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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, seldom one. These could include: developing goods and services to meet needs in the community; creating employment for people in the region; generating prosperity for its owners and workers; pioneering, innovating and growing; and hopefully, making a positive contribution to the society in which it operates.

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 preferred terms like “climate emergency, crisis, or breakdown” to better reflect what The Telegraph sees as a catastrophe for humanity. Addressing this climate crisis needs to be an all-hands effort.

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 this planet.

I have heard Greta Thunberg, and share her conviction that we are in the midst of a climate emergency. I have also heard the naysayers – those who dismiss luminaries and young campaigners alike as cult members and catastrophists – and encourage them to think again.

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 Agreement have set a new high bar for decarbonization.

For Costa Rica and all countries participating in the Paris Agreement, the ability to meet their greenhouse gas emission targets – known as National Determined Contributions (NDCs)—hinges on their capacity to monitor, track, and report on progress, and make adjustments as needed.  

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 recently became the first in the world to declare a “climate change emergency”.

The recent IPBES Global Assessment Report revealed that around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.

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 issues for food production.

Methane explosions in Siberia due to thawing permafrost; sinking villages in Alaska; an increase in extreme weather events – we have a big problem.

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 very high biological diversity that are under extreme threat. But they know that nature has long provided much of the food they eat and supported their living through the fish and rice they sell. And they have witnessed disturbing changes.

How Gorongosa National Park is using agriculture to protect biodiversity and lift people out of poverty

Uruguay is a country whose economy was built on cattle grazing. It has rolling hills, a temperate climate, sprawling beaches, and no difficult-to-access areas, like jungles, dense forests, or mountainous regions. But while in some countries cattle farming is a driver of deforestation, in Uruguay it presents a different climate challenge – the increased release of the greenhouse gas methane.