, this visionary idea brought together academic, industry and government experts to develop innovative and practical solutions focused on detecting fake media.

    More than 150 people attended the initial briefing where five challenge statements pushing the boundaries of current capabilities were launched. The critical importance of collaboration and sharing of skills and knowledge was a recurring theme, and major tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) provided practical support.  

    Eight weeks were spent developing innovative ideas and solutions on a specially created platform, which hosted approximately two million assets made up of both real and synthetic data for training and testing. Following this, 17 submissions were received, and six teams from our community – Frazer-Nash Consulting, IBM, Oxford Wave Research, Open Origins, Safe and Sound from the University of Southampton, and Naimuri – were selected to demonstrate their ideas in front of more than 200 stakeholders. 

    Solutions from Frazer-Nash, Oxford Wave, the University of Southampton and Naimuri, a combination of existing products that have been identified as potentially showing operational value as well as early-stage proof of concepts being developed against specific use cases including CSEA, disinformation and audio, are now going through benchmark testing and user trials. 

    Key insights from the initial challenge work, alongside the clear success in accelerating the state-of-the art in deepfake detection possibilities, included that curated data was critical to be able to make as much progress as possible in the time and conditions available, and that creating a dataset that was more representative of real-world operational scenarios would have been helpful.  

    Using better data to detect child abuse deepfakes 

    When another significant commission to further deepfake detection was brought to ACE by the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and the Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser (OCSA), data development was a top priority.  

    To mature the EVITA (Evaluating video, text and audio) AI content detection tool the focus shifted away from volume.  

    As part of developing next-step recommendations, ACE leveraged its expertise from the Deepfake Detection Challenge to create a reusable ‘gold standard’ dataset. This dataset was designed to effectively test detection models, including those targeting child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

    By combining this ‘gold standard’ dataset with ACE’s extensive domain and community expertise – drawing on insights from Naimuri and Bays Consulting – ACE delivered rapid insights into the maturation of EVITA through comprehensive and diverse testing. 

    This work not only enabled ACE to deliver the requested next-step recommendations for the EVITA programme but also led to the development of a repeatable testing and evaluation approach for deepfake detection. This approach enhances the ability to interpret and understand the results generated by detection tools. 

    Alongside this, another piece of work was taking place exploring how AI can be used to detect deepfakes in policing. The biggest challenge is in digital forensics where, the ACE team heard, officers can be faced with up to a million child abuse images on a single seized phone.  

    This commission, working with community members Blueprint, Camera Forensics and TRMG, seeks to understand where deepfake detection tooling fits into the investigation stage to add most value. Next steps in this particular project are ‘making this real’ – working towards commissioning a proof of concept or trial of an existing capability.  

    And so the learning is becoming circular once more as the next stage of the Deepfake Detection Challenge progresses. This will push further than any work in this field so far, focusing on making the initial solutions presented more user-centric and deeply relevant to practitioners in the field. 

    Deepfakes are both a growing menace and an evolving threat, but bridging the gap between models and reality will be critical to tackling them at scale and at pace. ACE, its customers and suppliers remain laser focused on this evolution from the theoretical to the practical. The potential of innovation combined with collaboration has already proved to be a potent force in this area, the challenge – in all ways – is maximising the potential of what comes next.

    Updates to this page

    Published 5 February 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: Bpce: Groupe BPCE Results Q4-24 & 2024

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Paris, February 5, 2025

    STRONG PERFORMANCES IN 2024

    • Excellent performance in Q4-24 •
    • Net income (Group share) of €3.5bn in 2024, strong growth of +26% •
    • VISION 2030: dynamic implementation of the strategic project •

    Q4-24: net banking income at €6bn, up +11% YoY; very good performance achieved by retail banking and the global businesses; net income of €913m, +140% YoY
    2024: net banking income of €23.3bn, 5% growth YoY driven by all the business lines; gross operating income up by a strong 18% notably thanks to good cost control; reported net income2of €3.5bn, up by 26% YoY

    Very high levels of solvency and liquidity with a CET1 ratio of 15.6%3 and a LCR of 142%4 at end-2024

    RETAIL BANKING & INSURANCE    Sharp 14% growth in revenues in Q4-24 and 4% in 2024 driven in particular by the confirmed rebound in net interest margins and commissions. The Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne retail banking networks enjoyed sustained growth in their customer bases with the addition of 846,000 new clients6in 2024

    • Local & regional financing: €84bn of funding for our clients of individual, professional, corporate, and institutional clients; 1% year-on-year growth in loan outstandings, rising to a total of €724bn at end-December 2024
    • Deposits & savings7up by €5bn year-on-year, reaching a total of €681bn at end-December 2024
    • Insurance: gross inflows8 of €14.9bn in life insurance in 2024. Premiums up 15% in 2024 YoY. The equipment rate9for P&C and Personal Protection insurance stood at ~35% at end-December 2024
    • Financial Solutions & Expertise: net banking income remained stable in Q4-24 and rose by 2% in full-year 2024 vs. a high basis of comparison in 2023. Good performance reported by the Leasing and Consumer Credit activities
    • Digital & Payments: +5% growth in the number of card transactions at end-December 2024 YoY. Oney net banking income up 8% in full-year 2024

    GLOBAL FINANCIAL SERVICES Strong revenue growth, +8% in Q4-24 and full-year 2024; very dynamic business development in Corporate & Investment Banking, net banking income up 5% in Q4-24 year-on-year; very good performance achieved by Asset Management with net banking income up 11% in Q4-24 year-on-year

    • Corporate & Investment Banking: net banking income of €1.1bn in Q4-24; +19% growth in revenues in Q4-24 YoY for Global Markets, driven by the Fixed-income and Equity segments; net banking income up 2% for Global Finance, driven in particular by Trade Finance activities, and up by 6% for Investment Banking activities in Q4-24
    • Asset & Wealth Management: Natixis IM’s assets under management up 13% YtD, reaching an all-time high of €1,317bn at end-December 2024; very high net fund inflows of €40bn in full-year 2024, particularly from Fixed-Income expertise; net banking income of €968m in Q4-24, reflecting strong growth of 11% YoY.

    Expenses remained stable year-on-year in 2024 and good improvement in the cost/income by 3.5pp

    Prudent provisioning policy: cost of risk of €2.1bn in 2024, i.e. 24bps, standing below the announced guidance level; €596 million in Q4-24, down 20% year-on-year

    Financial strength: CET1 ratio of 15.6%3at end-December 2024; liquidity reserves of €302bn

    VISION 2030 strategic project: fast-paced and dynamic implementation  

    • April 2024: announcement of the project to acquire SGEF, making Groupe BPCE the European leader in equipment leasing; completion of the transaction scheduled for Q1-25.
    • June 2024: plan to create France’s No. 1 payment processor in partnership with BNP Paribas with a view to becoming one of the top 3 players in Europe.
    • June 2024: commercial partnerships with two leaders in their respective markets: Leroy Merlin and Verisure
    • January 2025: announcement of plan to create Europe’s leading asset manager in a joint venture with Generali.
    • Plans to create a shared technology platform for retail banking activities

    1 See the notes on methodology annexed to this press release 2Group share 3 Ratio estimated at end-December 2024 integrating pro forma the coming impact of SGEF and Nagelmackers acquisitions 4Average end-of month LCRs in Q4-24 5 Estimated at end-December 2024 6 196,100 new active clients over the year 7 On-balance sheet savings & deposits within the scope of the Retail Banking & Insurance business unit 8 Excluding reinsurance treaty with CNP Assurance 9 Scope of the individual clients in the BP and CE retail banking networks

    Nicolas Namias, Chairman of the Management Board of BPCE, said: “2024 marked the return of strong performance across all our business lines. Groupe BPCE saw its earnings grow by 26% over the year as a whole and by a total of 140% in the fourth quarter of 2024.

    Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne benefited from the confirmed rebound in their net interest margin along with an extremely buoyant level of commercial activity, illustrated by the arrival of 846,000 new clients in 2024. All the business lines serving the retail banking networks – Insurance, Payments, Financial Solutions & Expertise – generated growth both in full-year 2024 and in the 4thquarter of the year. It also proved to be a remarkable quarter and full-year period for the global business lines managed by Natixis CIB and Natixis IM with, in particular, 19% revenue growth in our capital markets activities in the fourth quarter, and a record-breaking 40 billion euros in net inflows for our asset management activities in the course of the year.

    These results testify to the dynamic implementation of our VISION 2030 strategic project. In the space of a year, we announced the planned acquisition of SGEF, making the Group the front-ranking European equipment leasing specialist, an initiative due to be completed early this year; the creation, with BNP Paribas, of the French leader in payment processing, with a view to becoming one of the top 3 players in Europe; plans to create a champion in asset management with Generali that would be No.1 in Europe in terms of revenues and one of the top 10 asset management specialists worldwide. Today, we announce our ambition to create a common technological platform for the Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne by setting up a joint information system. Designed to further enhance the Group’s performance, this project sets out to optimize the service offered to our 35 million clients and to improve the day-to-day lives of our employees and, in the process, support the development of retail banking in France. These projects give concrete expression to our determination to pursue well-balanced development across our three priority growth areas: France, Europe, and the rest of the world.

    These extremely exciting prospects for the months ahead will be driven by our staff of employees, who this year demonstrated their tremendous mobilization and enthusiasm during the Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024. We gave expression to our promise to share the Games with as many people as possible in every territorial region of France. This event enabled us to strengthen our ties with our clients both in regional France and around the world, and we will continue to foster these relationships by contributing to the sustainable development of the economies in which we do business, in line with our cooperative values.”

    The quarterly financial statements of Groupe BPCE for the period ended December 31, 2024, approved by the Management Board on February 3, 2025, were verified and reviewed by the Supervisory Board, at a meeting chaired by Eric Fougère on February 5, 2025.

    In this document, 2023 figures have been restated on a pro-forma basis (see annex for the reconciliation of reported data to pro-forma data).

    Groupe BPCE

    €m1 Q4-24 Q4-23 % Change 2024 2023 % Change
    Net banking income 6,046 5,462 11% 23,317 22,198 5%
    Operating expenses (4,184) (4,129) 1% (16,384) (16,328) 0%
    Gross operating income 1,862 1,332 40% 6,933 5,870 18%
    Cost of risk (596) (744) (20)% (2,061) (1,731) 19%
    Income before tax 1,262 537 135% 4,956 4,182 19%
    Income tax (326) (159) 106% (1,357) (1,340) 1%
    Net income – Group share 913 381 140% 3,520 2,804 26%
    Exceptional items (64) (100) (35)% (155) (122) 28%
    Underlying2net income – Group share  977 481 103% 3,675 2,925 26%
    Underlying cost to income ratio3 67.8% 74.6% (6.8)pp 69.4% 72.9% (3.5)pp

    1 Reported figures as far as “Net income (Group share)” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The underlying cost/income ratio of Groupe BPCE is calculated on the basis of net banking income and operating expenses excluding exceptional items. The calculations are detailed in the annex on pages 18 and 24.  

    1.     Groupe BPCE

    Unless specified to the contrary, the financial data and related comments refer to the reported results of the Group and
    business lines; changes express differences between Q4-24 and Q4-23 and between full-year 2024 and full-year 2023.

    Groupe BPCE’s net banking income rose by 11% to reach 6,046 million euros in Q4-24 thanks to strong commercial activity in all business lines. At the end of December 2024, it stood at 23,317 million euros, up 5%.

    Revenues from the Retail Banking & Insurance business unit (RB&I) rose 14% in Q4-24 to 4,064 million euros and stood at 15,397 million euros in full-year 2024, representing growth of 4%. Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne put up a strong commercial performance, attracting more than 846,000 new clients1 across all markets since the beginning of the year.

    Revenues in the Financial Solutions & Expertise business unit, stable in Q4-24 and up 2% in full-year 2024, were driven in particular by the leasing and consumer credit businesses. The Insurance business unit benefited from strong business momentum in life insurance with gross new inflows2 of 14.9 billion euros. Business was buoyant for the Digital & Payments business unit with renewed momentum for Oney.

    Revenues from the Global Financial Services (GFS) business unit were up 8% in Q4-24 and full-year 2024, reaching a total of 2,055 million euros and 7,947 million euros respectively. Corporate & Investment Banking revenues, buoyed up by strong commercial performance across all its business lines, came to 1,087 million euros in Q4-24, up 5%, and to 4,440 million euros in full-year 2024, up 7%. The net banking income generated by Asset & Wealth Management stood at 968 million euros in Q4-24, up 11%, and reached a total of 3,507 million euros in full-year 2024, up 10%. Assets under management, which rose to their highest level ever thanks to record-breaking fund inflows and positive market and currency effects, rose by 13% in the course of the year to reach 1,317 billion euros.

    The net interest margin stood at 7.6 billion euros, up 4% year-on-year, while commission income, which reached 11 billion euros in full-year 2024, was up 7% year-on-year.

    In full-year 2024, operating expenses remained stable at 16,384 million euros, rising 1% to 4,184 million euros in Q4-24, benefitting from positive jaws effects over the 2 periods.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3 improved by 6.8pp in Q4-24 to 67.8%, and by 3.5pp in full-year 2024 to 69.4%

    Gross operating income rose by 40% to 1,862 million euros in Q4-24, and by 18% to 6,933 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Groupe BPCE’s cost of risk, which came to -2,061 million euros in 2024, increased by a total of 19% vs. a low basis of comparison in 2023. In Q4-24, it stood at -596 million euros, down 20%.

    Performing loans are deemed to be rated ‘Stage 1’ or ‘Stage 2,’ while loans with proven risk are rated ‘Stage 3.’

    1    196,100 new active clients in full-year 2024 ² Excluding the reinsurance treaty with CNP Assurances3 The underlying cost/income ratio of Groupe BPCE is calculated on the basis of net banking income and operating expenses excluding exceptional items. The calculations are detailed in the annex on page 24

    For Groupe BPCE, the amount of provisions for performing loans rated ‘Stage 1’ or ‘Stage 2’ corresponds:

    • For the quarter, to a reversal of 31 million euros in Q4-24 vs. an allocation of 34 million euros in Q3-24 and vs. an allocation of 145 million euros in Q4-23,
    • For the 12-month period, a reversal of 177 million euros in 2024 vs. a reversal of 112 million euros in 2023.

    Provisions for loan outstandings with proven risk, rated ‘Stage 3,’ correspond:

    • For the quarter, to an allocation of 627 million euros in Q4-24 vs. an allocation of 488 million euros in Q3-24 and vs. an allocation of 598 million euros in Q4-23,
    • For the 12-month period, an allocation of 2,238 million euros in 2024 vs. an allocation of 1,843 million euros in 2023.

    In Q4-24, the cost of risk for Groupe BPCE stood at 28bps in terms of gross customer outstandings, down 7bps. This figure includes a reversal of 1bp on performing loans (vs. an allocation of 7bps in Q4-23) and an allocation on loan outstandings with proven risk of 29bps vs. an allocation of 28bps in Q4-23.
    In Q4-24, the cost of risk remained stable for the Retail Banking & Insurance business unit at 30bps, including a 1bp provision for performing loans (vs. a 5bps allocation to provisions in Q4-23) and a 30bps allocation on loan outstandings with proven risk, as in Q4-23.
    The cost of risk for the Corporate & Investment Banking business unit came to 55bps (vs. 37bps in Q4-23), including a 13bps reversal on performing loans (vs. a 16bps provision in Q4-23) and a 67bps provision on loans with proven risk (vs. a 21bps provision in Q4-23).

    In 2024, Groupe BPCE’s cost of risk stood at 24bps of gross customer loan outstandings. This figure includes a 2bps reversal of provisions on performing loans (vs. a 1bp reversal in 2023) and a 26bps provision on loans with proven risk (vs. a 22bps provision in 2023).
    The cost of risk was 24bps for the Retail Banking & Insurance business unit (21bps in 2023), including a 2bps reversal on performing loans (as in 2023) and a 26bps provision on loans with proven risk (vs. a 23bps provision in 2023).
    The cost of risk for the Corporate & Investment Banking business unit came to 40bps (24bps in 2023), including a 6bps reversal on performing loans (vs. a 4bps reversal in 2023) and a 46bps provision on loans with proven risk (vs. a 28bps provision in 2023).

    The ratio of non-performing loans to gross loan outstandings stood at 2.5% at December 31, 2024, up 0.1pp compared with end-December 2023.

    Reported net income (Group share) came to 913 million euros in Q4-24, up 140%. In full-year 2024, it stood at 3,520 million euros, up 26%.

    The impact of exceptional items on net income (Group share) was -64 million euros in Q4-24 vs. -100 million euros in Q4-23 and -155 million euros in full-year 2024 vs. -122 million euros in full-year 2023.

    Underlying net income (Group share)1 rose by 103% to stand at 977 million euros in Q4-24, and grew by 26% to 3,675 million euros in full-year 2024.

    1 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items

    2.   A Group mobilized to decarbonize the economy and committed to making impact accessible to all

    Strong commitments in 2024

    • Climate commitments:

    The Group has published new decarbonization ambitions for the 111 most highly emissive industrial sectors: Aluminum, Aviation, Commercial real estate, Residential real estate, Agriculture, Automotive, Steel and Cement, and has strengthened its ambitions in the Power Generation and Oil & Gas sectors.

    • Environmental commitments:

    Groupe BPCE has strengthened its commitment by joining act4nature international.

    • Social commitments by providing financing for players in the social & solidarity-based economy, in social housing and the Public Sector.

    Innovative and concrete actions for our clients

    • The Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne retail banking networks have launched innovations to facilitate home ownership and offer all individual customers energy-efficient renovation solutions to preserve the value of their real-estate assets: for example, by the end of November 2024, over 640 million euros in financing had been granted for energy-efficient home renovation, and the Advice and Sustainable Solutions digital module had received over 5 million unique visitors.
    • The Group serves the SME and ISE clients of the Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne, as well as local communities by providing locally-based advice and by financing the transition of their business models. It has also strengthened its partnership with the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the innovation and energy transition with over one billion euros in transition and decarbonization financing.
    • Green revenues in the CIB rose by +14% in 2024 YoY, driven by sustainable finance and renewable energy & new energy activities including tailored-made solutions and dedicated expertise provided by the Green Hub.

    Groupe BPCE, a pioneer in sustainable finance, launched 5 green and social bond issues in the course of 2024 for an aggregate value of more than 3.6 billion euros, including the 1st Social Bond with a profit-sharing coupon for the benefit of the Institut Robert-Debré du Cerveau de l’Enfant (Children’s Brain Development Institute), supported by APHP (Paris Public Hospitals).

