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Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I am Bissi Adebayo and on this edition...
President Trump and President Putin are set to meet tomorrow to discuss potential peace in Ukraine.
And ahead of that meeting, we'll be asking what it could mean for Russia's economy and hearing from Russians on how sanctions have affected them.
Also, it's the final day of UN talks on a treaty to end global plastic pollution and more than 100 countries say the latest draft just won't cut it.
Das so weit vergeht Bis morgen früh And over in Germany, a sizzling salted spat as two sitters both claim to have invented the breathwork.
All of that to come in just a moment or we'll begin in Russia as...
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are set to meet in Alaska on Friday in their first face-to-face meeting since President Trump returned to the White House.
The talks are expected to focus on Ukraine, but sanctions on Russia's oil and gas will also be high on the agenda. especially after the US announced plans to increase tariffs on India for buying Russian crude oil.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has become the most sanctioned nation on earth.
And so how have these sanctions been affecting the lives of normal Russians?
Here's some messages we were sent. I'm from Moscow.
The sanctions and the war have been making a pretty bad but not really devastating effect. on our country.
It's mostly visible in inflation. Prices go up by about 20% per year.
Food and petrol and medical services are becoming ever more expensive.
As for my job, I used to work with people from Europe and the United States.
And now there is much less cooperation between our countries.
So I have less work opportunities now. Ordinary people are living poorer and poorer.
The economy is becoming more isolated. Our top officials are not affected. and our dear president does not care about ordinary people he just wants to keep fighting because he hopes to get some more territory as if Russia is already not big enough.
I wish he stopped this war and started making life better on Russia's existing territory.
Hi, my name is Irina. I'm from Moscow. When the invasion began, I honestly expected a total economic collapse, but in reality, It hasn't affected me much, if at all.
The central bank has done a very good job keeping inflation under control.
That said, the changes are real. If your work depends on foreign markets, it's become much harder.
International payments are restricted or even blocked entirely.
Some people have turned to cryptocurrencies or use contacts abroad to pay for goods and services.
But I think the biggest change is the feeling of isolation.
And today, President Putin held a meeting to prepare for the negotiations in Alaska.
I asked you to gather today to tell you what stage we are at with the American administration. which, as everyone knows, is making a fairly energetic and sincere effort to stop the fighting, to stop the crisis. and to come to agreements that represent the interests of all parties involved in this conflict.
Yuri Lvov is a financial analyst at Bitskorgan, an investment company in Moscow, and he told me how important this meeting is for President Putin.
The most negative stuff could happen that negotiations, they will end with nothing.
So Trump will continue his aggressive and verbal interventions. and Russia will continue to do what it's doing.
So the fighting will continue, and the intensity could increase also.
And there is no talk of lifting any sanctions whatsoever.
I was actually going to talk about the sanctions, you know, because we're looking at the impact. how much it has hurt Russia's oil and gas revenues.
Yeah, well, it impacts Russian... oil and gas revenues, and Trump announced 25% tariffs on India.
And so it's a bit of a problem for Russia because discounts for Russian oil are rising in this case.
India state-owned companies like Indian Oil, Parat Petroleum, they are massively purchasing oil outside of Russia. from the US, from Brazil, from the Middle East, for the next couple of months of September and October.
So it's a bit of a problem for Russia, especially with the extra strengthening rubble.
So it's not a typical thing for Russia to have a strong current in a state of sanctions.
The biggest problem for Russia is like the combining factors of strong currency, in which case it is really hard to make money and to pay for stuff and to make like budget even right with debit and credit stuff.
So with lowering revenue from oil and gas, it could be...
I must not say it's dramatic because Russian economy is still like not in a state of emergency like many countries. many, many forecasters told us like years ago Because I was going to ask that how long will it take before we begin to see the effects of these sanctions on the economy and even businesses?
Yeah, well, even central bank and its policy with really high interest rates, it is really hurting the businesses right now because of the rising inflation. businesses now have to make loans with like 20% on a year basis.
It's really high for them. They are stopping their investment programs and stuff.
It's not easy. It's not easy for Russian economy right now. if we take like a timeframe, right, when the sanctions could work.
I'm not seeing it's working like in full power that Russian economy will collapse and stuff and so on for the next, I mean, three, five years.
So you're saying that it will take up to three to five years before we begin to see the impact of these sanctions on the economy? like the real impact in cases like Russian oil is off the market, revenues for the budget is really cut off.
But I... really doubt that we will ever see this kind of really hard sanctions.
Because if we say about Trump and his tariff policies...
We can't say that his tariffs could work 100% on every business. country which is buying Russian oil because the major the major importers are India and China.
