Research
-
Mining standards review
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) ‘State of Sustainability Initiatives (SSI)’ project provides objective, in-depth research into key aspects of voluntary sustainability standards. Flagship SSI reports cover the role of standards in the ‘Green Economy’ (agriculture), the ‘Blue Economy’ (fisheries), and the role of standards in biodiversity, transparency and poverty reduction. Matthew Wenban-Smith was…
-
Land conversion and compensation
Many sustainability standards programmes aim to reduce or prevent the conversion of habitats with high conservation values into production areas. Often they specify that land managed by certificate holders cannot be converted, or cannot have been converted since some cut-off date. But what happens if a manager buys land that was converted by another party…
-
Responsible Uranium?
There are more than 400 nuclear power stations in operation around the world today, generating around 10% of the world’s energy. Nuclear power is controversial, and its role in limiting climate change is contested. But nuclear power stations have long operational lives and new ones are being commissioned and constructed in China, India, Europe and…
-
Green claims
Public awareness of the environmental and social impacts of consumption has been growing for decades – whether the issue is pollution, deforestation, intensive agriculture, or climate change. Many corporations have responded by making ‘green’ claims about their own products – for example that they are ‘organic’, ‘chlorine-free’, ‘low carbon’, or ‘made with wood from sustainably…
-
Communicating Sustainability Standards
How can we talk about sustainability standards in a clear, consistent and compelling language? It may seem like a strange question to ask, but in 2009 there was a problem. The Pacific Institute would go to meetings with policy makers, funders and think tanks and find that the people they were talking to had not realised…
Categories
Recent Posts
- “You can only recycle steel in an EAF” – Really?
- A ‘sliding scale’ for steel and glass?
- Mining and ResponsibleGlass
- Steel’s methane footprint
Tags
Chain of custody Claims Climate change Cullet GHG Glass Methane Mining Organisational development Research Scrap Standards Steel Water