    1 Given the insignificant amount of Natixis CIB’s financing dedicated to freight and passenger ships, Groupe BPCE has not published its action plan for this industrial sector

    3.   Capital, loss-absorbing capacity, liquidity, and funding

    3.1        CET11ratio

    Groupe BPCE’s CET1 ratio at end-December 2024 stood at an estimated 16.2%, unchanged from the previous quarter. It includes the following impacts:

    • Retained earnings: +21bps,
    • Net issuance of cooperative shares: +3bps,
    • Change in risk-weighted assets: – 33bps,
    • Other changes, including variations in the prudential backstop provision, items included under Other Comprehensive Income, and other adjustments: +4bps.

    The Group’s CET1 ratio – presented on a pro-forma basis to reflect the inclusion of the future impacts of the SGEF and Nagelmackers acquisitions (-54bps) – stands at 15.6%,

    At end-December 2024, Groupe BPCE held an equity buffer estimated at 18.6 billion euros above the threshold for triggering the maximum distributable amount (MDA) for equity capital, taking account of the prudential requirements laid down by the ECB applicable on January 2, 2025.

    3.2         TLAC ratio1

    The Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) stood at an estimated 122.1 billion euros at the end of December 2024. The TLAC ratio, expressed as a percentage of risk-weighted assets, stood at an estimated 26.7%2 at the end of December 2024 (without taking account of preferred senior debt for the calculation of this ratio), well above the standard requirements of the Financial Stability Board that were equal to 22.4% at January 2, 2025.

    3.3        MREL ratio1

    Expressed as a percentage of risk-weighted assets at December 31, 2024, Groupe BPCE’s subordinated MREL ratio (without taking account of preferred senior debt for the calculation of this ratio) and the total MREL ratio stood at 26.7%2 and 34.6%, well above the minimum requirements laid down by the SRB at January 2, 2025 of 22.4%3 and 27.3%3 respectively.

    3.4        Leverage ratio1

    At December 31, 2024, the estimated leverage ratio stood at 5.1%, well above the requirement.

    3.5        Liquidity reserves at a high level

    The LCR (Liquidity Coverage Ratio) for Groupe BPCE is well above the regulatory requirement of 100%, at an average of 142% of month-end LCRs for the 4th quarter 2024.
    Liquidity reserves stood at 302 billion euros at December 2024, representing a coverage ratio of 177% of short-term financial debt (including short-term maturities of medium- to long-term financial debt).

    3.6        MLT funding plan: 32% of the 2025 objectives completed as at January 31, 2025

    The size of the MLT funding plan, excluding structured private placements and Asset Backed Securities (ABS), has been set at 23 billion euros for 2025. The breakdown per type of debt is as follows:

    • 10 billion euros in TLAC funding: 2.0 billion euros in Tier 2 funding and 8 billion euros in senior non-preferred debt,
    • 3 billion euros senior preferred debt,
    • 10 billion euros in covered bonds.

    The target for ABS is 8 billion euros.

    At January 31, 2025, Groupe BPCE had raised 7.3 billion euros, excluding structured private placements and ABS (32% of the 23 billion euro funding plan):

    • 5.6 billion euros in TLAC funding: 1.7 billion euros in Tier 2 funding (87% of requirements) and 3.9 billion euros in senior non-preferred debt (49% of requirements),
    • 1.7 billion euros in covered bonds (17% of requirements).

    At January 31, 2025, the amount of ABS raised came to a total of 0.7 billion euros, i.e. 8% of the target.

    Capital adequacy, Total loss-absorbing capacity – see the note on methodology
    1 Estimated at December 31, 2024 2 Groupe BPCE has chosen to waive the possibility provided by Article 72 Ter (3) of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) to use senior preferred debt to ensure compliance with its TLAC/subordinated MREL requirements. 3 Following reception of MREL’s annual letter for 2024

    4.   Results of the business lines

    Unless specified to the contrary, the financial data and related comments refer to the reported results of the Group and
    business lines; changes express differences between Q4-24 and Q4-23 and between full-year 2024 and full-year 2023.

    4.1        Retail Banking & Insurance

    €m1 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 4,064 14% 15,397 4%
    Operating expenses (2,497) (0)% (9,902) 1%
    Gross operating income 1,567 45% 5,495 10%
    Cost of risk (556) (13)% (1,751) 16%
    Income before tax 998 142% 3,807 8%
    Exceptional items (45) (60)% (115) 3%
    Underlying2income before tax 1,044 98% 3,922 8%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 60.4% (8.5)pp 63.6% (2.2)pp

    At end-December 2024, loan outstandings rose by 1% to 724 billion euros. Outstanding home loans remained stables at 400 billion euros, while equipment loans rose by 3% during the year to 199 billion euros.

    At end-December 2024, on-balance sheet customer deposits & savings totaled 681 billion euros, representing an increase of 5 billion euros year-on-year, with a 5% rise in term accounts and a 3% year-on-year increase in both regulated and unregulated passbook savings accounts.

    Net banking income for the Retail Banking & Insurance business unit rose by 14% in Q4-24 to 4,064 million euros, and by 4% in full-year 2024 to 15,397 million euros. In Q4-24, these changes reflect the good level of business activities: in the networks, revenues rose by 17% for the Banque Populaire retail banking network and by 14% for the Caisse d’Épargne network. Net banking income for both networks also recorded growth in full-year 2024, by 4% for the Banque Populaire network and by 3% for the Caisse d’Épargne network.

    The Financial Solutions & Expertise business lines continued to benefit from strong sales momentum, particularly in the leasing segment. Revenues remained stable in Q4-24 but saw 2% growth in full-year 2024. In Insurance, premiums4 rose by 15% in 2024, driven by both Non-Life Insurance and Life & Personal Protection Insurance. The Digital & Payments business unit reported a 14% increase in revenues in Q4-24 and 7% growth in full-year 2024, driven by card transactions and instant payment operations.

    Operating expenses remained tightly managed, stable in Q4-24 at 2,497 million euros, and up by just 1% in full-year 2024 to 9,902 million euros.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3 improved by 8.5pp in Q4-24 to 60.4%, and by 2.2pp in full-year 2024 to 63.6%.

    The business unit’s gross operating income benefited from a strong positive jaws effect, rising by 45% in Q4-24 to
    1,567 million euros and by 10% in full-year 2024 to 5,495 million euros.

    The cost of risk amounted to -556 million euros in Q4-24, down 13%, and stood at -1,751 million euros in 2024, up 16%.

    For the business unit as a whole, income before tax amounted to 998 million euros in Q4-24, up 142%, and stood at 3,807 million in full-year 2024, up 8%.

    Underlying income before tax2 amounted to 1,044 million euros in Q4-24, up 98%, and came to 3,922 million euros in full-year 2024, up 8%.

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses 4Excluding reinsurance treaty with CNP Assurance

    4.1.1         Banque Populaire network
    The Banque Populaire retail banking network is comprised of 14 cooperative banks (12 regional Banques Populaires along
    with CASDEN Banque Populaire and Crédit Coopératif) and their subsidiaries, Crédit Maritime Mutuel, and the Mutual
    Guarantee Companies.

    €m1 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 1,614 17% 6,098 4%
    Operating expenses (980) 1% (4,047) 2%
    Gross operating income 634 56% 2,051 8%
    Cost of risk (266) (6)% (814) 25%
    Income before tax 352 137% 1,285 (2)%
    Exceptional items (17) 77% (51) ns
    Underlying2income before tax 369 133% 1,336 2%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 59.7% (10.2)pp 65.5% (1.9)pp

    Loan outstandings remained stable year-on-year, standing at 301 billion euros at the end of December 2024.
    On-balance sheet customer deposits & savings decreased by 2 billion euros year-on-year at the end of December 2024, with term accounts remaining stable during the 12-month period, while both regulated and unregulated passbook savings accounts saw 2% year-on-year growth.

    Net banking income came to 6,098 million euros in full-year 2024, up 4% year-on-year. This included 3.2 billion euros in net interest margin4,5 up 5% year-on-year, and 2.9 billion euros in commissions5 (up 3% year-on-year).
    In Q4-24, net banking income came to a total of 1,614 million euros, up 17% year-on-year.

    Operating expenses rose by a limited 1% in Q4-24 to 980 million euros, and increased by 2% in full-year 2024, to 4,047 million euros.
    The underlying cost/income ratio3 consequently saw a 10.2pp improvement in Q4-24, to 59.7%, and a 1.9pp improvement in full-year 2024, to 65.5%.

    Gross operating income benefited from positive jaws effects, rising by 56% to 634 million euros in Q4-24 and by 8% to 2,051 million euros in full-year 2024.

    The cost of risk stood at -266 million euros in Q4-24, down 6%, and -814 million euros in 2024, up 25%.

    Income before tax came to 352 million euros in Q4-24 (+137%) and 1,285 million euros in 2024 (-2%).

    Underlying income before tax2 amounted to 369 million euros in Q4-24 (+133%) and 1,336 million euros in full-year 2024
    (+2%).

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses 4 Excluding provisions for home-purchase savings schemes 5 Income on regulated savings has been restated to account for the net interest margin and included under commissions

    4.1.2        Caisse d’Epargne network
    The Caisse d’Epargne retail banking network comprises 15 individual Caisses d’Epargne along with their subsidiaries

    €m1 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 1,616 14% 6,054 3%
    Operating expenses (1,084) 0% (4,216) 1%
    Gross operating income 531 55% 1,838 10%
    Cost of risk (205) (6)% (640) 16%
    Income before tax 328 161% 1,200 7%
    Exceptional items (27) 171% (60) ns
    Underlying2income before tax 355 162% 1,260 13%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 65.4% (9.8)pp 68.7% (2.7)pp

    Loan outstandings rose by 1% year-on-year to 376 billion euros at the end of December 2024.
    On-balance sheet customer deposits & savings increased by 5 billion euros year-on-year, with growth in term accounts (+12%) and an increase in regulated and unregulated passbook savings accounts (+3%).

    Net banking income rose by 3% to reach 6,054 million euros in full-year 2024, including:

    • 2.6 billion euros in net interest margin4,5, down 3% year-on-year,
    • 3.4 billion euros in commissions5 up 7% year-on-year.

    Net banking income came to a total of 1,616 million euros, up 14% year-on-year, in Q4-24 and stood at 6,054 million euros, up 3% year-on-year in full-year 2024.

    Operating expenses remained stable at 1,084 million euros in Q4-24, and rose by 1% in full-year 2024 to 4,216 million euros.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3 improved by 9.8pp to 65.4% in Q4-24 and by 2.7pp to 68.7% in full-year 2024.

    Gross operating income benefited from positive jaws effects in Q4-24 (+55%), rising to 531 million euros, and enjoyed 10% growth in full-year 2024, rising to 1,838 million euros.

    The cost of risk came to -205 million euros in Q4-24, down 6%, and to -640 million euros in 2024, up 16%.

    Income before tax rose by 161% to 328 million euros in Q4-24, and came to 1,200 million euros in 2024.
    (+7%).

    Underlying income before tax2 amounted to 355 million euros in Q4-24 (+162%) and 1,260 million euros in full-year 2024
    (+13%).

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses 4 Excluding provisions for home-purchase savings schemes 5 Income on regulated savings has been restated to account for the net interest margin and included under commissions

    4.1.3        Financial Solutions & Expertise

    €m1 Q4-24 %

    Change

    		 2024 %

    Change
    Net banking income 334 (0)% 1,303 2%
    Operating expenses (169) 1% (636) 1%
    Gross operating income 165 (2)% 667 3%
    Cost of risk (38) (30)% (108) 11%
    Income before tax 125 11% 555 2%
    Exceptional items 0 ns 0 ns
    Underlying2income before tax 125 11% 555 1%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 50.7% 1.0pp 48.8% (0.3)pp

    Sales momentum remained strong in services designed for individual customers, particularly in consumer credit, with average loan outstandings (personal loans and revolving credit) up 7% year-on-year, consolidating the Group’s position as France’s leading bank for consumer credit.

    The Leasing activity continued to provide robust support to companies with growth in average outstandings (+10% year-on-year) chiefly driven by equipment leasing (+17%). Energéco, a player committed to the renewable energies sector, had an exceptional year with production exceeding, for the first time, one billion transactions arranged.

    Despite the unfavorable business environment, the business lines working in the housing and real estate sector demonstrated their resilience with confirmation in Q4-2024 of the positive upturn of activity in personal loan guarantees, leading to an increase in gross written premiums (+2% in Q4-24 year-on-year vs. -40% in the first 9 months of 2024).

    Net banking income for the Financial Solutions & Expertise business unit remained stable at 334 million euros in Q4-24, but rose 2% to 1,303 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Operating expenses, which stood at 169 million euros in Q4-24 and 636 million euros in full-year 2024, remained tightly managed.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3 increased by 1.0pp in Q4-24 to 50.7% and improved by 0.3pp in full-year 2024 to 48.8%.

    Gross operating income, which came to 165 million euros in Q4-24, was down 2%; it stood at 667 million euros in full-year 2024, up 3%.

    The cost of risk stood at -38 million euros in Q4-24, down 30%, and at -108 million euros in full-year 2024 (+11%).

    Income before tax rose by 11% to 125 million euros in Q4-24 and increased by 2% to 555 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Underlying income before tax2 rose by 11% in Q4-24 and by 1% in full-year 2024, to 125 million euros and 555 million euros respectively.

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses

    4.1.4        Insurance1
    The results presented below concern the Insurance business unit held directly by BPCE since March 1, 2022.

    €m2 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 171 17% 694 10%
    Operating expenses3 (36) (10)%4 (143) (12)%4
    Gross operating income 135 28% 550 17%
    Income before tax 141 32% 566 19%
    Exceptional items 0 ns 0 ns
    Underlying5income before tax 141 30% 566 17%
    Underlying cost/income ratio6 21.3% (5.3)pp 20.7% (4.1)pp

    In Q4-24, premiums7 reached 4.8 billion euros, up 12% thanks to the considerable dynamism demonstrated by Life Insurance and Life & Personal Protection insurance. In full-year 2024, premiums7 rose by 15% to 18.6 billion euros, with a 16% increase for Life & Personal Protection insurance and a 9% increase for Property & Casualty insurance.

    Life insurance assets under management7 reached 103 billion euros at the end of December 2024 thanks to record-breaking net inflows in both euro funds and unit-linked products. Since the end of December 2023, life insurance assets have risen by 12%, driven by significant positive inflows in both euro funds and unit-linked products. Gross inflows7 in life insurance stood at 14.9 billion euros in 2024. Unit-linked products accounted for 53% of inflows7 at the end of December 2024.

    In the Property & Casualty segment, the client equipment rate for both networks was approximately 35%8 at the end of December 2024, up 0.5pp since the end of December 2023.

    Net banking income rose by 17% in Q4-24 to 171 million euros, and rose by 10% to 694 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Operating expenses3 fell by 10%4 year-on-year in Q4-24 to 36 million euros, and by 12%4 in full-year 2024 to 143 million euros.

    The underlying cost/income ratio6 improved by 5.3pp to stand at 21.3% in Q4-24, and improved by 4.1pp to reach 20.7% in full-year 2024.

    Thanks to positive jaws effects in Q4-24 and full-year 2024, EBITDA rose by 28% and 17% respectively.

    Income before tax also improved, rising by 32% to 141 million euros in Q4-24 and by 19% to 566 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Underlying5income before tax came to 141 million euros in Q4-24 (+30%) and to 566 million euros in full-year 2024 (+17%).

    1 BPCE Assurances 2 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 3 “Operating expenses” corresponds to “non-attributable expenses” under IFRS 17, i.e. all costs that are not directly attributable to insurance contracts 4 At constant method: +7% in Q4-24 YoY and +4% in 2024 YoY 5 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 6 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses 7 Excluding reinsurance treaty with CNP Assurance
    8 Scope: combined individual clients of the BP and CE networks

    4.1.5         Digital & Payments

    €m1 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 227 14% 873 7%
    o/w Payments 128 10% 491 6%
    o/w Oney 99 19% 382 8%
    Operating expenses (173) 1% (646) (1)%
    o/w Payments (108) 9% (394) 3%
    o/w Oney (65) (10)% (252) (7)%
    Gross operating income 54 96% 227 39%
    Cost of risk (33) (52)% (126) (26)%
    Income before tax 20 ns 97 ns
    Exceptional items (1) (99)% (5) (96)%
    Underlying2income before tax 21 ns 102 125%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 76.2% (3.5)pp 73.9% (2.1)pp

    Digital & AI

    At the end of December 2024, 11.8 million customers were active on Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne mobile applications (up 3% vs. end-December 2023).

    The “AI for all” in-house generative AI solution was being used by over 26,000 employees at the end of December 2024 (i.e. 25% of all Group employees.)

    Thanks to transformative AI, 10 million documents had been verified automatically (+71%) by end-December 2024.

    Payments

    Net banking income enjoyed 10% growth in Q4-24 and 6% growth in full-year 2024, while operating expenses rose 9% in Q4-24 and 3% in full-year 2024.

    The widespread use of Wero (European Payments Initiative) enables all customers to send and receive money via instant account-to-account payments in less than 10 seconds. Wero handles 2 million transactions per month and serves over 2 million active customers.

    In the Payment Solutions business, the number of card transactions rose by 5% year-on-year, with continued growth in mobile and instant payments (+54% and +49% year-on-year respectively) and the ongoing rollout of Android POS terminals (multiplied by a factor of 2). The launch of Google Pay has strengthened our range of mobile products.

    Oney Bank

    Net banking income rose by 8% in 2024 thanks to improved margin rates and the asset repricing effect. Oney maintained its leadership position in the BNPL4 segment in France while business was robust in Europe outside France (+19% in volumes year-on-year).

    Management expenses remained well under control, falling by 7% in full-year 2024.

    The sharp drop in the cost of risk in 2024 (-26% YoY) confirms the positive impact of our action plans.
    Net banking income for the Digital & Payments business unit rose by 14% in Q4-24 and by 7% in full-year 2024, to reach 227 million euros and 873 million euros respectively.

    The business unit’s operating expenses were up 1% in Q4-24 and down 1% in full-year 2024, to reach 173 million euros and 646 million euros respectively.

    This led to a 3.5pp improvement in the underlying cost/income ratio3 to 76.2% in Q4-24 and a 2.1pp improvement to 73.9% in full-year 2024.

    Gross operating income, which benefitted from positive jaws effects, rose by 96% in Q4-24 to 54 million euros, and by 39% to 227 million euros in full-year 2024.

    The cost of risk fell by 52% in Q4-24 to -33 million euros, and by 26% in full-year 2024 to -126 million euros.

    Income before tax amounted to 20 million euros in Q4-24 and 97 million euros full-year 2024.

