Highlights from the Thomson Reuters Sustainability blog
Thomson Reuters is about bringing transparency, trust and insight around important information needed by professionals to work and engage in society. The sustainability space and the thinkers who are driving it are an important part of this larger network of information needed by our customers.
Sustainability.ThomsonReuters.com provides regular insights on emerging threads in the global field of sustainability. Check out the latest posts on the Sustainability blog:
Sea-level loss and damage: When adaptation is not enough
This week, the world’s attention will turn to the iconic paradise island of Samoa, as government leaders gather to discuss the future of small-island developing states (SIDS). SIDS have bountiful supplies of renewable resources but the challenges ahead are daunting. Isolation and remoteness coupled with climate change, the impacts of natural disasters, and out-migration means that even island life itself is being threatened. (more…)
What Yale, Ben & Jerry’s and UBS have in common: B Corps
I had not heard of B Corps until recently. It turns out that B Corps are a rapidly growing movement of mostly newer companies who have a dual purpose in their corporate charters. They are trying to make a profit, and make the world a better place. The Economist summarizes it this way: “To qualify as a B Corp, a firm must have an explicit social or environmental mission, and a legally binding fiduciary responsibility to take into account the interests of workers, the community, and the environment as well as its shareholders. It must also publish independently verified reports on its social and environmental impact alongside its financial results. Other than that, it can go about business as usual.” (more…)
Global Overshoot Day
August 19th, marked the day in the calendar year 2014 “when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year.” For the rest of the year, according to Global Footprint Network and its calculations based on a wealth of data collected from the World Bank, United Nations and multiple government sources, humanity will maintain its collective standard of living “by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” Global Footprint Network calls it “earth overshoot” day. We will be operating in “deficit” mode for the rest of the year, as the earth’s natural resources as a whole are being exploited faster than they can be replenished. Essentially, we are borrowing from resources which would have been available for future generations. (more…)