And these countries are one of the largest producers in the world and they export stuff to the U.S., is much more higher than import from the US.
So US will hurt itself eventually. So are you trying to say that Russia is not desperate for a sanctions relief?
It's not desperate. It's hard. It's not easy, but it's not desperate.
That was Yuri Lvov, who is a financial analyst at Bitcogan, an investment company in Moscow.
Susanna Streeter is head of money and markets for financial services company Hargreaves Lansdowne, and she joins us now.
It's about 24 hours to the meeting between President Trump and President Putin.
But is that already having any sort of impact on the markets?
Yes, I think so. So what we've seen is President Trump warning Russia there will be dire consequences and Of course, the expectation is this would be in the form of much tougher economic sanctions, including on oil exports.
And because of this, there has been as I rise in niggles of worry about the supply of oil onto oilfields, world market.
So Brent crude, the benchmark now trading up around 1% above $66 a barrel.
Nevertheless, you're still seeing a lid being kept on prices because of the more downbeat forecasts for global demand from the International Energy Agency, but also some US government data which showed... crude stocks climbed by over 3 million barrels last week, defying expectations. for a draw on those stocks.
So really signalling tepid demands. You've got this push and pull continuing, but oil prices have risen a bit ahead of that meeting.
And we'll see how the numbers go in the coming days.
In other news now, Susanna, official figures today show the UK economic growth came in better than expected. are worries about tariffs and taxes beginning to ease off.
Yeah, that's right. So the sun really did shine on the UK economy in June after those clouds. in May and April when the economy shrank.
So output rose by 0.4%. after a contraction in the two prior months.
The services sector sprung back into life, helping the economy expand as well.
0.3% on a three-month view. Now, this will be welcome news for the government, which has had a frustrating time chasing elusive growth.
The worst of the tariff fears appear to be behind the UK, thanks to an early deal with with the united states which has proven to be more favorable than with other nations around the world but it is still going to be a challenge ahead to build on this momentum All right, Susanna, stay with us.
We'll come back to you in just a moment. on the world's first legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, which are now wrapping up with no deal in sight.
More than 100 countries have rejected the latest draft at the UN talks in Switzerland as dip divisions persist.
Every year, the world produces over 400 billion tonnes of plastic waste, and every minute, the equivalent of a rubbish truck's worth ends up in the ocean.
And as the talks enter their final hours, frustration is spilling onto the conference floor with some delegates like this one from Panama. saying the current proposals will not work.
Our goal here is to end plastic pollution, not simply get to a political arrangement.
We need to bring production back. The text presented here makes that wound fatal and we will not accept it.
And Saudi Arabia also warns that their red lines have been crossed.
If we're going to make this work, we need to once and for all respect our red lines.
Many red lines crossed for the Arab group, and they've been clear for years.
I think one thing that we should... be careful of is balance, balance especially between the measures.
Well, let's bring in the BBC's Imogen Fawkes live from Geneva.
Imogen, you've been following this story, but for those who may not have followed this closely, what exactly is it?
It's the Global Plastics Treaty. What is it aiming to achieve?
Well, the aim was, and it may be a was now, was to have a treaty that everybody could vote sign up to that would reduce plastic pollution.
I think that is something we're all increasingly conscious of.
There is a lot of plastic around. You referred to it in your introduction there.
The plastic in the ocean, some small island states are really awash in it.
But it's also that scientists have become increasingly aware that there is microplastics everywhere. in the air, in our water, even in our own bodies.
And there are big questions about what kind of health problems we may be storing up in the future for having this pollution. which is hard to get rid of.
It's not so easy to recycle all of the plastic that we produce.
So this was the sixth, I believe, round of talks, supposed to be the final.
There was supposed to be. A treaty by consensus, no vote, no disagreement.
Unfortunately, as you made clear with those clips you played. that's not really the case.
And we're really in the last few hours now.
And what exactly are the sticking points here?
Well, the disagreement is over how we should reduce plastic pollution.
We've got two kind of groups of countries going head to head, one called the ambitious group.
The many European countries, the UK included, are in that.
They want reduction of plastic production and phasing out of harmful chemicals that go into that production.
Now there's another group, they call themselves the like-minded group, They say, we don't need to reduce production.
What we can do is do better disposal and more recycling.
It's perhaps no surprise that Many of those countries are from oil producing Gulf states.
The oil, obviously, is an integral part, fossil fuels integral part. producing plastic.
And those countries see a future for their natural resources, their fossil fuels in plastic production. particularly as the world moves away from fossil fuels to renewables for energy.
They're really going head to head draft treaty produced, which nobody agrees with.
So, as we said, hard to see where we're going now.