    Underlying2income before tax came to 21 million euros in Q4-24 and 102 million euros in full-year 2024, equal to a sharp rise of 125%.

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses 4 Buy Now Pay Later

    4.2 Global Financial Services
    The GFS business unit includes the Asset & Wealth Management activities and the Corporate & Investment Banking activities of
    Natixis.

    €m1   Q4-24 % Change Constant Fx % change 2024 % Change Constant Fx % change
    Net banking income   2,055 8% 7% 7,947 8% 8%
    o/w CIB   1,087 5% 5% 4,440 7% 7%
    o/w AWM   968 11% 10% 3,507 10% 10%
    Operating expenses   (1,501) 8% 7% (5,651) 7% 7%
    o/w CIB   (738) 5% 5% (2,889) 8% 8%
    o/w AWM   (763) 11% 10% (2,763) 6% 6%
    Gross operating income   553 8% 7% 2,296 10% 10%
    Cost of risk   (86) 18%   (268) 73%  
    Income before tax   479 14%   2,051 4%  
    Exceptional items   0 ns   0 ns  
    Underlying2income before tax   479 10%   2,051 3%  
    Underlying cost/income ratio3   73.1% 0.7pp   71.1% (0.1)pp  

    GFS revenues rose by 8% in both Q4-24 and full-year 2024 to respectively 2,055 million euros (+7% at constant exchange rates) and 7,947 million euros (+8% at constant exchange rates). These trends are the result of the robust performance of our global business lines.

    In Q4-24, revenues generated by the Corporate & Investment Banking business rose by 5% to 1,087 million euros thanks, in particular, to the strong performance achieved by the Global Markets (+19%) and Global Finance (+2%) activities in full-year 2024. Net banking income for the CIB business in full-year 2024 rose by 7% to 4,440 million euros.

    In Q4-24, Asset & Wealth Management revenues rose 10% at constant exchange rates to 968 million euros, chiefly thanks to higher management fees year-on-year. Assets under management rose by 13% since the begging of the year to reach a historic high of 1,317 billion euros, with record inflows and a strong positive market and change effects.

    GFS operating expenses increased by 8% in Q4-24 and by 7% in 2024, to respectively 1,501 million euros (+7% at constant exchange rates) and 5,651 million euros (+7% at constant exchange rates). This rise in expenses is in line with revenue growth, leading to positive jaws effects in full-year 2024.

    In Q4-24, Corporate & Investment Banking operating expenses rose by 5% in line with revenue growth. Asset & Wealth Management expenses rose by 10% at constant exchange rates in Q4-24.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3 was 73.1% in Q4-24 and 71.1% in full-year 2024, up 0.7pp and down 0.1pp respectively.

    Gross operating income rose 8% in Q4-24 to 553 million euros (+7% at constant exchange rates); it rose 10% in full-year 2024 to 2,296 million euros (+10% at constant exchange rates).

    The cost of risk increased by 18% in Q4-24 and by 73% in full-year 2024, to -86 million euros and -268 million euros respectively.

    Income before tax rose by 14% in Q4-24 to 479 million euros, and by 4% in full-year 2024 to 2,051 million euros.

    Underlying2income before tax for Q4-24 was 479 million euros, up 10%, and stood at 2,051 million euros in full-year 2024, up 3%.

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses

    4.2.1        Corporate & Investment Banking
    The Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) business unit includes the Global markets, Global finance, Investment banking and
    M&A activities of Natixis.

    €m1 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 1,087 5% 4,440 7%
    Operating expenses (738) 5% (2,889) 8%
    Gross operating income 349 5% 1,551 3%
    Cost of risk (98) 60% (282) 78%
    Income before tax 262 3% 1,293 (3)%
    Exceptional items 0 ns 0 ns
    Underlying2income before tax 262 1% 1,293 (4)%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 67.9% 0.2pp 65.1% 1.2pp

    Global Markets revenues rose by 19% to 452 million euros in full-year 2024. Revenues generated by the Equity business rose 53% to 96 million euros in Q4-24, driven by a strong performance in the Global Securities Financing activity. FIC-T revenues rose by 14% to 354 million euros in Q4-24, driven by a strong performance in the Credit and Foreign Exchange segments.

    Global Finance revenues were up 2%, rising to 466 million euros in Q4-24 thanks to the sustained momentum of Trade Finance activities.

    Investment Banking revenues were up 6% to 50 million euros in Q4-24, driven by the Acquisition & Strategic Finance and SECM business lines.
    The M&A business lines recorded revenues of 361 million euros in full-year 2024, up 11% year-on-year.
    Natixis Partners has acquired a stake in Financière de Courcelles in order to strengthen its position in the French M&A market within the small, mid, and upper mid-cap segments.

    Net banking income generated by the Corporate & Investment Banking business unit rose by 5% in Q4-24 and by 7% in full-year 2024, to 1,087 million euros and 4,440 million euros respectively.

    Operating expenses, which stood at 738 million euros in Q4-24, reflect 5% growth; expenses rose 8% in full-year 2024 to 2,889 million euros, in line with revenue growth.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3 increased by 0.2pp to 67.9% in Q4-24, and by 1.2pp to 65.1% in full-year 2024.

    Gross operating income rose by 5% in Q4-24 to 349 million euros, and by 3% in full-year 2024 to 1,551 million euros.

    The cost of risk stood at -98 million euros, up 60%, in Q4-24, and at -282 million euros, up 78%, in full-year 2024.

    Income before tax was up 3% to 262 million euros in Q4-24, and down 3% to 1,293 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Underlying2income before tax was up 1% to 262 million euros in Q4-24, and down 4% to 1,293 million euros in full-year 2024.

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses

    4.2.2        Asset & Wealth Management
    The business unit includes the Asset & Wealth Management activities of Natixis.

    €m1 Q4-24 % Change 2024 % Change
    Net banking income 968 11% 3,507 10%
    Operating expenses (763) 11% (2,763) 6%
    Gross operating income 205 12% 744 27%
    Income before tax 217 32% 759 21%
    Exceptional items 0 ns 0 ns
    Underlying2income before tax 217 24% 759 16%
    Underlying cost/income ratio3 78.8% 1.0pp 78.8% (2.0)pp

    In Asset Management, assets under management4 reached an all-time high of 1,317 billion euros at the end of December 2024, up 13% since the beginning of the year, with record net inflows and strong positive market and currency effects.

    Net inflows into Asset Management4 reached 40 billion euros in full-year 2024, chiefly thanks to fixed-income products from Loomis Sayles and DNCA, and to life insurance products. Private asset inflows remained positive on an annual basis.

    ESG assets accounted for 40.3% of assets under management at the end of December 2024.

    Asset management revenues grew at constant exchange rates by 10% in full-year 2024 but also in Q4-2024, driven by a higher level of average assets under management (+10% in Q4-2024).

    In Asset Management4 in full-year 2024, the total fee rate (excluding performance fees) stood at 25.2bps (stable) and at 36.8bps excluding insurance asset management (-1.1bp).

    Net banking income for the Asset & Wealth Management business unit rose by 11% in Q4-24 to 968 million euros, and by 10% in full-year 2024 to 3,507 million euros.

    Operating expenses came to 763 million euros, up 11% in Q4-24, and to 2,763 million euros, up 6% in full-year 2024.

    The underlying cost/income ratio3increased by 1.0pp in Q4-24 to 78.8%, and improved by 2.0pp in full-year 2024 to 78.8%.

    Gross operating income rose by 12% to 205 million euros in Q4-24, and by 27% to 744 million euros in full-year 2024.

    Income before tax came to 217 million euros in Q4-24 (+32%), and to 759 million euros in full-year 2024 (+21%).

    Underlying2income before tax rose by 24% to 217 million euros in Q4-24, and by 16% to 759 million euros in full-year 2024.
            

    1 Reported figures until “Income before tax” 2 “Underlying” means exclusive of exceptional items 3 The business line cost/income ratios have been calculated on the basis of net banking income and underlying operating expenses 4 Asset management: Europe includes Dynamic Solutions and Vega IM; North America includes WCM IM; excluding Wealth Management

    ANNEXES

    Notes on methodology

    Presentation on the pro-forma quarterly results

    The 2023 quarterly series are presented pro forma with changes in standards and organization:
    The sectoral reallocation of the results of the private equity activities of the entities BP Développement & CE Développement from Corporate center to RB&I and GFS divisions.
    The new management standards adopted by Natixis (including the normative allocation of capital to the business lines) within the GFS division.
    The main evolutions impact RB&I, GFS and the Corporate center.
    The data for 2023 has been recalculated to obtain a like-for-like basis of comparison.
    The quarterly series of Groupe BPCE remain unchanged.
    The tables showing the transition from reported 2023 to pro-forma 2023 are presented on annexes.

    Exceptional items

    Exceptional items and the reconciliation of the reported income statement to the underlying income statement of Groupe BPCE are detailed in the annexes.

    Net banking income

    Customer net interest income, excluding regulated home savings schemes, is computed on the basis of interest earned from transactions with customers, excluding net interest on centralized savings products (Livret A, Livret Développement Durable, Livret Épargne Logement passbook savings accounts) in addition to changes in provisions for regulated home purchase savings schemes. Net interest on centralized savings is assimilated to commissions.

    Operating expenses

    Operating expenses correspond to the aggregate total of the “Operating Expenses” (as presented in the second amendment of Group’s universal registration document, note 4.7 appended to the consolidated financial statements of Groupe BPCE) and “Depreciation, amortization and impairment for property, plant and equipment and intangible assets.”

    Cost/income ratio

    Groupe BPCE’s cost/income ratio is calculated on the basis of net banking income and operating expenses excluding exceptional items. The calculations are detailed in the annexes.
    Business line cost/income ratios are calculated on the basis of underlying net banking income and operating expenses.

    Cost of risk

    The cost of risk is expressed in basis points and measures the level of risk per business line as a percentage of the volume of loan outstandings; it is calculated by comparing net provisions booked with respect to credit risks of the period to gross customer loan outstandings at the beginning of the period.

    Loan oustandings and deposits & savings

    Restatements regarding transitions from book outstandings to outstandings under management are as follows:
    Loan outstandings: the scope of outstandings under management does not include securities classified as customer loans and receivables and other securities classified as financial operations,
    Deposits & savings: the scope of outstandings under management does not include debt securities (certificates of deposit and savings bonds).

    Capital Adequacy

    Common Equity Tier 1 is determined in accordance with the applicable CRR II/CRD IV rules, after deductions.
    Additional Tier-1 capital takes account of subordinated debt issues that have become non-eligible and subject to ceilings at the phase-out rate in force.
    The leverage ratio is calculated in accordance with the applicable CRR II/CRD V rules. Centralized outstandings of regulated savings are excluded from the leverage exposures as are Central Bank exposures for a limited period of time (pursuant to ECB decision 2021/27 of June 18, 2021).

    Total loss-absorbing capacity

    The amount of liabilities eligible for inclusion in the numerator used to calculate the Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) ratio is determined by article 92a of CRR. Please note that a quantum of Senior Preferred securities has not been included in our calculation of TLAC.
    This amount is consequently comprised of the 4 following items:

    • Common Equity Tier 1 in accordance with the applicable CRR II/CRD IV rules,
    • Additional Tier-1 capital in accordance with the applicable CRR II/CRD IV rules,
    • Tier-2 capital in accordance with the applicable CRR II/CRD IV rules,
    • Subordinated liabilities not recognized in the capital mentioned above and whose residual maturity is greater than 1 year, namely:
      • The share of additional Tier-1 capital instruments not recognized in common equity (i.e. included in the phase-out),
      • The share of the prudential discount on Tier-2 capital instruments whose residual maturity is greater than 1 year,
      • The nominal amount of Senior Non-Preferred securities maturing in more than 1 year.

    Liquidity

    Total liquidity reserves comprise the following:

    • Central bank-eligible assets include: ECB-eligible securities not eligible for the LCR, taken for their ECB valuation (after ECB haircut), securities retained (securitization and covered bonds) that are available and ECB-eligible taken for their ECB valuation (after ECB haircut) and private receivables available and eligible for central bank funding (ECB and the Federal Reserve), net of central bank funding,
    • LCR eligible assets comprising the Group’s LCR reserve taken for their LCR valuation,
    • Liquid assets placed with central banks (ECB and the Federal Reserve), net of US Money Market Funds deposits and to which fiduciary money is added.

    Short-term funding corresponds to funding with an initial maturity of less than, or equal to, 1 year and the short-term maturities of medium-/long-term debt correspond to debt with an initial maturity date of more than 1 year maturing within the next 12 months.
    Customer deposits are subject to the following adjustments:

    • Addition of security issues placed by the Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne retail banking networks with their customers, and certain operations carried out with counterparties comparable to customer deposits
    • Withdrawal of short-term deposits held by certain financial customers collected by Natixis in pursuit of its intermediation activities.

    Business line indicators – BP & CE networks

    Average rate (%) for residential mortgages: the average client rate for residential mortgages corresponds to the weighted average of actuarial rates for committed residential mortgages, excluding ancillary items (application fees, guarantees, creditor insurance). The rates are weighted by the amounts committed (offers made, net of cancellations) over the period under review. The calculation is based on aggregate residential mortgages, excluding zero interest rate loans.

    Average rate (%) for consumer loans: the average client rate for consumer loans corresponds to the weighted average of the actuarial rates for committed consumer loans, excluding ancillary items (application fees, guarantees, creditor insurance). The rates are weighted by the amounts committed (offers made net of cancellations) over the period under review. The calculation is based on the scope of amortizable consumer loans, excluding overdraft and revolving loans.

    Average rate (%) for equipment loans: the average customer rate for equipment loans is the average of the actuarial rates for equipment loans in each volume-weighted market.

    Digital indicators

    The number of active customers using mobile apps corresponds to the number of customers who have made at least one visit via one mobile apps over one month.
    The number of documents checked automatically corresponds to the number of documents transmitted by customers through their digital spaces or in a physical branch and checked automatically: eligibility for the LEP popular passbook savings account and customer intelligence documents (KYC) for consumer loans, mortgages (digital) and new business relationships (digital and physical branches).

    Impact indicators

    Financing for energy-efficient home renovation for individual clients: this indicator calculates the aggregate annual production of loans granted to individual customers (natural persons) to finance energy renovation work, expressed in €m:

    – Rénovation Energétique (Energy Renovation): consumer credit for environmentally-friendly properties,
    – ECO PTZ MPR: consumer credit designed for renovation work eligible for the MaPrimeRenov program (government scheme to support energy-efficient home renovation work) for up to a total of €30,000,
    – ECO PTZ: interest-free regulated home improvement loan for up to a total of €50,000

    Number of unique visitors to the ‘Advice and Sustainable Solutions’ digital module: this indicator calculates the aggregate annual number of unique visitors who consult the ‘Advice and sustainable solutions’ page on BP and CE mobile applications.

    Financing BtoB clients in their transition and decarbonization efforts: this indicator calculates the aggregate annual amount of loans granted to businesses to help finance their transition and decarbonization efforts, expressed in €m. This aggregate total is derived from the sum of BtoB loan amounts (Green loans + Impact loans + Vehicle Leasing + Green Lease with Purchase Option/Long-Term Rental agreements (LOA/LDD Green).

    Within the scope of CIB activities, Green revenues are comprised of:

    • Sustainable Finance (GSH scope)
    • Renewable & new energies franchises
    • Activities with clients/assets rated Dark & Medium Green (Green Weighting Factor).

    (restated for scope reconciliations).

    Reconciliation of 2023 data to pro forma data

    Retail banking and Insurance Q1-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 3,891 (2,496) 1,107 (269) 840
    Sectoral reallocation 12 (1) 11 0 11
    Pro forma figures 3,903 (2,497) 1,118 (269) 851
    Global Financial Services Q1-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 1,822 (1,303) 590 (146) 432
    Sectoral reallocation 0 0 0 0 0
    New rules 32 (2) 30 (4) 26
    Pro forma figures 1,854 (1,305) 621 (151) 458
    Corporate center Q1-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 102 (788) (729) (10) (739)
    Sectoral reallocation (12) 1 (11) 0 (11)
    New rules (32) 2 (30) 4 (26)
    Pro forma figures 57 (785) (771) (5) (776)
    Retail banking and Insurance Q2-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 3,655 (2,459) 952 (224) 729
    Sectoral reallocation (15) (1) (15) (0) (15)
    Pro forma figures 3,640 (2,460) 936 (224) 713
    Global Financial Services Q2-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 1,798 (1,282) 429 (115) 300
    Sectoral reallocation (0) (0) (0) (0) (0)
    New rules 31 (5) 26 (3) 22
    Pro forma figures 1,829 (1,287) 455 (118) 322
    Corporate center Q2-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 13 (58) (44) (14) (56)
    Sectoral reallocation 15 1 16 0 16
    New rules (31) 5 (26) 3 (22)
    Pro forma figures (3) (52) (54) (10) (63)
    Retail banking and Insurance Q3-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 3,721 (2,358) 1,072 (268) 799
    Sectoral reallocation (13) (1) (14) 0 (14)
    Pro forma figures 3,709 (2,359) 1,058 (268) 785
    Global Financial Services Q3-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 1,736 (1,279) 444 (114) 319
    Sectoral reallocation (0) (0) (0) 0 (0)
    New rules 31 (4) 27 (4) 23
    Pro forma figures 1,767 (1,283) 470 (118) 341
    Corporate center Q3-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures (3) (175) (176) (23) (200)
    Sectoral reallocation 13 1 14 0 14
    New rules (31) 4 (27) 4 (23)
    Pro forma figures (21) (170) (189) (19) (210)
    Retail banking and Insurance Q4-23      
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income    		      
    Reported figures 3,557 (2,497) 395 (122) 294      
    Sectoral reallocation 19 (1) 18 (0) 18      
    Pro forma figures 3,576 (2,499) 413 (122) 312      
                 
    Global Financial Services Q4-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 1,874 (1,389) 391 (118) 255
    Sectoral reallocation 0 (1) (0) (0) (0)
    New rules 33 (4) 29 (3) 26
    Pro forma figures 1,908 (1,394) 420 (121) 280
    Corporate center Q4-23
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Income before tax Income
    tax    		 Net
    income
    Reported figures 31 (243) (249) 81 (168)
    Sectoral reallocation (20) 2 (18) 0 (18)
    New rules (33) 4 (29) 3 (26)
    Pro forma figures (22) (237) (296) 84 (211)

    Q4-24 & Q4-23 results : reconcialiation of reported data to alternative performance measures

