Deep Dives
Thought-provoking research providing extensive learning opportunities
Bhammar, H. et al., Sustainability Tourism
Tourism in protected areas was a fast-growing segment within the global travel and tourism industry prior to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. As a development pathway, tourism generated foreign exchange for countries endowed with natural assets (protected areas, pristine landscapes, forests, oceans, wildlife), contributed to conservation revenues, and provided local development benefits for communities.
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Planet Tracker Fisheries & Aquaculture
In this report, using an entire industry of a G7 country as a case study, Planet Tracker shows how the depletion of the natural world negatively impacts financials, and how improved sustainability could drive better financial performance. Analysts and portfolio managers must therefore understand and account for natural capital and its interplay with financial performance.
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Duarte, C.M. et al., UNESCO
Over the last decades scientists have discovered that seagrass meadows, tidal marshes, and mangroves – “blue carbon” ecosystems – are among the most intensive carbon sinks in the biosphere. By sequestering and storing significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and ocean, blue carbon ecosystems help mitigate climate change. But conversion and degradation of these ecosystems can also release billions of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the ocean and atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
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UNEP FI SBE ESG
This seminal guidance is a market-first practical toolkit for financial institutions to pivot their activities towards financing a sustainable blue economy.
Designed for banks, insurers and investors, the guidance outlines how to avoid and mitigate environmental and social risks and impacts, as well as highlighting opportunities, when providing capital to companies or projects within the blue economy.
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Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions (COS) and the Stanford Law School (SLS) Fisheries & Aquaculture Shipping & Ports
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a complex, systemic issue with impacts that resonate through global supply chains and can particularly harm those most vulnerable: the workers on fishing vessels. The millions of tons of fish stolen each year result in a huge loss to the economies of coastal nations and a threat to food security for the billion people who depend on fish for protein. Additionally, vessels that fish illegally often engage in labor abuses, including everything from substandard working conditions to modern slavery, prompting a human rights crisis.
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UNESCO-IOC
As Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) emerges around the world as a practical tool for promoting a more rational use of the ocean, it could also play a significant role in promoting the rapid and environmentally sound development of ocean-based activities and growth of the Blue Economy.
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Kilcher, L., Fogarty, M. and Lawson, M., National Renewable Energy Laboratory Energy Solutions
This report summarizes the best available data on U.S. marine energy resources at the national, state, and regional scales. Results are primarily based on U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded marine energy resource assessments for wave, tidal currents, ocean currents, ocean thermal gradients, and river currents.
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Advancing Sustainable Development and Protected Area Management with Social Media-Based Tourism Data
Arkema, K.K. et al., Sustainability Tourism
Sustainable tourism involves increasingly attracting visitors while preserving the natural capital of a destination for future generations.
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Greg Carlock and Dan Lashof, World Resources Institute Energy Solutions
Climate change already affects millions of Americans, from worsening asthma and other respiratory problems to spurring destructive and costly hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves and other extreme weather.
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Ahren Lester, Environmental Finance
This year's edition contains 14 chapters from leading institutions in the green, social and sustainability bond markets analysing the main developments in 2020 and the outlook for 2021. These contributions are supplemented by graphics and data from the EF Bond Database.
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Navarrete, I.A. et al., Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews Fisheries & Aquaculture
Seasonal or chronic nutrient limitations in the photic zone limit large-scale cultivation of seaweed (macroalgae) in much of the world's oceans, hindering the development of macroalgae as a biofuel feedstock. One possible solution is to supply nutrients using a diel depth-cycling approach, physically moving the macroalgae between deep nutrient-rich water at night and shallow depths within the photic zone during the day.
Read more → (15 minute read)
Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition Fisheries & Aquaculture
This brief sets out the contribution that aquaculture can make to healthy diets and resilient food systems. It provides guidance for policymakers as they consider decisions related to the expansion of aquaculture, balancing issues related to diets and food security, economic growth and employment, and the environment.
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United Nations Global Compact Fisheries & Aquaculture
Weren’t able to attend the Accelerating Sustainable Seafood webinar? Find out about its key outcomes.
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United Nations Global Compact Fisheries & Aquaculture
Puts forward six key enablers which could be advanced by all systemic shapers to accelerate the sustainable development of the seafood industry - from unlocking sustainable finance and ratifying international conventions, to moving beyond data disclosure, rewarding progress, and incorporating wider food system dimensions into both policy and sustainability-related services.
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Savoca, M.S. et al., Global Change Biology Plastics & Pollution
Plastic pollution has pervaded almost every facet of the biosphere, yet we lack an understanding of consumption risk by marine species at the global scale.
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Massachusetts Ocean Acidification Commission Fisheries & Aquaculture
Since the industrial revolution, the world’s oceans have become increasingly acidic. The main drivers of ocean acidification in Massachusetts are (1) global increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from anthropogenic emissions, and (2) local nutrient pollution leading to the eutrophication of coastal waters.
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Richir, J. et al., Environment International Shipping & Ports
Trace elements (TEs) frequently contaminate coastal marine sediments with many included in priority chemical lists or control legislation. These, improved waste treatment and increased recycling have fostered the belief that TE pollution is declining. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of long-term robust datasets to support this confidence.
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HM Treasury
Economics is a discipline that shapes decisions of the utmost consequence, and so matters to us all. The Dasgupta Review at last puts biodiversity at its core and provides the compass that we urgently need. In doing so, it shows us how, by bringing economics and ecology together, we can help save the natural world at what may be the last minute – and in doing so, save ourselves.
Read more → (more than an hour read)
HM Treasury
Economics is a discipline that shapes decisions of the utmost consequence, and so matters to us all. The Dasgupta Review at last puts biodiversity at its core and provides the compass that we urgently need. In doing so, it shows us how, by bringing economics and ecology together, we can help save the natural world at what may be the last minute – and in doing so, save ourselves.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
HM Treasury
Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.
Read more → (15 minute read)