All right, stay with us, Imogen. We'll come to you right after we hear from a business owner, Victoria Omobowich, who's the founder of London-based Summersnacks, which makes crisps. and snacks with recyclable packets.
And I asked her how she had managed to make the packets recyclable.
Typically, crisp packaging, because it's got the metallised foil on it alongside the plastic, it's not recyclable because... of the process of recycling its two different materials.
So what we've done is we've worked with a manufacturer who focuses on biodegradable crisp packaging.
So it's made of a combination of like cellulose, wood pulps or other really... degradable things and the only plastic ingredient is like the glue to seal it together.
You can put it into your compost bags, you can put it into your soil, it will degrade. as with a lot of natural things like paper.
You're shifting away from plastics, but the question is, How easy is it for small businesses or medium to small businesses to be able to afford the costs of these alternatives?
It's absolutely not easy. Every penny in production really counts and it cuts into the bottom line.
So it's not easy. It's not often profitable.
We definitely need support on a government level. level to, you know, companies that are deciding to be sustainable and are deciding to, you Do you need that support?
Because it's definitely not cost effective to go down that route.
So when you see conversations like this come up at the United Nations level, talking about countries standing in the way of countries, plastic production.
How does that sit with you? It's no surprise.
It's obviously quite disheartening. As someone who has dedicated a lot of my career to renewable energy, I see, you know, from a Nigerian background, I see how we can be sustainable as a country and we can really solve some of the large issues like energy issues but it's just something that's not adopted and it's no surprise.
Because there are so many powers that be. the big oil industry, plastic industry, who obviously are probably lobbying for this not to go through.
We were waiting for... the real improvement to be made that is needed.
Victoria Amobowich, founder of London-based Sunmo Snacks there.
Imogen Folks is still with us live in Geneva.
Where do these talks go from here, particularly if the fields are agreed?
Will people like Victoria there be waiting even longer for some global action on plastics?
I fear it may be a wait. Actually, I think it's very hard to see an agreement that will be meaningful coming out of this particular round of talks.
We're at the 11th hour. Now, it may be they'll agree another round to try and get something done, but it does seem a shame.
As Victoria said, it's disheartening for people in many countries where Opinion polls show that ordinary people, whether they're in small island states or wash in plastic, Or parents in Europe worried about microplastics getting into their children's bodies.
Opinion polls show these people actually want a treaty, want to control on plastics.
You know, the governments, the lobby groups, they're going head to head and they can't agree.
Many thanks, Imogen. We'll leave it at that.
Imogen Fawkes is our Geneva correspondent there.
You're with World Business Report on the BBC World Service.
Now, in the quest to shop more sustainably, it's easy to get lost in the jungle of logos claiming green credentials and give...
This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem?
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Probably spotted labels like Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance on your bananas. chocolate or coffee, or maybe even notice your favourite restaurant is a living wage employer.
Well, one of those fastest growing sustainability certifications right now is B Corporation. and there are nearly 10,000 of these companies around the world.
But it turns out all is not entirely harmonious in the B Corp. club.
My colleague Josh Martin has been looking into it.
Josh, tell us what exactly is going on here.
Yeah, hi, Bessie. So as you say, there are quite a few ethical business certifications and logos to choose from if you're trying to convince consumers that you're an ethical business.
And B Corp pledges to customers that the brand that they buy is being made responsibly.
So brands like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's are a couple of well-known examples of B Corps.
And they basically pay tens of thousands of dollars to have their entire business audited to ensure that it's socially and environmentally sustainable. and then they can slap a B Corp logo on their packaging.
So this movement really wants to shake up business, and make sure business is a force for good.
So it needs to grow its membership. And that's where the problem lies.
Some B Corp certified companies have said that it's become too easy to achieve for large multinational food and beverage companies. who have had historical issues in their supply chains.
And they're not just complaining, some of them are leaving altogether.
So David Bronner is the boss of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps in California, and he told me that once B-Labs let Nespresso, the coffee pod maker, become a B Corp, he knew it was a club that he could no longer be part of. kind of what was already a problem became a much bigger problem and a much bigger deal once you had these multinationals start coming into the ecosystem.
There needs to be harder requirements, especially for the big companies that don't have an excuse to not.
Do it. You know, it's one thing if you're small and you have some real resource constraints.
But these bigger multinationals, I mean, that's not the issue.
And their supply chain impacts are so large and often have very problematic histories.
Yeah, we just feel B Corp could have a higher bar for these guys.
There should be some kind of credible eco-social certification from the farm level, yeah, to the shelf.
So Nespresso and its owner Nestle Group refuted any claims that its approach to sustainability in the wider business was lacking.