    €m   Net banking income Operating expenses Cost of
    risk    		 Gains or
    losses on
    other assets    		 Income
    before tax    		 Net income
    – Group share
    Reported Q4-24 results   6,046 (4,184) (596) (35) 1,262 913
    Transformation and reorganization costs Business lines/Corporate center 0 (86)   (1) (87) (64)
    Disposals Corporate center       (1) (1) (1)
    Q4-24 results excluding exceptional items   6,045 (4,098) (596) (34) 1,349 977
    €m   Net banking income Operating expenses Cost of
    risk    		 Gains or
    losses on
    other assets    		 Income
    before tax    		 Net income
    – Group share
    Pro forma reported Q4-23 results   5,462 (4,129) (744) (43) 537 381
    Transformation and reorganization costs Business lines/Corporate center (5) (54) (34)   (93) (57)
    Disposals Corporate center       (43) (43) (43)
    Pro forma Q4-23 results excluding exceptional items   5,467 (4,076) (710) (0) 672 481

    2024 & 2023 results : reconcialiation of reported data to alternative performance measures

    €m   Net banking income Operating expenses Cost of
    risk    		 Gains or
    losses on
    other assets    		 Income
    before tax    		 Net income
    – Group share
    Reported 2024 results   23,317 (16,384) (2,061) 28 4,956 3,520
    Transformation and reorganization costs Business lines/Corporate center 3 (208)   (1) (206) (153)
    Disposals Corporate center 0     (3) (3) (3)
    2024 results excluding exceptional items   23,314 (16,176) (2,061) 32 5,165 3,675
    €m   Net banking income Operating expenses Cost of
    risk    		 Gains or
    losses on
    other assets    		 Income
    before tax    		 Net income
    – Group share
    Pro forma reported 2023 results   22,198 (16,328) (1,731) 8 4,182 2,804
    Transformation and reorganization costs Business lines/Corporate center 2 (213) (32)   (242) (164)
    Disposals  Corporate center       (45) (45) (44)
    Litigations Business lines/Corporate center 87       87 87
    Pro forma 2023 results excluding exceptional items   22,108 (16,115) (1,699) 53 4,381 2,925

    Groupe BPCE : underying cost to income ratio

    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Underlying
    cost income ratio
    Q4-24 reported figures 6,046 (4,184)  
    Impact of exceptional items 0 (86)  
    Q4-24 underlying figures 6,045 (4,098) 67.8%
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Underlying
    cost income ratio
    Q4-23 Pro forma reported figures 5,462 (4,129)  
    Impact of exceptional items (5) (54)  
    Q4-23 Pro forma underlying figures 5,467 (4,076) 74.6%

    Groupe BPCE : underying cost to income ratio

    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Underlying
    cost income ratio
    2024 reported figures 23,317 (16,384)  
    Impact of exceptional items 3 (208)  
    2024 underlying figures 23,314 (16,176) 69.4%
    €m Net banking income Operating expenses Underlying
    cost income ratio
    2023 Pro forma reported figures 22,198 (16,328)  
    Impact of exceptional items 89 (213)  
    2023 Pro forma underlying figures 22,108 (16,115) 72.9%

    Groupe BPCE : quarterly income statement per business line

      RETAIL BANKING
    & INSURANCE    		 GLOBAL FINANCIAL SERVICES CORPORATE CENTER GROUPE
    BPCE
    €m Q4-24 Q4-23 Q4-24 Q4-23 Q4-24 Q4-23 Q4-24 Q4-23 %
    Net banking income 4,064 3,576 2,055 1,908 (73) (22) 6,046 5,462 11%
    Operating expenses (2,497) (2,499) (1,501) (1,394) (186) (237) (4,184) (4,129) 1%
    Gross operating income 1,567 1,077 553 514 (259) (259) 1,862 1,332 40%
    Cost of risk (556) (643) (86) (73) 46 (28) (596) (744) (20)%
    Income before tax 998 413 479 420 (215) (296) 1,262 537 x 2
    Income tax (222) (122) (124) (121) 19 84 (326) (159) x 2
    Non-controlling interests (5) 21 (18) (19) 0 1 (23) 3 ns
    Net income – Group share 772 312 337 280 (196) (211) 913 381 x 2

    Groupe BPCE : 2024 income statement per business line

      RETAIL BANKING
    & INSURANCE    		 GLOBAL FINANCIAL SERVICES CORPORATE CENTER GROUPE
    BPCE
    €m 2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023 %
    Net banking income 15,397 14,828 7,947 7,358 (27) 12 23,317 22,198 5%
    Operating expenses (9,902) (9,815) (5,651) (5,269) (831) (1,244) (16,384) (16,328) 0%
    Gross operating income 5,495 5,013 2,296 2,088 (858) (1,232) 6,933 5,870 18%
    Cost of risk (1,751) (1,505) (268) (154) (43) (72) (2,061) (1,731) 19%
    Income before tax 3,807 3,526 2,051 1,966 (902) (1,310) 4,956 4,182 19%
    Income tax (891) (882) (534) (507) 67 49 (1,357) (1,340) 1%
    Non-controlling interests (14) 18 (66) (56) 1 1 (79) (38) x 2
    Net income – Group share 2,902 2,661 1,452 1,402 (834) (1,260) 3,520 2,804 26%

    Groupe BPCE : quarterly series

    GROUPE BPCE
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 5,815 5,467 5,455 5,462 5,753 5,626 5,892 6,046
    Operating expenses (4,587) (3,799) (3,812) (4,129) (4,151) (4,008) (4,041) (4,184)
    Gross operating income 1,228 1,667 1,642 1,332 1,602 1,618 1,851 1,862
    Cost of risk (326) (342) (319) (744) (382) (560) (523) (596)
    Income before tax 968 1,337 1,339 537 1,233 1,124 1,336 1,262
    Net income – Group share 533 973 917 381 875 806 925 913

    Groupe BPCE : Consolidated balance sheet

    ASSETS
    €m    		 Dec. 31, 2024 Dec. 31, 2023
    Cash and amounts due from central banks 133,186 152,669
    Financial assets at fair value through profit or loss 230,521 214,582
    Hedging derivatives 7,624 8,855
    Financial assets at fair value through other comprehensive income 57,166 48,073
    Securities at amortized cost 27,021 26,373
    Loans and advances to banks and similar at amortized cost 115,862 108,631
    Loans and receivables due from customers at amortized cost 851,843 839,457
    Revaluation difference on interest rate risk-hedged portfolios (856) (2,626)
    Financial investments of insurance activities 115,631 103,615
    Insurance contracts issued – Assets 1,134 1,124
    Reinsurance contracts held – Assets 9,320 9,564
    Current tax assets 640 829
    Deferred tax assets 4,160 4,575
    Accrued income and other assets 16,444 14,611
    Non-current assets held for sale 438 –
    Investments in accounted for using equity method 2,146 1,616
    Investment property 733 717
    Property, plant and equipment 6,085 6,023
    Intangible assets 1,147 1,110
    Goodwill 4,312 4,224
    TOTAL ASSETS 1,584,558 1,544,022
    LIABILITIES
    €m    		 Dec. 31, 2024 Dec. 31, 2023
    Amounts due to central banks 1 2
    Financial liabilities at fair value through profit or loss 218,963 204,023
    Hedging derivatives 14,260 14,973
    Debt securities 304,957 292,598
    Amounts due to banks and similar 69,953 79,634
    Amounts due to customers 723,090 711,658
    Revaluation difference on interest rate risk-hedged portfolios, liabilities 14 159
    Insurance contracts issued – Liabilities 117,551 106,137
    Reinsurance contracts held – Liabilities 119 149
    Current tax liabilities 2,206 2,026
    Deferred tax liabilities 1,323 1,640
    Accrued expenses and other liabilities 20,892 22,492
    Liabilities associated with non-current assets held for sale 312 –
    Provisions 4,748 4,825
    Subordinated debt 18,401 18,801
    Shareholders’ equity 87,768 84,905
    Equity attributable to equity holders of the parent 87,137 84,351
    Non-controlling interests 630 553
    TOTAL LIABILITIES 1,584,558 1,544,022

    Groupe BPCE : Goodwill

    €m Dec. 31, 2023 Acquisitions IRFS5 reclassifications Translation adjustments Dec. 31, 2024
    Retail Banking & Insurance 822 58     879
    Asset & Wealth Management 3,257 1 (72) 95 3,280
    Corporate & Investment Banking 144     7 151
    Total 4,224 58 (72) 102 4,312

    Groupe BPCE: Statement of changes in shareholders’ equity

    €m Equity attributable to shareholders’ equity
    December 31, 2023 84,407
    Restatements1 (56)
    December 31, 2023 restated 84,351
    Distributions (833)
    Change in capital (cooperative shares) 90
    Impact of acquisitions and disposals on non-controlling interests (minority interests) (48)
    Income 3,520
    Changes in gains & losses directly recognized in equity 144
    Capital gains and losses reclassified as reserves (31)
    Others (56)
    December 31, 2024 87,137

    1 Opening shareholders’ equity has been adjusted for Funding Valuation Adjustments whose non-material impact on income has not given rise to a change in the latter in the 2024 consolidated financial statements

    Retail Banking & Insurance: quarterly income statement

      BANQUE POPULAIRE NETWORK CAISSE D’EPARGNE NETWORK FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS & EXPERTISE INSURANCE DIGITAL & PAYMENTS OTHER NETWORK RETAIL BANKING & INSURANCE
    €m Q4-24 Q4-23 % Q4-24 Q4-23 % Q4-24 Q4-23 % Q4-24 Q4-23 % Q4-24 Q4-23 % Q4-24 Q4-23 % Q4-24 Q4-23 %  
    Net banking income 1,614 1,382 17% 1,616 1,423 14% 334 335 (0)% 171 146 17% 227 199 14% 101 91 12% 4,064 3,576 14%  
    Operating expenses (980) (975) 1% (1,084) (1,081) 0% (169) (167) 1% (36) (41) (10)% (173) (171) 1% (53) (63) (16)% (2,497) (2,499) (0)%  
    Gross operating income 634 407 56% 531 343 55% 165 168 (2)% 135 105 28% 54 27 96% 48 28 75% 1,567 1,077 45%  
    Cost of risk (266) (282) (6)% (205) (218) (6)% (38) (54) (31)%       (33) (69) (52)% (15) (19) (23)% (556) (643) (13)%  
    Income before tax 352 149 x2 328 126 x3 125 112 12% 141 107 32% 20 (89) ns 33 9 x4 998 413 x2  
    Income tax (73) (45) 62% (78) (20) x4 (33) (27) 22% (29) (25) 16% 0 (2) ns (8) (2) x4 (222) (122) 82%  
    Non-controlling interests (0) (6) (94)% (1) (3) (66)% 0 (0) ns 0 (1) ns (3) 30 ns       (5) 21 ns  
    Net income – Group share 278 98 x3 248 103 x2 92 85 8% 112 81 39% 16 (61) ns 25 7 x4 772 312 x2  
      BANQUE POPULAIRE NETWORK CAISSE D’EPARGNE NETWORK FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS & EXPERTISE INSURANCE DIGITAL & PAYMENTS OTHER NETWORK RETAIL BANKING & INSURANCE
    €m 2024 2023 % 2024 2023 % 2024 2023 % 2024 2023 % 2024 2023 % 2024 2023 % 2024 2023 %  
    Net banking income 6,098 5,862 4% 6,054 5,858 3% 1,303 1,274 2% 694 633 10% 873 816 7% 375 384 (2)% 15,397 14,828 4,%  
    Operating expenses (4,047) (3,970) 2% (4,216) (4,181) 1% (636) (630) 1% (143) (163) (12)% (646) (652) (1)% (213) (218) (2)% (9,902) (9,815) 1%  
    Gross operating income 2,051 1,892 8% 1,838 1,677 10% 667 644 3% 550 470 17% 227 164 39% 162 166 (2)% 5,495 5,013 10%  
    Cost of risk (814) (651) 25% (640) (553) 16% (108) (98) 11%       (126) (171) (26)% (62) (33) 89% (1,751) (1,505) 16%  
    Income before tax 1,285 1,308 (2)% 1,200 1,125 7% 555 545 2% 566 475 19% 97 (68) ns 103 140 (26)% 3,807 3,526 8%  
    Income tax (307) (329) (7)% (264) (254) 4% (146) (140) 4% (123) (99) 24% (27) (25) 9% (24) (35) (30)% (891) (882) 1%  
    Non-controlling interests (9) (24) (64)% (5) (7) (24)% 0 (0) ns 0 (0) ns (0) 49 ns       (14) 18 ns  
    Net income – Group share 970 954 2% 931 864 8% 409 405 1% 443 376 18% 70 (43) ns 79 106 (25)% 2,902 2,661 9%  

    Retail Banking & Insurance: 2024 income statement

    Retail banking & insurance: quarterly series

    RETAIL BANKING & INSURANCE
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 3,903 3,640 3,709 3,576 3,763 3,701 3,869 4,064
    Operating expenses (2,497) (2,460) (2,359) (2,499) (2,547) (2,456) (2,403) (2,497)
    Gross operating income 1,406 1,180 1,350 1,077 1,217 1,245 1,467 1,567
    Cost of risk (308) (252) (302) (643) (296) (475) (423) (556)
    Income before tax 1,118 936 1,058 413 934 831 1,044 998
    Net income – Group share 851 713 785 312 709 637 785 772

    Retail Banking & Insurance: Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne networks quarterly series

    BANQUE POPULAIRE NETWORK
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 1,569 1,442 1,469 1,382 1,489 1,489 1,506 1,614
    Operating expenses (1,018) (1,015) (961) (975) (1,043) (1,025) (999) (980)
    Gross operating income 551 427 508 407 445 464 508 634
    Cost of risk (132) (110) (127) (282) (125) (228) (195) (266)
    Income before tax 434 328 398 149 329 290 315 352
    Net income – Group share 332 240 284 98 252 210 230 278
                     
    CAISSE D’EPARGNE NETWORK
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 1,537 1,465 1,432 1,423 1,454 1,467 1,517 1,616
    Operating expenses (1,066) (1,041) (993) (1,081) (1,085) (1,038) (1,008) (1,084)
    Gross operating income 470 424 440 343 368 429 509 531
    Cost of risk (136) (84) (115) (218) (100) (176) (159) (205)
    Income before tax 334 340 325 126 270 252 350 328
    Net income – Group share 253 256 253 103 208 194 281 248

    Retail Banking & Insurance: FSE quarterly series

    FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS & EXPERTISE
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 315 306 318 335 327 320 322 334
    Operating expenses (157) (151) (154) (167) (162) (154) (151) (169)
    Gross operating income 158 155 164 168 166 166 171 165
    Cost of risk (6) (19) (18) (54) (24) (22) (24) (38)
    Income before tax 151 136 146 112 141 143 146 125
    Net income – Group share 112 102 107 85 104 106 108 92

    Retail Banking & Insurance: Insurance quarterly series

    INSURANCE
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 180 126 181 146 188 118 217 171
    Operating expenses (43) (37) (42) (41) (42) (25) (40) (36)
    Gross operating income 137 89 139 105 146 93 177 135
    Income before tax 139 93 137 107 149 99 177 141
    Net income – Group share 109 83 103 81 113 92 126 112

    Retail Banking & Insurance: Digital & Payments quarterly series

    DIGITAL & PAYMENTS
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 205 203 209 199 215 214 218 227
    Operating expenses (161) (163) (157) (171) (160) (159) (154) (173)
    Gross operating income 44 40 52 27 55 55 64 54
    Cost of risk (32) (41) (29) (69) (31) (32) (30) (33)
    Income before tax 8 (6) 19 (89) 24 22 32 20
    Net income – Group share 7 (3) 13 (61) 17 16 21 16

    Retail Banking & Insurance: Other network quarterly series

    OTHER NETWORK
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 97 97 99 91 91 93 90 101
    Operating expenses (51) (52) (52) (63) (55) (55) (51) (53)
    Gross operating income 46 45 47 28 37 38 39 48
    Cost of risk (2) 2 (14) (19) (16) (17) (14) (15)
    Income before tax 52 47 33 9 20 25 25 33
    Net income – Group share 39 36 25 7 16 19 20 25

    Global Financial Services: quarterly income statement per business line

      ASSET AND WEALTH MANAGEMENT CORPORATE & INVESTMENT
    BANKING    		 GLOBAL FINANCIAL
    SERVICES
    €m Q4-24 Q4-23 Q4-24 Q4-23 Q4-24 Q4-23 %
    Net banking income 968 874 1,087 1,034 2,055 1,908 8%
    Operating expenses (763) (691) (738) (703) (1,501) (1,394) 8%
    Gross operating income 205 183 349 331 553 514 8%
    Cost of risk 12 (12) (98) (62) (86) (73) 18%
    Share in net income of associates 0 0 12 4 12 4 x3
    Gains or losses on other assets 0 (7) 0 (17) 0 (24) ns
    Income before tax 217 165 262 255 479 420 14%
    Net income – Group share 143 105 194 176 337 280 20%

    Global Financial Services: 2024 income statement per business line

      ASSET AND WEALTH MANAGEMENT CORPORATE & INVESTMENT
    BANKING    		 GLOBAL FINANCIAL
    SERVICES
    €m 2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023 %
    Net banking income 3,507 3,192 4,440 4,166 7,947 7,358 8%
    Operating expenses (2,763) (2,604) (2,889) (2,666) (5,651) (5,269) 7%
    Gross operating income 744 588 1,551 1,500 2,296 2,088 10%
    Cost of risk 14 4 (282) (158) (268) (154) 73%
    Share in net income of associates 0 0 23 13 23 14 67%
    Gains or losses on other assets 0 35 0 (17) 0 18 ns
    Income before tax 759 627 1,293 1,338 2,051 1,966 4%
    Net income – Group share 500 425 952 977 1,452 1,402 4%

    Global Financial Services: quarterly series

    GLOBAL FINANCIAL SERVICES
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24  
    Net banking income 1,854 1,829 1,767 1,908 1,933 1,983 1,976 2,055  
    Operating expenses (1,305) (1,287) (1,283) (1,394) (1,368) (1,366) (1,415) (1,501)  
    Gross operating income 549 542 483 514 564 617 561 553  
    Cost of risk 27 (91) (17) (73) (58) (82) (41) (86)  
    Income before tax 621 455 470 420 510 539 525 479  
    Net income – Group share 458 322 341 280 364 384 366 337  

    Corporate & Investment Banking: quarterly series

    CORPORATE & INVESTMENT BANKING
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24  
    Net banking income 1,074 1,056 1,002 1,034 1,102 1,133 1,118 1,087  
    Operating expenses (661) (651) (650) (703) (706) (694) (751) (738)  
    Gross operating income 412 405 352 331 396 439 367 349  
    Cost of risk 21 (90) (28) (62) (54) (91) (39) (98)  
    Income before tax 437 318 328 255 346 352 333 262  
    Net income – Group share 321 233 247 176 255 261 242 194  

    Asset & Wealth Management: quarterly series

    ASSET & WEALTH MANAGEMENT
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24  
    Net banking income 781 773 764 874 830 850 858 968  
    Operating expenses (644) (636) (633) (691) (662) (673) (664) (763)  
    Gross operating income 137 137 131 183 168 178 194 205  
    Cost of risk 6 (1) 11 (12) (5) 9 (2) 12  
    Income before tax 184 136 143 165 163 187 192 217  
    Net income – Group share 137 89 94 105 109 123 124 143  

    Corporate center: quarterly series

    CORPORATE CENTER
    €m Q1-23 Q2-23 Q3-23 Q4-23 Q1-24 Q2-24 Q3-24 Q4-24
    Net banking income 57 (3) (21) (22) 57 (58) 46 (73)
    Operating expenses (785) (52) (170) (237) (236) (186) (223) (186)
    Gross operating income (728) (55) (191) (259) (179) (244) (176) (259)
    Cost of risk (46) 1 0 (28) (28) (2) (59) 46
    Share in income of associates 2 0 1 (9) 3 0 1 5
    Gains or losses on other assets (0) 0 (0) (0) (6) 1 3 (8)
    Income before tax (771) (54) (189) (296) (210) (245) (232) (215)
    Net income – Group share (776) (63) (210) (211) (198) (215) (226) (196)

    DISCLAIMER

    This document may contain forward-looking statements and comments relating to the objectives and strategy of Groupe BPCE. By their very nature, these forward-looking statements inherently depend on assumptions, project considerations, objectives and expectations linked to future events, transactions, products and services as well as on suppositions regarding future performance and synergies.

