Donald Trump<\/a>, who is openly sceptical of climate change.<\/p>\nHis administration has been working to remove climate regulations across all sectors.<\/p>\n
The US has also withdrawn from multiple international organisations working on climate change, including the UN\u2019s Framework Convention on Climate Change.<\/p>\n
Europe has also been shifting to the right politically, towards populism and away from environmental protection.<\/p>\n
The recent omnibus package, approved by the European Parliament on December 16, aims to simplify the reporting and due diligence requirements businesses must meet when operating in the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has been described as one of the most wide-ranging reform packages ever made to sustainability legislation.<\/p>\n
As part of the omnibus package, the EU\u2019s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) have been significantly scaled back.<\/p>\n
Under changes to the CSDDD, only very large companies \u2014 those with more than 5,000 employees and $1.5bn\/\u20ac1.26bn in annual turnover \u2014 will have to comply with the due diligence directive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This will reduce the number of companies required to comply to approximately 1,600 across the EU.<\/p>\n
Maximum penalties have been lowered to 3% of global turnover, while the harmonised liability regime has been removed completely.<\/p>\n
The new rules, weak as some would argue they are, will not take effect until July 2029.<\/p>\n
Amnesty has said that limiting the due diligence law to the largest companies effectively excludes most businesses from meaningful accountability.<\/p>\n
Under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), only companies employing more than 1,000 staff and generating turnover in excess of $450m\/\u20ac380m will be obliged to report, excluding some 90% of companies covered by the directive, according to Sustainability Magazine.<\/p>\n
This major policy and regulatory change in the EU has hugely shrunk the market Change by Degrees planned to operate within. Ms Shine said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n The omnibus decision stalled all these new sustainability regulations that were coming into place.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\u201cIt should have been that, this January, 50,000 companies across Europe had to do mandatory sustainability reporting and action. That got watered down and delayed for two years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CSRD and the CSDDD were to make it mandatory for many companies to address sustainability, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if you\u2019re selling a product that helps upskill people on sustainability, which is what Change by Degrees was doing, this was great because it was going to bring 50,000 companies into your market.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then last March, when the European Union \u2014 post the elections in the EU, the swing to the right in the European Parliament, a strong new policy on industrialisation, and simplification of rules for business \u2014 they changed their minds on sustainability regulations and other things and they launched the omnibus decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis pushed all that reporting out for two years, but also took the vast majority of those 50,000 companies out of the net for those regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the market then shrank and for us basically faded away to not enough to keep running a business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Change By Degrees was a business operating commercially.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But NGOs operating in the sustainability space have also been badly hit financially by the shifting tides of politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe demise of USAid, for example, in the US, removed an awful lot of funding from international development cooperation,\u201d Ms Shine said.<\/p>\n
The Center for Global Development estimates that up to 1m people will die due to USAid cuts made last year. It also estimates that up to 1.6m preventable deaths may have occurred last year due to USAid cuts in their commitments to future spending.<\/p>\n
With decades of experience of working in sustainability, Ms Shine said she knows the global agenda will shift again.<\/p>\n
![\"Change](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4961879_10_articleinlinemobile_dan_20women_2012.jpg\" "\\"Change")
Change By Degrees co-founder Tara Shine with Irish Examiner Feelgood Editor Irene Feighan at am International Women\u2019s Day event in 2022. Picture: Dan Linehan<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the fear is that that may not be until about 2028. All the momentum we lose in that period of time is troubling.<\/p>\n
\n Any of the investments we make now lock us further into fossil fuels and lock us further into destructive practices.\n <\/p>\n
Even a relatively short period of time where climate and environmental policy are sidelined could herald the end of civilisation as we know it, she fears.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to sound melodramatic. [But] we\u2019re messing with the climate system, with the natural world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n It is bigger and stronger than any of us.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has always told us that every part of every degree of warming matters. But that means that every year and every month that we don\u2019t take action on climate change and to protect nature, we make the problem worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we continue for too long along the wrong path, we\u2019re a danger to ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Shine said winding down the company is \u201csad\u201d, but she vowed to continue working on sustainability.<\/p>\n
Change By Degrees has already had an impact on the more than 25,000 people it taught and influenced over its eight years in business, Ms Shine said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough the organisations we\u2019ve worked with we had tremendous impact on their people, on their leaders, on their mindsets, on their behaviours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something we\u2019re really proud of.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We educated over 25,000 people in sustainability, worked with over 300 organisations, created 28 online courses.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach one of those people that we\u2019ve had an impact on is now someone that\u2019s leading this positive change within their own organisation and within their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even though Change By Degrees might be winding up, I think our impact will live on through the people that interacted with us. She said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n I\u2019m not giving up, I\u2019ll just find a different way.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s important for people. Even if it feels like people are ignoring what seems important to many of us – about equality and human rights and looking after the natural environment \u2014\u00a0there are lots of things we can all do in our own communities, in our own homes, in our own workplaces. And that doesn\u2019t change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not totally doom and gloom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Yes, there are things to be worried about. But certainly I\u2019m proud that we\u2019ve had a great legacy.\u201c<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s still a lot people can do in their daily lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Shine said three areas for people to examine and try to improve in their own lives is at their energy consumption, the food they eat, and their travel. She said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo think about how you can make your energy green, how you can get around in ways that are sustainable and how can you eat locally, sustainably, with more plants on your plate. Three easy things.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A conversation following a swim off Sandycove beach in Kinsale Co Cork led to the formation of an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1153,72756,2885,79,969,246,61,60,82,767],"class_list":["post-298434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-sustainability","tag-sustainability-business","tag-climate-change","tag-cork-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}