Deep Dives
Thought-provoking research providing extensive learning opportunities
Peter Howard & Derek Sylvan, Institute for Policy Integrity Energy Solutions
Thousands of economists have spent years or decades studying the interaction between climate change and the economic systems that underlie modern life. The views of these experts can help clarify how climate change will likely affect our society and economy, and how policymakers should approach greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts.
Read more → (more than an hour read)
Naylor, R.L. et al., Nature Fisheries & Aquaculture
The sustainability of aquaculture has been debated intensely since 2000, when a review on the net contribution of aquaculture to world fish supplies was published in Nature. This paper reviews the developments in global aquaculture from 1997 to 2017, incorporating all industry sub-sectors and highlighting the integration of aquaculture in the global food system.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
Spijkers, J. et al., One Earth Fisheries & Aquaculture
Disruptive changes in our global ocean and fisheries have sparked warnings of an increase in fishery conflicts. However, such environmental changes have not yet been considered in tandem with other critical social, economic, and political trends for mapping out possible future trajectories for fishery conflict.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
IOC-UNESCO
A recent analysis prepared by IOC-UNESCO explores tangible ways in which linkages between the Ocean Decade, with its vision of the ‘science we need for the ocean we want’, and the Ocean Panel, with its aims of ‘safeguarding the long-term health and resilience of the ocean’, can be leveraged and optimized.
Read more → (30 minute read)
Cisneros-Montemayor, A.M. et al., Nature
The future of the global ocean economy is currently envisioned as advancing towards a ‘blue economy’—socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically viable ocean industries. However, tensions exist within sustainable development approaches, arising from differing perspectives framed around natural capital or social equity.
Read more → (18 minute read)
Roque, BM et al., PLoS ONE Energy Solutions Fisheries & Aquaculture
Livestock production, particularly ruminants, contributes to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. These emissions are estimated to be 7.1 Gt carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents annually which accounts for approximately 14.5% of the global anthropogenic GHG emissions. The majority of GHG emissions from livestock production is in the form of methane (CH4), which is produced largely through enteric fermentation and to a lesser extent manure decomposition.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
Andrew Willner, Mongabay Energy Solutions Shipping & Ports
Today, startup companies like Fair Transport (with its retrofitted wooden vessels Tres Hombres and Nordlys); modest sized proof-of-concept firms, with purpose-built vessels like Grain de Sail; and large cargo ship retrofits and purpose-built vessels like Neoline’s new large cargo vessels, are starting to address CO2 emissions.
Read more → (13 minute read)
Tara Lohan, The Revelator Energy Solutions
Materials needed to make the batteries for electric cars and other clean technology is driving interest in deep-seabed mining, and scientists fear the cost to the ocean will be steep.
Read more → (16 minute read)
Bonney, R. et al., BioScience Fisheries & Aquaculture Tourism
Increasing costs are challenging the capacity for resource management agencies to keep up with mounting needs for robust data about fish populations and their habitats.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
Heather Clancy, GreenBiz Energy Solutions
Given the devastating economic toll the COVID-19 pandemic has had on women and girls, the imperative to mark International Women’s Day carries more weight than usual this year.
Read more → (25 minute read)
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.
Read more → (17 minute read)
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.
Read more → (more than an hour read)
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.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
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.
Read more → (more than an hour read)
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.
Read more → (more than an hour read)
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.
Read more → (13 minute read)
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.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
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.
Read more → (more than 30 minute read)
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.
Read more → (11 minute read)
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.
Read more → (more than an hour read)