    No guarantee can be given that such objectives will be realized; they are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are based on assumptions relating to the Group, its subsidiaries and associates and the business development thereof; trends in the sector; future acquisitions and investments; macroeconomic conditions and conditions in the Group’s principal local markets; competition and regulation. Occurrence of such events is not certain, and outcomes may prove different from current expectations, significantly affecting expected results. Actual results may differ significantly from those anticipated or implied by the forward-looking statements. Groupe BPCE shall in no event have any obligation to publish modifications or updates of such objectives.

    Information in this presentation relating to parties other than Groupe BPCE or taken from external sources has not been subject to independent verification; the Group makes no statement or commitment with respect to this third-party information and makes no warranty as to the accuracy, fairness, precision or completeness of the information or opinions contained in this press release. Neither Groupe BPCE nor its representatives shall be held liable for any errors or omissions or for any harm that may result from the use of this presentation or of its contents or any related material, or of any document or information referred to in this presentation.

    The financial information presented in this document relating to the fiscal period ended December 31, 2024 has been drawn up in compliance with IFRS standards, as adopted in the European Union.
    This financial information is not the equivalent of summary financial statements for an interim period as defined by IAS 34 “Interim Financial Reporting”.

    Preparation of the financial information requires Management to make estimates and assumptions in certain areas regarding uncertain future events.

    These estimates are based on the judgment of the individuals preparing this financial information and the information available at the date of the balance sheet. Actual future results may differ from these estimates. For further information, see chapter 5, part 5.1, note 2.3 “Use of estimates and judgments” of the Universal Registration Document 2023 filed with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, the French financial markets authority.
    With respect to the financial information of Groupe BPCE for the quarter ended December 31, 2024, and in view of the context mentioned above, attention should be drawn to the fact that the estimated increase in credit risk and the calculation of expected credit losses (IFRS 9 provisions) are largely based on assumptions that depend on the macroeconomic context.

    Significant factors liable to cause actual results to differ from those anticipated in the projections are related to the banking and financial environment in which Groupe BPCE operates, which exposes it to a multitude of risks. These potential risks liable to affect Groupe BPCE’s financial results are detailed in the “Risk factors & risk management” chapter of the latest amendment to the 2023 Universal Registration Document filed with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers.

    Investors are advised to consider the uncertainties and risk factors liable to affect the Group’s operations when examining the information contained in the projection elements.

    The financial results contained in this presentation have not been reviewed by the statutory auditors. The quarterly financial information of Groupe BPCE for the period ended December 31, 2024, approved by the Management Board at a meeting convened on February 3, 2025, were verified and reviewed by the Supervisory Board at a meeting convened on February 5, 2025.

    The sum of the values shown in the tables and analyses may differ slightly from the total reported owing to rounding effects.

    About Groupe BPCE
    Groupe BPCE is the second-largest banking group in France. Through its 100,000 staff, the group serves 35 million customers – individuals, professionals, companies, investors and local government bodies – around the world. It operates in the retail banking and insurance fields in France via its two major networks, Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne, along with Banque Palatine and Oney. It also pursues its activities worldwide with the wholesale banking expertise of Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking and with the asset & wealth management services provided by Natixis Investment Managers.
    The Group’s financial strength is recognized by four financial rating agencies: Moody’s (A1, stable outlook), Standard & Poor’s (A+, stable outlook), Fitch (A+, stable outlook) and R&I (A+, stable outlook).

             groupebpce.com

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: New climate plan set to be scrutinised

    Source: City of Plymouth

    A range of new measures designed to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout Plymouth are set to be discussed by members next week.

    The latest incarnation of the Net Zero Action Plan (NZAP), a three-year delivery strategy that sets out the City Council’s response to its pledge to reach net zero, will be debated by the Natural Infrastructure and Growth scrutiny panel on Wednesday 12 February.

    While detailing updates on a number of ongoing actions like the continuing electrification of fleet vehicles, as well as the retro-fitting of low-carbon heating methods on buildings, new initiatives are also in the pipeline.

    These include:

    • Beginning the delivery of the externally-funded £400m heat network which will see major buildings in the city centre with the waterfront connected and heated by a central source
    • Submitting an expression of interest for participation in the Department of Transport’s e-scooter trial scheme
    • Support the delivery of the UK’s first end-to-end commercial waste recycling plant for electric vehicle batteries in Plymouth
    • Following the lead of other similar-sized cities by exploring the feasibility, potential role and benefits of emissions-based vehicle charging tariffs.

    Councillor Tom Briars-Delve, Cabinet Member for the Environment and Climate Change, will present the plan to colleagues.

    Tom said: “This latest version of the Net Zero Action Plan is bold and brings forward a raft of measures that will make great strides towards our net zero ambitions.

    “Although previous plans have also been effective, this time we have gone back to the data and thus have an increased focus on the city’s most high emitting sectors, namely transport and buildings.

    “I do understand that for some people, parts of this plan may seem ambitious but ambitious is what we must be if we are to ensure the environmental sustainability of our city and planet.”

    The NZAP covers two areas – commitments to reduce emissions from Council-owned facilities and also how the Council can use its influence to help the city as a whole move towards net zero.

    The Council has been producing the plan with annual updates since it first declared a climate emergency in 2019, and through actions already completed has reduced its own carbon emissions by 18.1 per cent between 2019 and 2022.

    Following its appearance at the cross-party scrutiny committee, any recommendations will be considered before the NZAP is voted on by Full Council on 17 March.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Residents can now sign up for this year’s garden waste collections in Sunderland.

    Source: City of Sunderland

    Registration is now open for garden waste collections, and residents with a garden are being encouraged to sign up before Friday 28 February to guarantee receiving all 17 fortnightly collections between March and November 2025.

    This year garden waste will be collected from Tuesday 25 March, with a subscription fee of £38.50. Anyone who signs up after Friday 28 February may not receive all the collections, but the price will remain the same.

    Garden waste collected from brown bins is taken to a facility where its first shredded and then naturally processed into compost.

    There are many benefits to recycling your garden waste. These include cutting disposal costs while turning waste into a useful and valuable soil conditioner, for landscaping and gardening. It’s also a natural method of processing material which prevents unnecessary waste and helps reduce your carbon impact.

    Sunderland City Council’s Cabinet for the Environment, Net Zero and Transport, Councillor Lindsey Leonard said: “By turning garden waste into compost, you’re not only helping the environment, but also supporting a greener, more sustainable future for everyone.” 

    “While signing up for the collections is optional, garden waste collections play a vital role in helping our community recycle more and reduce the amount of waste sent for energy recovery. It’s more convenient for residents to allow us to dispose of the garden on your behalf.”

    To sign up and find out more information visit www.sunderland.gov.uk/gardenwaste

    Use the ‘find my bin day’ service to check when to put your garden waste bin out for collection at www.sunderland.gov.uk/bindays

    If you currently don’t have a garden waste bin or you would like to order an additional garden waste bin, call 0191 520 5550 or visit www.sunderland.gov.uk/gardenwaste

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: London Assembly Member Leonie Cooper welcomes Government support for Super Reservoir in Abingdon. 

    Source: Mayor of London

    Leonie Cooper, Labour Group spokesperson for Environment, has welcomed Government plans to build a new super reservoir in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

    The proposals, announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves today, would see nine new reservoirs built, as the Government has agreed for water companies to invest £7.9b to improve the UK’s water infrastructure. 

    When complete, the Abingdon Reservoir is set to produce up to 270 million litres of water per day, providing additional water supplies for millions of people across London and the South-East. 

    Expanding the UK’s reservoir capacity will secure safe, high-quality water for several generations to come, and demonstrates the government’s commitment to kickstarting economic growth by investing in the UK’s water infrastructure. 

    Assembly Member Cooper has campaigned for the reservoir to be built since 2016 when first elected, raising the issue at City Hall. She has welcomed the progress, saying this will be of enormous benefit in providing clean water for Londoners in the decades to come. 

    London Assembly Labour environment spokesperson Leonie Cooper AM said: 

    “London has some of the highest quality drinking water in the world. For nearly 15 years more than 99.95 per cent of tests taken from Londoners’ taps have met the stringent standards set by Europe and the UK.

    “I am delighted with the plan to go ahead with the long-planned Abingdon Reservoir project. This will be of enormous benefit to Londoners and will provide clean water for decades to come.

    “I will continue to campaign for the water companies and central  government to make sure that construction of the Abingdon Reservoir project is accelerated to 2035 – two years sooner than planned.” 

    ENDS 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: Economic and Social Council Holds All-Day Annual Partnerships Forum with Focus on Advancing Sustainable Development Goals

    Source: United Nations 4

    Meetings Coverage

    2025 Session,

    Partnerships Forum (AM & PM)

    ECOSOC/7189

    The Forum, held today at UN Headquarters in New York, serves as a key platform for engaging a wide range of actors in the work of the Council and the High-Level Political Forum.  This year, participants will place a special emphasis on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will be reviewed at the Political Forum, to be held from 14 to 23 July. They include Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being); Goal 5 (Gender Equality); Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth); Goal 14 (Life Below Water); and Goal 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).

    In accordance with resolution 75/290A, this year’s Partnership Forum will focus on exchanging new ideas, expectations and priorities for the work ahead for both the Council and Political Forum.  It will highlight and discuss forward-looking actions by governments and other stakeholders through innovative partnerships that aim to mobilize commitments and actions to advance the 2030 Agenda and address new challenges.

    Information on the Partnerships Forum and this year’s full programme can be found at https://sdgs.un.org/2025ECOSOCPartnershipForum#background.

    Environmental issues and sustainable development

    For information media. Not an official record.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Bill Baer Delivers Remarks at 2016 American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month Observance Program

    Source: United States Attorneys General 13

    Thank you, Tracy [Toulou], for your kind words and for the contributions you and your dedicated team at the Office of Tribal Justice (OTJ) have made to promote tribal justice and public safety in Indian country.  And thank you to Director Richard Toscano and the Justice Management Division (JMD) Equal Employment Opportunity Staff (EEOS) for organizing today’s observance program and to Gina Allery and the DOJ Native American Association for their support as well.  

    In the month of November, we honor the history and traditions of America’s indigenous peoples.  We join together today to celebrate American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month and to welcome our keynote speaker, Tracy Canard Goodluck, to the department. 

    The theme this year – “Serving Our Nations” – captures the work that we together are doing here at the department.  That shared commitment to improving the daily lives of tribal communities has made and will continue to make a difference.  Here are just a few highlights: 

    • We worked across components to secure passage of landmark legislation with the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA), which reaffirmed our commitment to building and sustaining healthier, safer tribal communities and renewed our enduring promise to respect sovereignty and self-determination.  Our efforts also helped secure passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization, which recognizes tribes’ inherent power to exercise “special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction” over certain defendants regardless of their Indian or non-Indian status.
    • We built and began implementing the Tribal Access Program for National Crime Information (TAP), which provides federally recognized tribes access to national crime information databases for both civil and criminal purposes.  Just last month, we announced an expansion of TAP incorporating feedback from participating tribes who identified and shared best practices to further strengthen tribal institutions’ ability to keep communities safe.
    • Over the past seven years, the department has awarded over 1,650 Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS) grant awards to American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages, tribal consortia and tribal designees to improve public safety in Tribal communities and to strengthen tribal justice systems.  These figures include 236 CTAS grants totaling more than $102 million that were awarded in the recently completed 2016 grant cycle.
    • We established the Gaye Tenoso Indian Country Fellowship.  The program honors a former 30-year Department of Justice attorney by creating public service opportunities in Indian country for young lawyers with expertise and a commitment to federal Indian law, tribal law, and Indian country issues.
    • We published the Department of Justice Consultation Policy and the Attorney General’s Statement of Principles for Working with Federally Recognized Indian Tribes, both of which are intended to guide the work of this department in Indian country going forward.
    • We created the Tribal National Leadership Council, a democratically-elected group of tribal leaders responsible for advising the Attorney General.
    • We established the National Indian Country Training Initiative to ensure that the department prosecutors, as well as state and tribal criminal justice personnel, receive the training and support needed to address the particular challenges relevant to Indian country. 
    • And we built law enforcement partnerships between the FBI and sister agencies and identified tribal liaisons within each U.S. Attorney’s Office that has Indian country within its jurisdiction.  Indeed, I was privileged to meet many of these dedicated Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) in a recent visit to the Flathead Reservation in Montana.
    • We have shown that we can collaborate effectively across the department and across the federal government to better serve Indian country.  The department’s work on the Indian Child Welfare Act—involving the Environment and Natural Resources Division, the Office of Tribal Justice, the Civil Rights Division, and the Office of Justice Programs, as well as the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services—is just one example.  Our efforts have promoted compliance with this important federal law that seeks to keep Indian children with their parents, extended families, and tribal communities. 

    We can point with pride to the Environment and Natural Resource Division’s (ENRD) work to protect tribal resources, water rights and treaty hunting and fishing rights and to its defense of the Department of the Interior’s authority to acquire land into trust for tribes.  Recent victories in both the district court and the court of appeals helped preserve the treaty fishing rights of Pacific Northwest Tribes by removing barriers to salmon passage.  ENRD’s efforts recognize the importance of protecting the environment and natural resources of the First Nations, who were also the first environmental stewards of this great land and from whom we still have much to learn.

    I am pleased to report that the department has continued to make progress in resolving long-standing tribal trust cases.  In 2016 alone, we reached settlements with 17 tribes for almost $493 million.  Since the start of the Obama Administration, the department has settled the claims of 104 tribes for a total of $3.35 billion.  These settlements represent a significant milestone in improving the government-to-government relationship between the United States and Indian tribes, and allow the federal government and the tribal nations to move beyond tensions that were exacerbated by litigation.

    Even as we celebrate the progress we have made, we must acknowledge that our work is far from finished.  We have all been watching events in North Dakota over the weekend.  History teaches that we make progress in the face of conflicting views where we honor the right to disagree peacefully with one another.  The Justice Department has been in communication with local law enforcement, as well as tribal representatives and protesters, to promote communication and lower tensions.  We will continue those efforts. 

    There are a lot of challenges in Indian country, and it continues to be the responsibility of those of us at the department to identify and correct the injustices that persist.  I am proud to be affiliated with a department that does not shy away from tackling those challenges, and embraces the opportunity to work directly with Tribes across the country.

    Before we move on to the next part of our program, I would like to recognize the work of Lorraine Edmo, the Deputy Director for Tribal Affairs at the Office on Violence Against Women and a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.  She has dedicated her decades-long career to seeking out and correcting injustice in Tribal communities. 

    Lorraine is retiring soon and will be greatly missed.  Her sustained dedication to supporting Tribal communities has been an inspiration.  Thank you, Lorraine, for your tremendous service.  We are grateful that your husband, Jerry Cordova of the Department of the Interior, is also participating here today.  We especially respect public service when it’s a family affair, and we wish you both well.  

    I now turn to the privilege of introducing our keynote speaker, Tracy Canard Goodluck of the Oneida and Mvskoke Creek Nations.  Her passion for education and improving outcomes for students in tribal communities has made her a role model to many.  In her current role of Senior Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, Tracy serves as a key liaison to tribal communities for the Administration.  Previously, she was a policy advisor at the Domestic Policy Council and, as a Presidential Management Fellow, handled the legislative portfolio for Indian affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior.  We are honored to have her here today.  Please join me in welcoming Tracy Canard Goodluck.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio Delivers Remarks to the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law Fall Forum

    Source: United States Attorneys General 13

    Remarks as prepared for delivery

    Good morning.  Thank you, Jim, for that kind introduction, and special thanks to you and your co-chair of this Fall Forum, Debbie Feinstein, for inviting me.  It is an honor to join the distinguished attorneys in attendance here.

    As you just heard, the Office of the Associate Attorney General works closely with the Antitrust Division, and I’d like to begin by saying just a few words about the men and women who work there.  The Division is led by a superlative team.  Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim is an expert in the field and a tireless advocate for the American consumer.  Andrew Finch, his principal deputy, draws on his broad private-sector antitrust experience to supervise all aspects of the Division’s civil and criminal matters.  Barry Nigro, another deputy, is a walking encyclopedia of merger law and practice.  And the many other front office appointees bring to the Division an incredible breadth and depth of knowledge and determination.  Behind them, of course, stand the career lawyers, economists, and staff of the Antitrust Division who, as many of you know firsthand, are smart, resourceful, and tenacious in upholding the law and protecting competition for the benefit of the American economy.  We appreciate their public service and hard work, and we are so fortunate that they have chosen to lend their expertise and talent to our shared mission at the Department of Justice.

    Speaking of which, it is worth reciting the DOJ mission statement for those of you who have never heard it.  It reads as follows: “To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”  Much of this mission statement is outward facing—we are the cops and we go after the robbers.  But the first and last clauses of the mission statement require something more: we must “enforce the law” and “ensure fair and impartial administration of justice.”  And if we are truly to “enforce the law” and fairly administer justice, we cannot be focused solely on how legal commands apply to those outside the Department.  We must also focus on how the law constrains and cabins the Department—and the federal government as a whole.

