How Latin America is Missing the Greatest Opportunity to Tackle Climate Change: the Food We Eat
Is the region missing the greatest opportunity to tackle climate change? A lot has been done in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Countries are diversifying their energy matrix, addressing deforestation, and financing resilience mechanisms, among others. But little has been done in regards to one of the […]
Is Your Company Ready to Engage with the SDGs through Inclusive Business?
SDG engagement can take the form of a tested and decade-old concept: inclusive business. A new report helps companies assess how ready they are to incorporate it. These are unsettling times. The promise of globalisation is being increasingly eclipsed by political uncertainty and a rising tide of nationalism and protectionism. In listening to workers displaced […]
Can Cities Benefit from Last-mile Energy Innovations in Rural Areas?
By Carlos Guiza and Xosé Ramil Twenty million people do not yet have access to electricity in Latin America. Around 90 million people are still dependent on solid fuels—mainly biomass and kerosene—to cover basic needs such as heating and cooking, which limits their access to lighting and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. This deficiency particularly […]
How Can Companies Harness the SDGs to Strengthen Smallholder Supply Chains?
Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents a significant value creating opportunity for business. According to the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, achieving the SDGs will create up to US$12 trillion of market opportunities[1] for companies across the four economic systems studied in its landmark report Better Business, Better World (food and agriculture, cities, […]
Black Swans and the Future of Energy
Energy experts now confidently predict that by 2040, solar and wind will drive no less than 60% of global power; natural gas will replace the lion’s share of the burning of coal, and the market for electric cars will soar. Nassim Taleb, on the other hand, questions the ability of experts to predict just about […]
Bridging Gaps: Cross-sector Collaboration is the Future of Sustainable Business
The world faces growing problems—natural resource scarcity and climate change, along with anti-trade and migration movements—that require more nimble policies, institutions and investments for sustainable development. Yet, current approaches are hobbled because they operate in silos across sectors. When stakeholders and policymakers operate in silos, maximizing one interest at the expense of everyone else’s, the […]
A Cup Half Full: Collaborating for Water Security
Water is something most of us take for granted. We turn on the tap and it flows. We buy it in bottles. We use it to grow gardens and irrigate food crops. Yet it’s amongst the most precious natural capital on earth. But after decades of deliberation on policy and talk of collaboration, making a […]
The World Can't Wait for Sewers
For many people living in low-income urban areas, a flush toilet or sewer connection is little more than a pipe dream. Often the infrastructure doesn’t exist or can’t be constructed in such densely populated or topographically challenging areas, or service fees are simply too high. The world needs a viable, high-quality alternative to piped sanitation […]
The World Can’t Wait for Sewers
For many people living in low-income urban areas, a flush toilet or sewer connection is little more than a pipe dream. Often the infrastructure doesn’t exist or can’t be constructed in such densely populated or topographically challenging areas, or service fees are simply too high. The world needs a viable, high-quality alternative to piped sanitation […]
USAID Partners to Invest in Africa’s Entrepreneurs
This week’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress, which brings thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and policymakers to Johannesburg, South Africa, is an opportunity to build on the momentum of the Sankalp Africa Forum and reaffirm the development community’s commitment to invest in Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Sustainable entrepreneurship is a critical component of inclusive development. Entrepreneurs create jobs, […]
#BeBoldForChange: To Empower Women, You Need to Work with Men, Too
On International Women’s Day, Alison Ward explains how Cotton Connect’s work with Primark to support women cotton farmers in India is sowing transformative change by engaging both sexes. #BeBoldForChange is the theme for International Women’s Day 2017. While progress has been made around the world, the latest estimates from the World Economic Forum reveal that […]
Mobilizing Private-Sector Investment to Transform Jordan’s Water System
Jordan is one of the driest, most water poor countries in the world, and population growth has put a strain on the country’s already limited water resources and aging infrastructure. The As-Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant is the primary facility for treating wastewater from Jordan’s Amman and Zarqa Governorates, home to about 5 million people, but […]
Exploring the Accelerator Landscape
Hundreds of accelerators—intensive, short term programs that speed up the development of early stage ventures to succeed, or fail—have emerged around the world. While the concept began in Silicon Valley, international development funders have seen the model as a way to drive growth in emerging markets as well. And beyond just tech companies, accelerators focus […]
From Fiction to Fashion: Helps Business See Forests for the Trees
Dan Schiff, Global Engagement Manager, Fabric Of Change Initiative, in partnership with the C & A Foundation An Ashoka Fellow since 2003, Nicole Rycroft is a tireless warrior for the world’s forest ecosystems. The native Australian, now based in Vancouver, Canada, leads the environmental NGO Canopy, which works with business partners in the publishing and […]
Share your Views: Mapping the Oil and Gas Industry to the SDGs
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and IPIECA (the global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues) have released for public comment a draft report: Mapping the Oil and Gas Industry to the Sustainable Development Goals: An Atlas. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 […]
Sri Lanka’s Garment Workers ‘Stand Up’ for Rights
Shirone Kaushalya works in a factory producing leather jackets. But she rarely sees the finished product. The 30-year-old woman uses a hammer to pound on the ridges and bumps of raw leather until it is smooth enough for stitching. Then she hands the flattened material to the next station in production and grabs another piece […]
The Coca-Cola Company and India’s Mango Farmers
A typical smallholder mango farmer in India earns between just $4 and $16 per day. One of the reasons is that they have trouble accessing stable, profitable markets for their crops. Meanwhile, international corporations, like The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC), view smallholder sourcing as an important part of their long-term goals; beyond its potential to generate […]
New Evidence Supporting the Business Case for Investing in Female Garment Workers
CARE’s programmes on dignified work have for a number of years included training sessions for women in factories. Recent research provides further evidence, backing up our own findings, that investing in training for women workers makes good business sense for factory owners. A key initiative that we have been involved in implementing has been the […]
Sustainable Business Leadership in 2017: Game On
At the start of last year, we were still riding the highs of 2015, which saw important progress on sustainable business. The year just past, 2016, for multiple reasons, was less positive. How will 2017 break the tie? Let’s start by looking back to where we were a year ago. Here’s the good news: The […]
What prize awaits Businesses that Embrace the Sustainable Development Goals?
By Sue Adkins, International Director, Business in the Community As the Business Sustainable Development Commission launches its report Better Business, Better World as the World Economic Forum in Davos, marking the first anniversary of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sue Adkins, International Director at BITC looks at how businesses are embracing the SDGs. The […]