But Dr Bronner's isn't the only one to hand back its B Corp card.
To a company, Better Places and pet food brand Scrumbles have left the certification.
And B-Labs also revokes B Corp certification for brands that don't live up to the ethos of sustainable businesses, which is what happened to UK craft beer maker Brewdog.
And how has B-Laps reacted to Dr. Bronner and others taking this ethical stance against a large multinationals joining the B Corp club?
Well, so from next year, companies who go for B Corp status or recertify as B Corps have to meet minimum standards across seven different sustainability and ethical criteria.
So it's strengthened those rules. And there'll be third-party verification for them as well.
Its global CEO, Clay Brown, said any criticisms of greenwashing need to be put in a wider context.
I don't see the backlash against B Corps.
We've certainly seen some people and members of the community have decided to leave.
And we understand that it's not for everyone all the time.
Our standards are challenging business to go even further.
You know, B Corps are not perfect changing the nature in ways businesses operate. is not a linear path and companies have challenges doing that sometime.
Despite the criticism, the B Corp's boss also stood by the decision to award Nespresso its ethical business logo.
Nespresso has met the standard and they continue to be a really important part of the B Corp community.
Our mission is one of wider sort of economic system change.
It's not always a comfortable and straightforward path, right?
As our movement grows, as it becomes more diverse and representative of what a new economy could look like, we have to embrace sort of that tension that's inherent in scaling better businesses.
We have to transform businesses of all sizes across all sectors.
You can hear more of Josh's Business Daily wherever you get your Business Daily podcasts.
Now let's bring back Susanna Street, head of money and markets for Hergraves Lansdowne, who's still with us.
Let's look at other news in the markets today, Susanna.
The Chinese technology company Tencent has posted a third straight quarter of double-digit growth with revenue of 15% year-on-year.
Tell us what's driving this momentum. Well, it's really driven by gaming and AI expansion.
Those are the really big pillars of success.
And it's really been quite aggressive in the way that it's really shot after AI driven. diversification.
But also Tencent Music saw 17.9% revenue growth.
It's been doing lots of cross-border collaborations, but also using AI tools to boost WeChat user engagement, which is now reached.
1.4 billion users. All right, many thanks to Susanna Streeter, Head of Money and Markets for Hergrove's Lansdowne.
Now let's move to other stories now. We're talking of a row which has broken out over the origins of a humble bratwurst.
See you next time. Up until this week, the Bavarian city of Regensburg proudly boasted the world's oldest Bradworth stand.
But a surprise discovery by historians means the city of Erfurt in Thuringia might just have stolen their sausage crown.
Let's bring in... The BBC's Bethany Bell now from Vienna.
So tell us, this is one tasty dispute there.
Who's got the stronger claim today among the locals?
Braveria or Team Thuringia? This is the big question.
I mean, bratwurst is, of course, a big staple of German cuisine.
It's readily available all throughout the country and in Austria as well.
Until now, the Wurstkuchel Tavern, which is by the Stone Bridge in Regensburg in Bavaria, has claimed the title of oldest Bratwurst stand in the world because the first documented evidence of a cook or a food stall on that same site dates back to 1378.
And there is reference to Bratwurst in Thuringia, but the first written reference to Bratwurst dates to 1404.
But now... Historians in Erfurt, which is the state capital of Thuringia, they've come across an even earlier document that mentions a meat roasting stand in Erfurt which has dated 1269, so that's more than 100 years before the Wurstkuchel site in Regensburg.
And now they're looking for the place in Erfurt where that stand once was.
And Bethany, tell us now, who actually decides the winner here?
Well, I mean, this is a question of... It has to be worked out among the historians and everything like this.
Back at the Wurstelkuchel... In Regensburg, Andreas Meyer says that unlike in Erfurt, they actually have a living tradition because the Wurstkuchel still produces charcoal-grilled pork breakfast sausages with mustard and with cabbage. and you can go there and eat them.
So he says they may have found the document in Erfurt, and it may be actually older.
But he said, we're alive. The tradition is alive here, not just a piece of paper.
There has been a row about bratwurst before.
Regensburg and the town of Nuremberg, which is also in Bavaria, both used to lay claim to the oldest sausage stand title.
And eventually an independent authority was brought in and they ruled in favor of Regensburg.
And quickly, are there any economic stakes here?
It's, I think, a little bit early to talk about that.
The Wurstkuchel has said that they're continuing to sell lots of sausages and people eat bratwurst over the entire country.
All right. BBC's Bethany Bell, many thanks for joining us from Vienna.
And that's it on World Business Report in this edition.
Remember, you can find us online. wherever you find your BBC podcast.
Many thanks for joining us.