    This is a theme, and a tension, as old as our government itself.  James Madison, famously lamenting in Federalist 51 that men are not angels and thus need a government, explained: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”  Our government is adept at creating rules to control the governed, but it sometimes fails to control itself.  Over the last two years, some of our priorities at the Department have been aimed at this latter virtue—at controlling ourselves.

    I would like to discuss one of those priorities today—namely, regulatory reform, which is an imperative need for an administrative state that has grown mightily over the last seventy-five years and in ways that Madison and his compatriots could have never imagined when they created the checks and balances they thought would oblige the government to control itself.

    Early in 2017, the President issued several executive orders on regulatory reform.  For example, Executive Order 13771 directs agencies to eliminate two regulations for each new one and to impose zero net regulatory costs.  Executive Order 13777 directs agency heads to appoint Regulatory Reform Officers and Task Forces to implement regulatory reform initiatives and identify burdensome regulations for repeal, replacement, or modification.  These are important measures.  As Neomi Rao, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), recently explained in a Washington Post editorial, lifting unduly burdensome regulations promotes economic growth and “the spirit of liberty that animates our productive and innovative society.”

    Accordingly, at the Department of Justice, we take this regulatory reform mandate very seriously.  While the Department does not generate the same volume of regulations as, say, the Environmental Protection Agency, we do have components that issue regulations, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency, which regulates doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals under the Controlled Substances Act; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, which regulates the firearms and explosives industries; and the Civil Rights Division, which regulates state and local governments, public accommodations, and commercial facilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Each of these components is working to ensure that their regulatory agendas comply with the executive orders. 

    But, in my view, the Department’s most critical contribution to regulatory reform has not come by way of any particular substantive regulatory change, but rather through our focus on improving the regulatory process by promoting transparency, accountability, and public participation.  Such procedural reforms can often outlive more newsworthy substantive changes to individual rules, and they can lead to better and less burdensome substantive decisionmaking.

    One of the first areas of procedural reform we focused upon is reigning in the use of guidance documents.  To understand why this is so important, let me first set the stage by returning to Federalist 51.  There, Madison wrote that “[i]n republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”  Accordingly, as Madison explained in Federalist 48, “it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.”  Acting on this belief, the Founders wrote a Constitution in which the first article (establishing Congress) is much more finely wrought than, and is more than double the length of, the second article (establishing the executive).  The Founders viewed the legislative branch—with the power to make policy and thus restrict liberty—as the foremost danger among equals, and thus much more carefully cabined that branch through structural protections (or “precautions” as Madison called them in both Federalist 48 and 51).

    But we twenty-first century Americans, for better or worse, live in the age of the administrative state, where most substantive rules that are binding on the People are created by Executive Branch agencies exercising rulemaking powers delegated by Congress.  That means that the threat from the “enterprising ambition” that Madison feared now comes more often from the administrators than from the legislators.  Accordingly, we also need procedural protections—“precautions,” as Madison called them—to cabin those ambitions. 

    We have some such protections in the form of the Administrative Procedure Act.  When Congress delegates to an executive agency the authority to regulate—that is, to create binding rights and obligations for the public—the APA normally requires that such authority be exercised through notice-and-comment rulemaking.  These rulemaking processes require a lot of input and serious deliberation; there are many steps, and they sometimes proceed slowly or not at all.  They are designed this way, just like the Constitution is designed to require many steps for the enactment of statutes.  Process protects liberty. 

    But regulators like to regulate, and everyone likes a shortcut.  So it has come to pass that, with increasing frequency, administrative agencies, including the Department of Justice, issue so-called guidance documents that effectively bind the public.  The guidance documents do not go through the notice-and-comment process required by the APA; indeed, they do not go through any transparent or regularized process at all.  They just spring forth fully formed, and the public is expected to comply.  Some commentators have begun to call such guidance, perhaps fairly, “regulatory dark matter.”  The threat such a regime poses to our constitutional structure, and the liberty it protects, is manifest.

    Accordingly, with this in mind, in November 2017, Attorney General Sessions signed a memorandum prohibiting the Department of Justice from issuing guidance documents that “impose new requirements on entities outside the Executive Branch.”  The memorandum lays out five principles that must govern any future guidance, including that the document should disclaim any force or effect of law and “should not be used for the purpose of coercing persons or entities” to take or refrain from taking any actions beyond what is already required under the law.

    A few months later, in January 2018, we took the next step to reign in inappropriate use of subregulatory guidance.  The Associate Attorney General issued a new policy that prohibits the use of agency guidance documents in affirmative civil litigation in a manner that would convert such guidance into binding rules of conduct.  This ensures that DOJ will not do with another agency’s guidance what it cannot do with its own under the Sessions Memo.  As the memorandum explains: “That a party fails to comply with agency guidance expanding upon statutory or regulatory requirements does not mean that the party violated those underlying legal requirements; agency guidance documents cannot create any additional legal obligations.”

    Now, I realize that I am at an antitrust, and not an administrative law, conference.  So what does all of this mean for the Antitrust Division?  Well, the Division, often in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission, has issued numerous guidance documents, including, for example, intellectual property guidelines and, of course, the horizontal merger guidelines.  Under our view, none of these guidelines create binding rights or rules that have the force of law.  The guidelines can be useful in ensuring transparency by explaining how the Antitrust Division uses its prosecutorial discretion.  But the Antitrust Division will not treat a violation of the guidelines as presumptively or conclusively establishing a violation of the underlying legal requirements.  The Division must bring cases in court if it seeks to assert that a violation of the law has occurred, and it must prove such a violation by reference to statutory law and judicial precedent.

    With that, let me turn from the dark matter of guidance documents to another particle in the regulatory cosmos, but one that is even less visible: the consent decree.

    A consent decree is a binding court judgment, and it can serve an important function in a range of cases and enforcement areas.  But some consent decree are voluminous in their requirements and have virtually perpetual life.  They are, in effect, a set of regulations for a single party, overseen by the Department of Justice, a federal judge, and, quite often, a private-party monitor appointed by the court.  In practice, consent decrees can result in one or all of these entities directing the day-to-day operations of a business or local government agency for years on end.  As should be obvious from the description, such a regime can be as intrusive as—if not more intrusive than—a regulation.

    Thirty years ago, Assistant Attorney General Rick Rule, whom many of you know, gave a speech about telecommunications policy to the Brookings Institution.  He noted that the Reagan Administration’s best known accomplishment in antitrust law was the breakup of AT&T.   The ongoing monitoring required under the AT&T consent decree, however, created, in his words, a “mixed legacy” because of the institutional harms flowing from requiring the Antitrust Division and a federal court to be, in effect, telecommunications regulators.  Federal courts and the Antitrust Division, Rule said, “inherently lack many of the resources crucial to successful regulation.”  He explained that effective regulation requires technical expertise, regulatory experience, and administrative processes that federal courts and federal prosecutors simply lack.

    That is one problem, but it is not the only problem.  Some consent decrees stray not only beyond the practical resources and expertise of the enforcers, but also beyond the legal authority of what the government could do by other means.  Imposing conditions that could not be obtained through litigation to judgment is similar to creating regulations beyond the bounds of law.  And just because a court imposes such a decree does not make it appropriate or wise.  Courts, like executive branch agencies, can exceed their powers and distort constitutional norms.  As with our commitment to abstaining from regulation through guidance, the Department of Justice must take care to avoid going beyond our lawful authority through the entry of consent decrees.

    Accordingly, while consent decrees can be necessary and appropriate in certain circumstances, we are requiring Department litigators in all components to proceed with due caution and care before entering into new cosent decrees.  Effective consent decree management is a key part of our regulatory reform and good government efforts. 

    And, as with our other efforts, the Antitrust Division has been doing its part.  For example, last year, at this every forum, Assistant Attorney General Delrahim gave a speech on antitrust and deregulation.  He made the case that a behavioral consent decree substitutes regulation for competition.  He also announced that the Antitrust Division would disfavor behavioral consent decrees, calling them “the wolf of regulation dressed in . . . sheep’s clothing.”   Indeed.  The notion that the Department of Justice can fine-tune the operations of large businesses, for years on end, to prevent competitive harm is simply untenable from a first principles standpoint and unwarranted from a pro-competitive and pro-liberty standpoint. 

    Avoiding behavioral consent decrees is not the only step that the Antitrust Division is taking in this area.  Earlier this year, the Division launched its Judgment Termination Initiative, through which the Division is identifying and terminating legacy consent decrees that no longer protect competition.  To understand why this is important, it is helpful to turn again to something Administrator Rao explained earlier this year.  She described the problem of “cumulative regulations.”   When the government is always adding regulations but never repealing old ones, regulatory accretion occurs—the regulatory text expands and expands, with some regulations serving no purpose and others affirmatively harming economic growth and American competitiveness.

    Consent decrees can suffer from the same infirmity.  Indeed, from the first cases brought under the Sherman Act until 1979, antitrust consent decrees were perpetual.  In that year, the Division changed its policy such that future settlements would have “sunset” provisions that would automatically terminate a decree on a date certain, usually after ten years.  But while the Division recognized forty years ago that perpetual decrees were not in the public interest, there has been no effort to address the perpetual decrees that were entered prior to that date. 

    Until now.  Assistant Attorney General Delrahim and his team deserve great credit for tackling this issue.  And there is a lot of work to do.  There are nearly 1,300 legacy judgments still on the books, including some decrees that are more than one hundred years old.  There is, for example, a decree from 1914 concerning rubber hoof pads for horseshoes.  Another one from 1921 relates to music rolls for player pianos.  And yet another, my personal favorite, controls the market for horse-buggy whips.  This state of affairs, my friends, is not good government.  This is not prudent and careful regulatory action.  This is ancient, cosmic junk unnecessarily floating around the regulatory atmosphere.

    These outdated decrees pose a particular problem given the common-law nature of the antitrust laws, the construction of which evolve through judicial decisionmaking closely informed by economic analysis.  Under the Sherman Act, only unreasonable—which is to say anticompetitive—restraints of trade are condemned.  Courts look to economic analysis to understand what is unreasonable.  And as economic analysis has matured and been refined over decades, courts have recognized that certain practices, once condemned, are not only not harmful to competition, but can even be procompetitive.

    The Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in the Leegin case provides one example of such a change.   In that case, the Court overturned a nearly century-old per se prohibition on resale price maintenance.   It recognized that resale price maintenance can help stimulate interbrand competition.  The antitrust laws are designed to protect just such competition because it is output enhancing.  By contrast, intrabrand competition, such as when independent retailers engage in a price war to undersell a product from the same manufacturer, is not output enhancing.

    Yet a perpetual consent decree related to resale price maintenance entered any year between 1911 and 1979 would have frozen the old prohibition in place.  Such an ongoing, indefinite prohibition against lawful behavior does not serve to protect competition or to advance the rule of law.  Indeed, it affirmatively undermines both.

    Perpetual consent decrees rarely continue to protect competition, and those that are more than ten years old should be terminated absent compelling circumstances.  To expedite the termination of outdated consent decrees, the Antitrust Division has engaged in a comprehensive effort to review all of its legacy judgments.  Each judgment was assigned to a Division attorney, who examined court papers, internal case files, and publicly available information to determine whether the judgment continued to serve competition.  Judgments for which termination is recommended are then posted, by judicial district, to the Division’s website for a thirty-day public comment period.

    The judgments in sixty of seventy-nine judicial districts have been posted to the Division’s website for public comment.  Once the thirty-day public comment period closes for a particular judicial district, the Division will review any comments received and, if appropriate, prepare a motion to terminate the judgments.

    Already, in July, the Division moved to terminate nineteen legacy judgments in the District Court here in the District of Columbia.  And the court granted that motion on August 15.  The Division is actively working to prepare other motions in other districts.

    The Division will move to terminate such decrees where the essential terms of the judgment have been satisfied, where most defendants no longer exist, where the judgment largely prohibits that which the antitrust laws already prohibit, or where market conditions likely have changed.  Of course, as with the Leegin example, the Division will also seek to terminate decrees for which the relevant antitrust jurisprudence has changed and the conduct prohibited might actually be procompetitive.

    I know that the Judgment Termination Initiative is a top priority for AAG Delrahim and the Division.  I applaud the hard work that has gone into this effort already and the commitment of the Division to see it through.

    With that, let me close by saying thank you, again, for the opportunity to be here.  We are hard at work at the Department of Justice, including at the Antitrust Division, in our efforts to enforce the law and fairly administer justice.  As I have stated, that includes applying the limits of the law to ourselves, or, as Madison put it, to controlling ourselves.  We will continue to advance this cause, and we hope it makes a difference in helping the American people and economy flourish.  Thank you very much.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: VelocityEHS Recognized as a Best Places to Work

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    CHICAGO, Feb. 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — VelocityEHS®, the global leader in EHS & ESG software solutions, is honored to be named as one of Built In’s 2025 Best Places to Work. The company has been recognized in both the Midsize and Remote categories, reflecting its commitment to fostering an exceptional workplace culture.

    Built In’s annual awards program honors companies of all sizes—from startups to enterprises—and celebrates top employers in major tech markets across the U.S., including remote-first organizations.

    “At VelocityEHS, we believe that our people are the heart of our success,” said Rachel Kaiser, SVP Chief People Officer, VelocityEHS. “This recognition reflects our commitment to creating a collaborate workplace where every employee feels valued, supported, and empowered to grow—both personally and professionally.”

    To align with the benefits candidates increasingly value through Built In, the program celebrates companies that offer the best compensation and total rewards packages. It evaluates key factors such as remote and flexible work opportunities, initiatives that promote engagement and belonging, and a culture that prioritizes people-first values.

    “Being recognized as a Best Place to Work is a testament to these companies’ commitment to building a workplace where individuals and innovation thrive,” says Built In CEO and Founder, Maria Christopoulos Katris. “At Built In, we understand that great companies are powered by great teams, and this achievement showcases their dedication to fostering a culture of growth and excellence. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor.”

    Read more news and insights on the VelocityEHS press page.

    About VelocityEHS

    Relied on by more than 10 million users worldwide to drive operational excellence and achieve outstanding outcomes, VelocityEHS is the global leader in true SaaS enterprise EHS & ESG technology. The VelocityEHS Accelerate® Platform is the definitive gold standard, delivering best-in-class software solutions for managing Safety, Ergonomics, Chemical Management, and Operational Risk. In addition, Velocity offers world-class applications for Contractor Safety & Permit to Work, Environmental Compliance, and ESG.

    The VelocityEHS team includes unparalleled industry expertise, with more certified experts in health, safety, industrial hygiene, ergonomics, sustainability, the environment, AI, and machine learning than any other EHS software provider. Recognized by the EHS industry’s top independent analysts as a Leader in the Verdantix 2025 Green Quadrant Analysis, VelocityEHS is committed to industry thought leadership and to accelerating the pace of innovation through its software solutions and vision. Its privacy and security protocols, which include SOC2 Type II attestation, are among the most stringent in the industry.

    VelocityEHS is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with locations in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Tampa, Florida; Oakville, Ontario; London, England; Perth, Western Australia; and Cork, Ireland. For more information, visit www.EHS.com. 

    ABOUT BUILT IN
    Built In is the “always on” recruiting platform that reaches the tech professionals that other leading recruiting platforms don’t. Designed to help companies hire expert tech talent, Built In continuously drives brand awareness with content. Monthly, millions of the industry’s most in-demand global tech professionals visit our site to stay ahead of tech trends and news, learn skills to accelerate their careers, find the right job opportunities and get hired. Thousands of companies, from fast-growing startups to the largest enterprises rely on Built In. By putting their stories in front of our uniquely engaged audience, we help them hire otherwise hard-to-reach technical and expert talent. www.builtin.com

    Media Contact:
    Jennifer Sinkwitts
    VelocityEHS
    jsinkwitts@ehs.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Industry and Municipal Leaders Unite to Fast-Track Cleantech Adoption Across Canada

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Foresight Canada is proud to announce the formation of the Cleantech Adoption Platform Advisory Board, a key initiative aimed at accelerating the deployment of vetted sustainable technologies across Canadian municipalities and organizations. The advisory board will provide strategic guidance to Cleantech Adoption Platform, which is set to launch later this year, ensuring that Canadian innovators, and public and private sector leaders, can connect more effectively to drive measurable impact.

    Joining the advisory board are exceptional individuals from across Canada, each bringing their unique expertise in CAP’s initial focus sectors: Built Environment, Energy Generation and Storage, Water Tech, Transportation, and Waste Management. These leaders understand the complexities of integrating cleantech solutions into industrial and municipal operations, and will play a critical role in identifying and overcoming adoption barriers. Their strategic guidance will be invaluable as the platform expands to include additional sectors and end-users.

    The Cleantech Adoption Platform Advisory Board

    • Adrian Dirassar (Senior Legal Counsel)
    • Bofa Udisi (Project Manager, City of Toronto; Founder, AlphaCor Sustainability Solutions)
    • Samantha Agtarap (Program Manager, powerNEXT, Foresight Canada; Councillor, Port Moody City Council)
    • Todd Burns (CEO, Cypher Environmental)

    Bridging the Gap Between Innovators and End-Users

    Cleantech adoption faces two key challenges: innovators need buyers, and buyers need streamlined access to proven solutions. Foresight Canada recognizes the urgency of fostering these connections to ensure that high-impact cleantech innovations reach the market faster. The Cleantech Adoption Platform serves as a centralized hub designed to simplify and de-risk solution sourcing for industrial and municipal buyers.

    Buyers will gain access to a curated selection of ready-to-deploy cleantech solutions, commercial products, and completed pilots (TRL 8+). The platform provides a structured, data-backed approach to accelerating procurement and adoption.

    Key Features of the Cleantech Adoption Platform

    The platform offers a holistic experience for both public and private sector buyers, providing invaluable tools and resources to facilitate adoption, including:

    • Comprehensive technology database of products and solutions with detailed specifications
    • Case studies and success stories showcasing real-world impact
    • Technology roadmaps and business cases to support procurement decisions
    • Self-guided learning modules and peer-to-peer engagement for decision-makers
    • Validated assessments, including LCAs, test results, and other evaluation tools
    • Matchmaking tools and support to streamline connections between buyers and innovators

    A Secure, Buyer-Focused Platform

    Listing a solution is entirely free for all cleantech ventures. The platform operates within a secure, gated environment, ensuring that solution details are visible only to serious buyers—helping innovators get their solutions into the hands of those ready to make a meaningful impact.

    Scaling Canada’s Cleantech Leadership

    By bringing together a network of expert advisors and launching a dedicated platform, Foresight Canada is creating a more efficient, transparent, and scalable pathway for cleantech adoption. This initiative will help public and private sectors identify and integrate high-impact sustainable solutions, while providing innovators with a direct route to commercialization.

