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It is now up to the private sector to prove on a large scale that sustainable business practices lead to greater biodiversity and to capturing more carbon – and, above all, that they offer robust financial returns. That calls for a fresh perspective: sustainability isn’t a “green cost of doing business” – rather, it is now the business itself. Photo: Gustavo Frazao/Shutterstock.

Exploiting rainforest riches while conserving them

Posted on: June 18, 2019
Guilherme Leal
Products that are sustainably harvested from the Amazon can form a powerful bioeconomy Climate change is coming to the global policy agenda, and damage to the world’s tropical rainforests is a key component of it. In my own country, Brazil, there is...
Together, if we meet the SDGs, we will do something no generation has achieved since the first industrial revolution: we can hand to tomorrow’s generation a planet in better shape than we inherited it. Photo: TTstudio/Shutterstock.

Why investors must look beyond returns

Posted on: June 4, 2019
Lim Boon Heng
Profitability and sustainability can reinforce each other. Business should do well, do right and do good – and it pays. When starting a business, founders grapple with its purpose – the reason for it to exist. This purpose has multiple dimensions,...
That mitigating the climate crisis must be an integrated effort is very much at the heart of how ADB as an institution is responding to this and other development challenges with its “One ADB approach”. Photo: Tonle Sap, Cambodia; takepicsforfun/Shutterstock.

All hands on deck: the climate crisis is here

Posted on: June 3, 2019
Marvin Taylor-Dormond
The British daily newspaper The Guardian recently updated the language it uses to write about the environment, introducing terms that more accurately describe the environmental predicament facing the world. Terms like climate change will give way to...
Accenture estimates that going circular stands to add $4.5 trillion in value to the global economy – and without the damaging effects on the global commons inflicted by historical economic development. Photo: Comaniciu Dan/Shutterstock.

Going circular offers a great opportunity

Posted on: May 30, 2019
Frans van Houten
Combating climate change and the throwaway economy could achieve a leap in prosperity. In the past few months, I have heard Sir David Attenborough, and believe him when he says the next 10 years are make-or-break time for environmental stability on...
In Costa Rica, Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency support allowed the Ministry of Environment and Energy to build an online platform that will track progress to the country’s ambitious goals. The platform will allow data producers to input data and for data users to gain an understanding of how the country is doing to meet its National Determined Contributions. Photo: Stefan Scherer-Emunds/Shutterstock.

Helping countries improve transparency to meet bold climate commitments

Posted on: May 30, 2019
Chizuru Aoki
Costa Rica has an ambitious goal to become the first carbon neutral nation in the world by 2021. The Central American country has long been known for its environmental stewardship, but the commitments Costa Rica made for itself under the Paris...
Today, farmers are shouldering the burden of adapting to the climate crisis. Food and agriculture can be powerful solutions in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, investing in soil health and innovating to sequester carbon. Photo: happystock/Shutterstock.

Transforming the food system to feed tomorrow’s world

Posted on: May 29, 2019
Fiona Dawson
Supporting sustainable rice production protects the global commons, increases farmers’ incomes and is good for our business. The delicate ecosystem that allows our planet and its people to thrive is under pressure as never before. The UK Government...
This year’s International Day for Biological Diversity focuses on biodiversity as the foundation for our food and health and as a key catalyst to transforming food systems and improving human well-being. Read the examples below that illustrate the roles certain species play in maintaining healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. Photo: Zoran Kompar Photography/Shutterstock.

Celebrating biodiversity in all corners of the world

Posted on: May 22, 2019
GEF Communications
The recent IPBES Global Assessment Report revealed that around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. Turning this situation around will take time, money, and collective efforts at many levels....
Our failure to act over the past decades means that we are increasingly accepting that a part of our climate disruption is irreversible, and looking at adapting to it. But this, of course, should not prevent us from setting targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to stop it getting worse. Photo: testing/Shutterstock.

Pricing carbon will help us better deal with climate change

Posted on: May 21, 2019
Feike Sijbesma
Nearly 1,400 companies are adopting an internal carbon price so as to future-proof prosperity The impact of climate disruption is already visible worldwide: irreversible damage to the oceans, more floods and prolonged droughts, which are causing...
While this year's Biological Diversity Day focuses on human nutrition and health, these are just a few of the aspects of life on Earth that are at stake when biodiversity’s future is threatened. But it’s not too late. We can change course. Photo: Conservation International/Aulia Erlangga.

This Biological Diversity Day, there is something to celebrate: proven solutions

Posted on: May 20, 2019
Olivier Langrand
The people who live along and fish the Mekong River within the Stung Treng protected wetland in northeast Cambodia may not be aware that they’re within the boundaries of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot—one of 36 global terrestrial regions of...
The people living on the mountain are the poorest of the poor and the unluckiest of the unlucky - losing children, homes and crops to the conflict and lacking schools and medical clinics. These women, having seen years of fighting, were not willing to give up. Photo: <a href="http://www.jenguyton.com/">Jen Guyton</a>.

Are you here to plant trees or help people?

Posted on: May 15, 2019
Sarah Wyatt
How Gorongosa National Park is using agriculture to protect biodiversity and lift people out of poverty Imagine trying to convince a group of poor farmers who don’t know you to plant a crop that they’ve never heard of, has no nutritional value, and...