    With industry-driven insights and a data-backed approach, the Cleantech Adoption Platform is positioned to:

    • Strengthen Canada’s economic resilience
    • Accelerate emissions reductions
    • Solidify Canada’s leadership in global cleantech deployment.

    Market-Ready Solutions

    Multiple top cleantech solutions have joined the Cleantech Adoption Platform, including:

    Quotes

    “I’m thrilled to see the Cleantech Adoption Platform starting to gain some momentum. Speaking as the CEO and founder of an innovative cleantech company, one of the greatest hurdles to creating adoption is education of the end user that more environmentally friendly, cost-effective solutions do in fact exist, and to get these new technologies specified in procurement contracts. The Cleantech Adoption Platform will address both of these challenges, to not only support the growth of the Canadian economy through a growing cleantech sector, but also allow communities all across Canada to meet their carbon reduction and net zero goals at a much faster pace.” — Todd Burns, CEO, Cypher Environmental

    “The Cleantech Adoption Platform is a game-changer in bridging the gap between innovative climate solutions and real-world implementation. I’m excited to support this initiative in accelerating the adoption of vetted technologies that will help us hasten our journey towards net zero.” — Bofa Udisi, Project Manager, City of Toronto; Founder, AlphaCor Sustainability Solutions

    “The Cleantech Adoption Platform, guided by its Advisory Board, represents a major set of tools and resources with the potential to reshape Canada’s economic landscape. By streamlining access to vetted technologies, we’re helping industries and municipalities reduce costs, improve efficiency, and stay competitive in a low-carbon world. Connecting innovators with serious buyers will drive investment, accelerate commercialization, and strengthen Canada’s overall domestic market.” — Jeanette Jackson, CEO, Foresight Canada

    “We are grateful to the exceptional leaders joining the Cleantech Adoption Platform Advisory Board, whose expertise and insights will be instrumental in breaking down barriers to cleantech adoption. By bringing together industry and municipal experts with deep sector knowledge and real-world implementation experience, this board will help accelerate the deployment of Canada’s top climate solutions, driving meaningful impact where it matters most.” — Joseph Mosca, Senior Program Manager, Cleantech Adoption Platform

    About Foresight Canada

    ​​Foresight Canada helps the world do more with less, sustainably. As Canada’s largest cleantech innovation and adoption accelerator, they connect public and private sectors to the world’s best clean technologies, de-risking and simplifying the adoption of innovative solutions that improve productivity, profitability, and economic competitiveness, all while addressing today’s most urgent climate challenges.

    Contact:
    Heather Kingdon
    Manager, Communications
    hkingdon@foresightcac.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Air Pollution Worsened COVID-19 Mortality, Especially in Vulnerable Communities

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, statistics emerged showing significant discrepancies in mortality by county.

    Shinsuke Tanaka, assistant professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, wanted to use his expertise in environmental and health economics to help understand what was at the root of this puzzle.

    “I wanted to understand what could explain that spatial heterogeneity of Covid’s impacts,” Tanaka says.

    Tanaka published a paper in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management showing that counties with more days of downwind pollution from power plants had higher COVID-19 mortality rates. This impact was more pronounced in under-resourced communities.

    When Tanaka began his research during the 2020 lockdown, there had been a few studies looking at the links between short-term (daily or monthly) exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality. But very few had considered the impacts of long-term air pollution exposure.

    Tanaka looked at the impacts of air pollution on counties within 20 miles of fossil-fueled power plants. He determined this was an appropriate radius based on readings from EPA air pollution monitors showing that air pollutants travelled downwind about that far before dissipating.

    Then, Tanaka calculated what percentage of days in a 10-year period before the pandemic a given county in the contiguous U.S. was downwind of power plant pollution.

    “That gives me a measure of long-term exposure to pollution for each county before Covid started,” Tanaka says.

    Tanaka found that counties with an average downwind frequency of 13.5% had 28% more COVID-19 deaths within the first week of April 2020 compared to upwind counties the same distance from a plant.

    Tanaka extended his research until the third mortality peak in January 2021. He found the cumulative mortality rate was 45% higher for communities that were more frequently downwind.

    Tanaka’s findings also demonstrated that these impacts were greater in counties with higher poverty rates, lower health insurance coverage, and lower education levels.

    “That indicates that disadvantaged communities and counties faced even greater burdens of pollution from these power plants during the pandemic,” Tanaka says.

    Such underlying disparities mean people in these communities are more likely to have underlying health conditions and less access to health care when they get sick.

    Other studies on links between air pollution and health have struggled to separate air pollution from other potentially confounding variables. By focusing on downwind patterns, an essentially random natural event, Tanaka was able to isolate air pollution as a variable.

    “This method allowed me to isolate the impact of pollution exposure more effectively,” Tanaka says.

    By demonstrating a method that can successfully isolate long-term air pollution exposure from confounding variables, Tanaka’s study paves the way for more research on other health outcomes.

    “COVID-19 is, of course, a very specific mortality, and I expect to see more studies on the impact of long-term air pollution exposure on various other health outcomes.”

    Research such as Tanaka’s demonstrates that the significant public health costs of fossil fuels will remain critical to public policy discussions.

    “It will be very important to understand which power plants are having greater impacts, and what plants should be closed,” Tanaka says. “Those discussions should continue.”

    This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on  Enhancing Health and Well-Being Locally, Nationally, and Globally.

    Follow UConn CAHNR on social media

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Ukraine: prospects for peace are slim unless Europe grips the reality of Trump’s world

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

    When EU leaders gathered for their first ever meeting solely dedicated to defence issues on February 3, in Brussels, the war in Ukraine was uppermost on their minds. Yet, three weeks before the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine is only the tip of an iceberg of security challenges that Europe faces.

    War on a scale not seen in Europe since 1945 has returned to the continent. Russian sabotage of everything from critical infrastructure to elections is at levels reminiscent of the cold war. And the future of the EU’s most important defence alliance, Nato, is uncertain.

    In light of these challenges alone, let alone the ongoing instability in the Middle East, western Balkans and south Caucasus, it’s hard to disagree with the observation by EU council president António Costa that: “Europe needs to assume greater responsibility for its own defence.”

    But it’s hardly a groundbreaking statement. And at the end of proceedings, the outcome of what was ultimately only an informal meeting, was underwhelmingly summarised by Costa as “progress in our discussions on building the Europe of defence”.

    This does not bode well for Ukraine. US support is unlikely to continue at the levels reached during the final months of the Biden administration. In fact, ongoing debates in the White House on Ukraine policy have already caused some disruption to arms shipments from Washington to Kyiv.

    Building blocs

    If there is a silver lining for Ukraine here, it is Trump’s continuous search for a good deal. His latest idea is that Ukraine could pay for US support with favourable concessions on rare earths, and potentially other strategic resources.

    These would include preferential deals to supply the US with titanium, iron ore and coal, as well as critical minerals, including lithium. Whether this is a sustainable basis for US support in the long term is as unclear as whether it will make any material difference to Trump thinking beyond a ceasefire.

    The other ray of hope for Ukraine is that there is a much greater recognition in EU capitals now about the need for a common European approach to defence. A greater focus on building a “coalition of the willing” including non-EU members UK and Norway is a potentially promising path.

    But hope, as they say, is not a winning strategy. In a Trump-like transactional fashion, Brussels – in exchange for a deal on defence with London – is insisting on UK concessions on youth mobility and fishing rights. It’s unlikely that this will prove an insurmountable stumbling bloc, but it will create yet more delays at a moment when time is of the essence for Europe as a whole to signal determination about security and defence.

    This is further complicated by two factors. On the one hand, there is the looming threat of a trade war between the US and the EU. That the UK may still be able to avoid a similar fate, according to Trump, feels like good news for London. But it will also put the UK in a potentially awkward position as it seeks an ambitious post-Brexit reset with the EU and harbours hopes to improve relations with China.

    With Trump clearly hostile towards both Brussels and Beijing, this may become an impossible balancing act for the British government to pull off.

    Europe’s fragile unity

    On the other hand, EU unity has become more fragile. Trump’s victory has emboldened other populist leaders in Europe – notably the significantly more pro-Russian Slovak and Hungarian prime ministers, Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán. The same applies to the UK, where Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party – which has overtaken the ruling Labour party in the latest public opinion polls – is known for his Ukraine-sceptical views.

    To that equation add a weak government in France and the likelihood of protracted coalition negotiations in Germany after hotly contested parliamentary elections at the end of February. The prospects for decisive EU and wider European action on strengthening its own security and defence capabilities right now appear vanishingly slim.

    Seen in the light of such multiple and complex challenges, it is astonishing how much the EU is still trapped in a wishful thinking exercise – and one that appears more and more disconnected from reality. Contrary to Costa’s fulsome pronouncements after the EU leaders’ meeting, there is little evidence that the US under Trump will remain Europe’s friend, ally and partner.

    There’s also little to suggest that the American president shares the values and principles that once underpinned the now rapidly dismantling international order. Other countries’ national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of their borders are not at the forefront of Trump’s foreign policy doctrine.

    If, as Costa proclaimed, “peace in Europe depends on Ukraine winning a comprehensive, just and lasting peace”, then the future looks bleak indeed for Europe and Ukraine. At this point the EU and its member states are a long way off from being able to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win. This is not just because they lack the military and defence-industrial capabilities. They also lack a credible, shared vision of how to acquire them while navigating a Trumpian world.

    Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

    – ref. Ukraine: prospects for peace are slim unless Europe grips the reality of Trump’s world – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-prospects-for-peace-are-slim-unless-europe-grips-the-reality-of-trumps-world-248911

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How citizen science is shaping international conservation

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sasha Woods, Director of Science and Policy, Earthwatch Institute (Europe)

    Testing the River Gade in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Earthwatch Europe, CC BY-NC-ND

    Citizen science is a powerful tool for involving more people in research. By influencing policy, it is transforming conservation at global, national and local levels.

    Citizen science actively encourages non-scientists to be a part of the scientific research process. Sometimes the terminology gets confusing. We say “non-scientists” but through taking part in citizen science projects, people become scientists – they’re just not professionally involved in the research.

    It’s also worth noting that the “citizen” in citizen science is completely unrelated to ideas of national citizenship. Put simply, it’s science by the people for the people.

    Citizen scientists can take part in every stage of the research process. Depending on the project, participants can write the research questions, choose the methods, collect the data, analyse and interpret the results, and share the research as widely as possible. By broadening people’s understanding of scientific problems and solutions, citizen science can act as a powerful catalyst for change.

    It is already making an impact across lots of disciplines, including conservation, by addressing barriers to policy change such as lack of evidence and low levels of public engagement and input. While it’s not yet common for citizen science to directly influence policy, in our research we’ve seen how citizen science can shape policy at every scale: through promoting policy, monitoring progress towards policy or advocating for policy enforcement.

    At a local level, citizen science can influence policy and transform conservation science. The clean air coalition of western New York is a group of citizens concerned about smells and smoke, and their connection to chronic health problems in the community. The group collected samples in 2004 to determine what was in the air and presented this data to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

    In response, the DEC monitored air pollutants in four locations in the city of Tonawanda for a year between 2007 and 2008 – an investigation which formed the basis for compliance monitoring and regulatory actions. As a direct result of citizen science, the Tonawanda Coke Corporation agreed to improve its operations, monitor for leaks and upgrade pollution controls. By December 2019, levels of carcinogenic benzene had dropped 92% since the end of DEC’s sampling in 2008.

    Citizen science can also run at the national level. For example, the annual Big Butterfly Count, run by the Butterfly Conservation charity, encourages people in the UK to advocate for conservation policy by counting butterflies.

    Over 25 days in July and August 2024, 85,000 volunteers recorded their sightings, with alarming results. Average butterfly numbers were at their lowest in the survey’s 14-year history.

    The charity and its citizen scientists called on the UK government to ban pesticides that can harm butterflies and bees. And on January 23 2025, the government confirmed that, for the first time in five years, an emergency application for the use of a neonicotinoid pesticide on sugar beet in England will not be granted.

    The government highlighted that the decision was “based on robust assessments of environmental, health and economic risks and benefits” and, although not explicitly stated, it is clear that citizen scientists contributed to those assessments.

    Going global

    Citizen science also contributes data to international conservation policies. For example, the UN incorporates citizen science data into two of its largest environmental policy frameworks: the sustainable development goals (SDGs) – a set of targets to end poverty, protect the environment, and promote prosperity for all people – and the Kunming-Montreal agreement, which aims to halt and reverse biodiversity decline.

    As part of our work at the European branch of the Earthwatch Institute research organisation, we’re involved with a global water quality monitoring project called FreshWater Watch. This project has successfully engaged communities and governments in Sierra Leone and Zambia to collect data on the proportion of rivers and lakes with good water quality within a country. Over time, this indicator can be used to measure progress towards the SDG for clean water and sanitation.

    A volunteer tests water quality at Faendre Reen near Cardiff.
    Earthwatch Europe, CC BY-NC-ND

    Currently, only five of the 231 indicators used to measure progress for the SDGs include citizen science data. But recent research suggests such projects could contribute to up to 33% of these indicators and over half of the 365 indicators for the global biodiversity framework.

    And even where citizen science data is not used in official monitoring towards policy, it can still transform conservation science by educating people and empowering them to advocate for change.

    The Great UK WaterBlitz is a national example of this. WaterBlitzes are four-day campaigns in which volunteers assess the water quality of local rivers, ponds and lakes, using simple-but-reliable testing kits for nitrates and phosphates.

    Nitrates and phosphates occur naturally in the environment and are essential for plant growth. But high concentrations found in sewage and agricultural runoff trigger a process called eutrophication: an overgrowth of algae which leads to increased levels of bacteria and, therefore, decreased oxygen concentrations, which harms aquatic plants and animals.

    Citizen scientists used these simple testing kits to assess water quality.
    Sasha Woods/Earthwatch Europe, CC BY-NC-ND

    Our team has used such testing kits in river catchments for over 10 years, but recently expanded to a UK-wide campaign. In September 2024, we ran our largest event to date, with 4,500 participants investigating 2,300 locations. This created a national snapshot of freshwater health at a granular scale, which we have used to highlight pollution hotspots to the Environment Agency (EA).

    Although this data is not yet used for official monitoring or the development of conservation policy, its contribution to improving water ecosystems is increasingly acknowledged. As the EA’s deputy director for monitoring, insight and innovation told the Guardian: “The Environment Agency values the contribution of England’s growing network of citizen scientists and welcomes the Great UK WaterBlitz and other initiatives that complement our own research, monitoring and assessment work.”

    Despite demonstrating valuable contributions to research – particularly by providing robust datasets – citizen science still faces multiple challenges. The engagement, motivation and retention of volunteers is resource-intensive, and citizen science is not particularly well funded.

    And even though citizen science methods are frequently validated by laboratory scientists, policymakers can still be hesitant to integrate this into their monitoring frameworks, due to often unfounded concerns about the data’s quality and reliability.

    But citizen science is already influencing conservation. This will only increase as policymakers recognise it as a legitimate and valuable scientific approach. And because there are citizen science projects all over the world, anyone can be a part of this positive change.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Sasha Woods works for Earthwatch Europe.

    Stephen Parkinson works for Earthwatch Europe.

    – ref. How citizen science is shaping international conservation – https://theconversation.com/how-citizen-science-is-shaping-international-conservation-247033

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Second consultation on Drax Power Limited permit variation opens

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    The Environment Agency has opened a second consultation into a permit variation application from Drax Power Limited in Yorkshire.

    The operator first applied for the variation in May 2023 to request permission to incorporate carbon capture at its bioenergy plant near Selby.

    At the time, the Environment Agency held a public consultation to offer people the opportunity to comment on the application.

    During the Environment Agency’s review of this 2023 application, it considered the applicant had not included sufficient information, so it requested a more detailed assessment.

    Drax has now provided the potential substances that could be formed in the carbon capture plant and with a more detailed justification for the substances it considers could be emitted to air.

    A second consultation for the application has now been opened and will run from Tuesday 4 February to Tuesday 4 March, 2025.

    Tim Shaw, Installations Team Leader, said:

    We have now received updated information from the applicant and this can be found in a revised air emissions risk assessment.

    It’s important to hold a second consultation so the public have the opportunity to view the new documents and provide their views on environmental factors they feel are important.

    We are committed to carrying out a detailed and rigorous assessment of this permit variation application.

    Carbon capture

    Carbon capture is the removal of carbon dioxide from waste gases (usually by absorbing the carbon dioxide in a special solvent) and either using it or storing it underground, reducing the amount of emissions into the atmosphere.

    Drax Power Ltd wants to capture the carbon dioxide emitted during electricity generation, to prevent the majority of it from entering the atmosphere.

    The carbon dioxide captured will be transported via a pipeline for permanent storage under the North Sea.

    To capture carbon dioxide from the combustion process, Drax will need to vary its existing environmental permit.

    The Environment Agency assesses applications for environmental permits, or to vary existing environmental permits, under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR).

    Its role is to assess the application and decide if it meets all requirements under relevant environmental legislation and provides a high level of protection to the environment and human health.

    It will only vary the environmental permit if it is satisfied this would be the case.

    After the consultation has closed, the Environment Agency will review the comments received from the consultation process and take them into account in the determination of the application.

    The documentation can be found on the Environment Agency’s Citizen Space page

    Background

    More information about Drax’s permit application can be found on the application pages on Citizen Space.

    • Responses to the consultation can be made electronically.
    • Information on the website explains how people can view the consultation documents and how they can provide comments. It also explains what the EA can and can’t take into account when deciding on the application.
    • Anyone wishing to comment on the proposals is urged to read the documentation online before responding directly on the website or by email
    • People can respond directly on the website or alternatively by email to pscpublicresponse@environment-agency.gov.uk 
    • Those unable to view the documents or make representation via the consultation website or by email should contact the Environment Agency on 03708 506 506.

    Updates to this page

    Published 5 February 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Attorney General Alan Wilson wins fight against Biden-era woke policies, government overreachRead More

    Source: US State of South Carolina

    (COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced a court victory in fighting government overreach and Biden-era woke policies. The U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota ruling in favor of a 21-state coalition, including South Carolina, stopped a federal agency from making any more regulations and threw out an agency rule that was based on ideology instead of science. 

    “This is one of the many examples of woke bureaucrats making rules they didn’t have the authority to make, and with no accountability to the American people,” Attorney General Wilson said. “Now, we’ve gone back to upholding the rule of law.” 

    Besides exceeding the agency’s authority, this unlawful rule would have delayed essential construction projects in South Carolina and all states by requiring reevaluation of potential environmental impact of those projects. 

    The case challenged a regulation written by the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”), which was itself created by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (“NEPA”). That act requires all federal agencies to analyze what kinds of environmental effects are likely to result from federal action. NEPA set up the CEQ to “make recommendations to the President” and “develop and recommend to the President national policies that foster and promote the improvement of environmental quality.” 

    However, CEQ exceeded its authority by going from giving “recommendations to the President” to setting regulations on its own. The Court ruled, “The plain text of the statute does not give CEQ authority to issue binding regulations.” 

    U.S. District Judge Daniel M. Traynor concluded his ruling by writing, “The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. The truth is that for the past forty years all three branches of government operated under the erroneous assumption that CEQ had authority. But now everyone knows the state of the emperor’s clothing and it is something we cannot unsee.” 

    Joining South Carolina in the case, led by Iowa and North Dakota, were the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. 

    You can read the ruling here. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Import of poultry meat and products from ŠilutÄ—s District Municipality of Klaipedos County in Lithuania suspended

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    Import of poultry meat and products from Šilutės District Municipality of Klaipedos County in Lithuania suspended
    Import of poultry meat and products from Šilutės District Municipality of Klaipedos County in Lithuania suspended
    ******************************************************************************************

         The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (February 5) that in view of a notification from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) about an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Šilutės District Municipality of Klaipedos County in Lithuania, the CFS has instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and products from the area with immediate effect to protect public health in Hong Kong.     A CFS spokesman said that Hong Kong has currently established a protocol with Lithuania for the import of poultry meat but not for poultry eggs. According to the Census and Statistics Department, no poultry meat was imported into Hong Kong from Lithuania last year.     “The CFS has contacted the Lithuanian authority over the issue and will closely monitor information issued by the WOAH and the relevant authorities on the avian influenza outbreak. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation,” the spokesman said.

     
    Ends/Wednesday, February 5, 2025Issued at HKT 19:20

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    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: IICA and CMAI Sign MoU to Enhance Capacity for Decarbonisation

    Source: Government of India (2)

    IICA and CMAI Sign MoU to Enhance Capacity for Decarbonisation

    Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road, Transport & Highways, Graced the Day 1 of the IICA-CMAI Masterclass on Global & Indian Carbon Markets

    Under the agreement, CMAI and IICA will collaborate on Training Programmes, Joint Research, Conferences and Policy Advocacy on Carbon markets, low-carbon industrial solutions, and sustainable finance

    Posted On: 05 FEB 2025 5:10PM by PIB Delhi

    In a significant step towards strengthening India’s carbon markets and advancing decarbonisation efforts, the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and Carbon Market Association of India (CMAI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in New Delhi. The landmark agreement was announced on the inaugural day of the IICA-CMAI Masterclass on Global & Indian Carbon Markets on 4th February, graced by Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road, Transport & Highways, Government of India, who emphasized the pivotal role of biofuels and green hydrogen in shaping India’s economic and environmental future.

    He shared pilot projects related to Bio Bitumin, Bio Aviation-fuel, Bio CNG and highlighted that “Conversion of Knowledge into wealth is the future and No Material is waste”. While emphasizing the importance of PPP, he shared that “Hydrogen is fuel for the future”. The Minister also shared his vision for the cost of hydrogen to be 1 dollar per kg, which he is confident India will be the pioneering nation to achieve due to its state-of-the-art research and development initiatives in this field. While citing landmark initiatives being undertaken related to the biofuels and alternative fuels, he  also mentioned that though the initial cost of capital and technology seems high but significant research is currently underway which will eventually unleash as well as lead to the realisation of its true potential. He further highlighted the government’s commitment to developing a diversified biofuels sector, acknowledging the vast potential of various fuels to create a cleaner, more sustainable energy landscape and soon India will become a Green Hydrogen exporting country. At the end, he congratulated the organisation for launching the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Alliance and the capacity building initiatives in this domain.

     

    Dr. Garima Dadhich, Head, School of Business Environment, IICA, stated that the IICA Certificate Programme in Decarbonisation will be focused on creating a pool of corporates with advanced expertise to develop carbon offset mechanisms for climate mitigation, as well as integrate long-term strategy to decarbonise their operations.

    Mr Manish Dabkara, President, CMAI remarked that the MoU with IICA marks a significant step towards building a robust ecosystem for carbon markets in India. Training programs, research opportunities, workshops, and conferences are a huge part of accelerating sustainable business initiatives. CMAI is looking forward to a successful partnership in this area. Mr. Rohit Kumar, Secretary General, CMAI remarked that awareness has been a major challenge in this area. By combining CMAI’s industry expertise with IICA’s institutional strength, the collaboration will aim to create impactful learning opportunities that will help accelerate India’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

    This strategic partnership aims to equip industry professionals, policymakers and academicians with the necessary knowledge and expertise to navigate India’s evolving carbon markets.  CMAI, a leading industry association focused on accelerating sustainable business initiatives, will serve as the knowledge partner to IICA, a think tank under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, to support the growth and development of the corporate sector in India.

    Under the agreement, CMAI and IICA will collaborate on:

    • Training Programmes: Developing and delivering courses on carbon markets, low-carbon industrial solutions, and sustainable finance.
    • Joint Research: Conducting studies and publishing insights on decarbonisation strategies and carbon trading mechanisms.
    • Workshops and Conferences: Organising events to facilitate dialogue among industry stakeholders, policymakers, and academics.
    • Policy Advocacy: Supporting regulatory and policy frameworks that drive India’s net zero ambitions.

    The Day 1 of the Masterclass witnessed the participation of more than 70 professionals from leading corporates, PSUs as well as delegations from governmental bodies, embassies and international organisations. The Masterclass on Global and Indian Carbon Markets is being organised by IICA as part of the India Climate Week. Ms. Shivangi Vashishta, Senior Research Associate, School of Business Environment, IICA, led a case-study based discussion which led to enhanced delegate engagement. The Day 1 of the Masterclass concluded with an insightful session from Managing Partner, ERM India. The Day 2 of the Masterclass will witness a series of sessions on International Carbon Markets.

    About Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA):

    The Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA), is an autonomous institution under the aegis of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. School of Business Environment (SBE) is a specialised vertical within IICA promoting the responsible business conduct focusing on the forward-looking areas of Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Sustainable Finance, Business & Biodiversity Conservation, Business and Human Rights, Responsible Trade, ESG Audit & Assurance and other aligned areas.

    Contact: https://iica.nic.in/, sobe@iica.in or 0124-2640044

    About Carbon Market Association of India (CMAI):

    The Carbon Markets Association of India (CMAI) is a leading not-for-profit industry group driving India’s transition to a net-zero future by decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors. Collaborating with key ministries like MoEFCC, MoP, MNRE, and NITI Aayog, CMAI provides policy advocacy, capacity building, and knowledge support.

    Contact: https://cma-india.in/, secretary@cma-india.in or +91 98117 79580

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    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Liverpool City Council cracking down on illegally dumped waste 

    Source: City of Liverpool

    Liverpool City Council will step up its efforts to counter fly-tipping, dog-fouling and littering across the City by inviting applications for an external partner to provide additional enforcement. 

    Feedback from residents’ surveys, which found that fly-tipping and littering were priority issues, has played a significant part in the move to work alongside specialists with the aim of eradicating illegal waste in Liverpool. 

    The Council interviewed potential suppliers in December 2024 ensuring that an open-market procurement process would attract a range of partners. The award of a contract to the successful bidder is due to take place in March, with the chosen supplier beginning work early this summer. 

    Combatting fly-tipping, which is the illegal dumping of waste, was highlighted in a series of recommendations to help drive up environmental standards across the City were agreed by Cabinet last year.

    As part of these recommendations, the Council is also revising the cost of Fixed Penalty Notices for anyone who is found to be fly-tipping or littering.

    Each year, clearing fly-tipping costs approximately £1m, which could be used to improve services elsewhere within Liverpool. Nine out of 10 reports are responded to and cleared in five working days, but the issue is one that could be avoided entirely.

    Last summer, the Council appointed a new Environmental Enforcement Team to identify and take action against offenders. The team patrol the streets every day of the week to educate local communities on correct waste management and investigate environmental crimes.  

    Working closely with Merseyside Police, the team also check waste carriers to make sure they are disposing of waste correctly and carry the right licence to be able to do so. 

    Since June last year, the team has spoken to over 450 residential properties and businesses about fly-tipping, issuing almost 100 written warnings. This team is set to double in size in the coming months, providing more capacity to work with residents and businesses to prevent future fly-tipping.

    The incoming external partner will work closely with the taskforce to increase awareness of correct waste disposal and clamp down on illegal dumping, littering and dog-fouling. 

    The Council offers a free bulky item collection for anyone looking to get rid of items that are too big to place in household waste. Up to five items, including fridges, wardrobes, and sofas, can be collected at one time. Once taken away, these items will then be safely recycled. Alternatively, excess waste can be taken to a nearby Household Waste Recycling Centre.

    Councillor Laura Robertson-Collins, Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Communities, Neighbourhoods and Streetscene said: “Fly-tipping is an ugly and hazardous act. Liverpool is a fantastic city that we should all be proud to live in, but it’s clear that a small minority has no respect for our streets. 

    “In the past year, we’ve cleared over 20,000 instances of illegally dumped waste, many of which have been reported by concerned residents.

    “We know that fly-tipping is unsightly and can harm the environment, so a lot of time and resources are committed to cleaning it up quickly. The time and money we’ve spent on doing this could have been used on improving our City rather than having to fix a problem that selfish people have created. 

    “Residents have said to us that this is a major issue, and we agree. We’ve already taken significant steps internally by hiring more enforcement officers and the next step is to expand our operations through an external partner.

    “Our procurement strategy is focused on finding the best possible partner to achieve our aims of tackling fly-tipping, littering and dog-fouling across Liverpool.” 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Landing obligation exemption changes in English waters

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Marine Management Organisation is advising fishers of forthcoming changes to a number of exemptions to the Landing Obligation in English waters following a scientific review and public consultation.

    Fishing boat at sea.

    The Sea Fisheries (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2025 no.92 were laid before parliament at the end of January and will come in to force on February 28 2025.

    The changes mean that from the end of February a number of exemptions to the Landing Obligation will be removed so fishers will be legally required to land the species that these exemptions covered. All other exemptions remain in place.

    The changes have been made following a review of Landing Obligations exemptions by experts at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture (Cefas) and a public consultation.

    Four exemptions are set to be disapplied, three fully and one partially.

    The details are:

    • The high survivability exemption for turbot caught in English waters of ICES subarea 4 with beam trawls with a cod-end larger than 80mm will be disapplied. This is due to insufficient evidence to support this exemption. The exemption remains in place within Scottish waters of ICES subarea 4.
    • The de minimis exemption for mackerel, horse mackerel, herring and whiting caught in the pelagic fishery carried out by pelagic trawlers up to 25 metres in length overall, using mid-water trawls, and targeting mackerel, horse mackerel and herring in ICES divisions 4b and 4c south of 54 degrees north will be disapplied. This is due to insufficient evidence to support this exemption.
    • The de minimis exemption for mackerel, horse mackerel, herring and whiting caught in the fishery carried out with pelagic trawlers up to 25 meters in length overall, using mid-water trawls, and targeting mackerel, horse mackerel and herring in ICES division 7d will be disapplied. This is due to insufficient evidence to support this exemption. 
    • The cod element of a de minimis exemption for cod and whiting below the minimum conservation reference size caught in the mixed demersal fisheries by vessels using bottom trawls or seines with a mesh size of 70-99 mm in ICES division 4c will be disapplied. This is due to concerns about the Northern shelf cod stock, in particular in the Southern North Sea, and insufficient evidence to support this exemption. It provides a consistent approach across ICES subarea 4. The whiting element of this exemption will be retained.

    Under the Landing Obligation, all fish caught must be landed and not discarded if there is no exemption in place.

    For more information, see Technical Conservation and Landing Obligation rules and regulations 2025 – GOV.UK  or read general landing obligation collection page.

    Updates to this page

    Published 5 February 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: expert reaction to study looking at shipping aerosol emissions, ocean surface temperatures and rate of global warming

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    A study published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development looks at shipping aerosol emissions and the rate of global warming.

    Dr Karsten Haustein, Climate Scientist, Leipzig University, said:

    “Jim Hansen and colleagues have revisited the topic of aerosol-induced warming due to reduced shipping emissions (due to regulatory changes in 2020).  It’s a more credible attempt than their last – rather disappointing – effort, but there is still much speculation involved.  They estimate the global aerosol forcing from reduced shipping aerosols might be as high as 0.5 W/m2, which is far higher than the current estimates of 0.05-0.15 W/m2.  They argue that Earth’s radiative imbalance as well as high levels absorbed solar radiation justify such assumption.  Accordingly, they argue that Climate Sensitivity (temperature response after CO2 doubling in the atmosphere) might be as high as 4.5 W/m2.

    “Given that Earth’s radiative imbalance has considerably come down in the 2nd half of 2024 (notwithstanding the uncertainties related to measuring the global radiative imbalance), I continue to remain skeptical of their claims.  This is particularly true, as some of the extra warming could be traced to other internal factors that have not been discussed.  The so-called ‘hiatus’ discussion in the 2010s should be an example of a cautionary tale.  This is true all the more as we know with some certainty that CO2 and methane (CH4) forcing has continued to accelerate slightly, such that additional aerosol forcing increase is not necessarily required to explain what has happened in 2023 and 2024.

    “They are correct in one aspect though: 2025 will prove whether there is more to the warming story than we thought.”

    Prof Richard Allan, Professor of Climate Science, University of Reading, said:

    “Multiple lines of evidence are showing that human caused climate change is gathering pace.  Heat is continuing to flood into the climate system as atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to rise and the reflective haze of aerosol particle pollution diminishes in some regions following clean air policies.  This is causing the warming of the oceans to increase at ever greater rates.

    “The comprehensive, extensive and wide-ranging new report argues that masking of global warming by particle pollution has been underestimated and future climate change may be even worse than anticipated.  Cleaning up dirty air may be having a larger than expected effect on increasing how much sunlight reaches the ground, which is adding to a more potent greenhouse effect from continued fossil fuel emissions.  The arguments presented are not new and although reasonable they appear overly bleak compared to the growing body of scientific research.  However, the magnitude of increases in Earth’s heating rate and ocean surface warming, as well as record January global temperatures despite an expected cooling from La Niña, mean that scientists are carefully scrutinising and puzzling over the unfolding changes to Earth’s climate.  And the new report emphasises the urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to properly account for the full economic cost of our actions on the planet and people.”

    Prof William Collins, Professor of Climate Processes, University of Reading, said:

    “This paper suggests that the cooling effects of aerosols has been underestimated and hence this has hidden more of the warming effect of greenhouse gases than has previously been assessed.  This would make the climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide larger than has been assessed.  If this is the case then cleaning up aerosol pollution (as has happened with shipping since 2020) will uncover more of the underlying warming from greenhouse gases.  Aerosol pollution peaked in the 1980s, when studies have increased the cooling effect of aerosols their calculations give cooler temperatures in the 1980s than we observed.  So this paper sits outside most previous assessments of the strength of aerosol cooling.

    “There have been several assessments of the recent decline in shipping aerosols.  These range from a negligible effect on the record-breaking 2023 temperatures to a small contribution.  It will require detailed comparisons with these previous studies to determine why the shipping contribution in this paper is so much more significant.”

    ‘Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?’ by James E. Hansen et al. was published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development at 14:00 UK time on Tuesday 4 February 2025.

    DOI: 10.1080/00139157.2025.2434494

    Declared interests

    Dr Karsten Haustein: “No conflict of interests.”

    Prof Richard Allan: “No competing interests.”

    Prof William Collins: “No conflicts.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI NGOs: A Glass Act: Fighting plastic pollution one bottle at a time

    Source: Greenpeace Statement –

    Photo from: Hospitality Innovations by Quorate’s Facebook page

    In the hospitality and food and beverage (F&B) sector, plastic pollution has long been a problem. From disposable cutlery to single-use plastic bottles, the industry’s convenience-driven operations often come at a heavy cost to the environment, generating 289,700 tons of waste annually.

    But Hospitality Innovations by Quorate Inc. (HIQ), one of Greenpeace’s Champions of Change, is proving that real, sustainable solutions are not just possible–they are transformative.

    “We have been helping hotels and restaurants particularly to eliminate single-use plastics,” said Rob Boreham, Managing Director of HIQ. Their work is both practical and pioneering. For example, hotels wanting to transition away from plastic water bottles can now replace them with glass bottles. HIQ provides the bottles and the equipment necessary to make the shift seamless.

    Photo from: Hospitality Innovations by Quorate’s Facebook page

    This seemingly small change has a ripple effect. Imagine the sheer volume of plastic bottles discarded daily in hotels alone. By switching to glass, hotels reduce their environmental footprint, set an example for sustainability in the industry, and provide guests with a guilt-free, eco-conscious experience. To quote their Facebook slogan, “Sustainability starts by removing plastic bottles.” 

    HIQ takes sustainability further by advocating for systemic change and supporting a strong Global Plastics Treaty. They recognize that plastic pollution isn’t just a waste management issue, it’s a supply chain problem.

    Rob said, “With the Global Plastics Treaty, it’s looking at the end-to-end supply chain for plastics. It’s not just looking at waste management. It’s looking at the producers and options to reduce the demand from the supply side.” This view aligns with the vision of an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty, emphasizing the need for upstream solutions to curb plastic pollution before it even begins.

    Accountability in action

    Being part of Greenpaece’s Champion of Change initiative isn’t just a badge of honor for HIQ, it’s a responsibility. Rob said, “We’re very proud to be part of Champions of Change. It represents what we’ve been trying to achieve. It gives us accountability as well. Push for the reduction of plastics and removal of plastics.”

    Photo by: Rico Ibarra / Greenpeace

    Plastic pollution is worsening each day. The hospitality and F&B sector has a unique opportunity to lead by example, and pioneers like HIQ show that progress is possible as long as there’s vision, will, and action.

    But for solutions like these to flourish, we need systemic change. The Global Plastics Treaty is our once-in-a-lifetime chance to finally turn off the plastic tap by providing a framework to reduce plastic production, transition to a slow, circular, reuse-based economy, and hold corporations accountable.

    Just like HIQ, you too can become Champions of Change! Urge the Philippine government to support a strong Global Plastics Treaty by signing the petition: act.gp/plasticstreatynow 

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    Champions of Change is a growing global collective of forward-thinking businesses committed to transitioning towards a plastic-free future.

    Support a strong Plastics Treaty!

    Help build a plastic-free future.

    SIGN THE PETITION

    MIL OSI NGO –