World Resources Institute Research Articles

The technical issues associated with algae building technology

PurposeAs the impacts of climate change become more evident, the need to adopt new ways of constructing buildings becomes more urgent. The Earth has experienced hotter climates globally for the last 70 years (NASA, 2019), and this has resulted in unprecedented levels of bushfire in Australia, flooding in the UK and drought in Africa in early 2020 (World Resources Institute, 2019). The predictions are for increased temperatures globally and increasing carbon emissions from fossil fuel consumption. There is a critical need to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels as a building energy source (WCED, 1987). Existing renewables focus on solar, wind and wave power, where technological improvements have increased efficiencies (Hinnells, 2008). Uptake of the technologies is variable depending on location and willingness to adopt renewables. As well as further uptake of existing renewable energy sources, we need to look wider and across traditional discipline groups, at new technologies such as biotechnologies. One potential energy source is biofuels. Biofuels are produced from biomass, which is algae. In 2016, the BIQ, a four-storey apartment building, was constructed in Hamburg, Germany. The BIQ features glazed façade panels filled with algae to produce biomass and solar thermal energy. Could algae building technology (ABT), in the form of façade panels, offer a new renewable energy source?Design/methodology/approachWhat are the technical issues associated with Algae building technology? This qualitative research sought to identify what technical issues likely to arise in terms of algae building construction, operation and maintenance. Semi-structured interviews with 24 experienced built environment professionals in Australia were undertaken in 2016 to assess the most likely issues that could arise with this new innovative technology.FindingsAs a result, a greater understanding of the range of technical issues related to design, construction, maintenance and operation were identified, as well as the perceived importance of those issues. It was possible to identify the top ten technical issues built environment professionals are concerned about with regard to ABT. The results can inform future designers of ABT.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was restricted to the views of 24 experienced built environment practitioners in Sydney, Australia. None of whom had direct experience of Algae Building Technology. Though knowledgeable, a greater number of interviews may have identified other technical issues.Practical implicationsNo guidelines exist for Algae Building Technology, and this research identifies a comprehensive range of technical issues that need to be considered for the technology to function at optimum levels. As such, this is a starting point for built environment professionals who may be asked to provide professional advice and guidance.Originality/valueTo date, no evaluation of Australian based built environment professionals has been conducted into the technical issues associated with Algae Building Technology.

Governance effects on deforestation in the tropics: A review of the evidence

In view of a continuing global decrease of forest cover, many authors mention forest governance as a basic concept contributing to reduced deforestation, specifically in the tropics. There are numerous definitions for forest governance. The concept is commonly understood as a broad approach and assessment tools comprise dozens of indicators. However, there is no information about relations between single indicators, their individual importance and whether contextual factors modify their effects. This article aims to analyze if the hypothesized relation between governance leading to reduced tropical deforestation in general holds true, to identify the most decisive governance components and to explore if the wider socio-economic and political context influences potential governance effects. The structure - agency concept is used as theoretical basis to identify underlying mechanisms and as conceptual basis for discussing individual indicators. We employ a quantitative literature review based on scientific articles on governance and deforestation. From a total of 810 articles we select the most frequently cited publications related to the subject. From the resulting 198 papers only those are studied that contain empirical relations between governance and deforestation. The remaining 28 studies are analyzed by applying the governance indicators of the World Resource Institute as categories for content analysis. Likert scores are used to quantify governance effects as input for subsequent principal component analysis and multiple linear regressions. Results show that indeed high governance scores frequently relate to lower rates of deforestation and we thus recommend continued political support for the concept. But the reviewed studies mostly focus on a smaller number of classical governance indicators, which suggests that the governance concept might benefit from streamlining into a more targeted approach. In this respect, several indicators were related to underlying principal components reflecting the agency and structure concept. Even though we cannot claim a statistically significant stronger effect of one or the other component, single structural indicators were more strongly and more consistently linked to reduced deforestation in comparison to agency related indicators. The concept can thus be helpful to guide policy design and implementation. We show this by applying it to the ongoing discussion on results based payments under REDD+ as a prominent example for agency related measures. The reviewed literature in addition suggests that governance effects are moderated by deforestation drivers such as corruption, illegal logging and population growth and by interventions like technology transfer.

State of Climate Action: Assessing Progress toward 2030 and 2050

To keep the window open to limit global warming to 1.5 C, countries need to accelerate transformation towards a net-zero emissions future across all sectors at a far faster pace than recent trends, according to this report from World Resources Institute and ClimateWorks Foundation, with input from Climate Action Tracker. For example, the report finds that to get on track for the emission cuts required by 2030, the world needs to: Accelerate the increased share of renewables in electricity generation five times faster; Phase out coal in electricity generation five times faster; Reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation three times faster; Accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles 22 times faster than the significant rates of adoption in recent years; Accelerate the increase in the share of low-carbon fuels by eight times faster; and Accelerate the increase in annual tree cover gain five times faster. The rapid transformation needed to halve emissions by 2030 will require significant financial investments, technology transfer and capacity-building for developing countries. While climate finance has increased significantly in recent years across the public, private and philanthropic sectors, it is still not at the scale needed to revolutionize our energy and transportation systems, accelerate energy efficiency and protect forests. Estimates indicate that between $1.6 and $3.8 trillion per year will be needed through 2050 to transform the energy system alone. Experience has shown that transformative change can happen at an exponential, non-linear rate. Systemic changes that once seemed impossible have ultimately been achieved, such as technological advances with cars, phones and computers. A rapid transition to a zero-carbon future offers the same opportunity — but only with smart and proactive investments in key sectors. The report outlines opportunities within all six sectors to align emissions trajectories with what the science suggests is necessary to avoid the worst climate impacts. Countries, businesses, philanthropy and others must urgently put in place policies, incentives and financial investments to accelerate us toward that safer, prosperous and more equitable future.

Die Messung von Treibhausgasemissionen im Bankgeschäft – das Konzept der finanzierten Emissionen

The societal and political trend with regard to the controversial hold debate of economic sustainability does not ignore financial markets and its participants. Particularly climate change as systemic and dominant sustainability risk and result of man-made global greenhouse gas emissions strengthens the position, that financial institutions are jointly responsible for global warming and therefore must actively operate against it. Financial institutions directly and indirectly finance emissions by their finance and investment operations. On the other hand, the financial sector is necessary for allocating capital in line with the 2°C climate goals. Under these conditions, financial institutions need to have access to methods for quantifying their financed emissions that enables valid decisions on finance and investment. The following article illustrates the concept of financed emissions based on the corporate carbon footprint (CCF) and examines how financial institutions can quantify them to assess their exposure to climate risks and to develop a climate strategy to minimize risk exposure. The concept of financed emissions can be considered as a first approach for financial institutions to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies to proactively manage climate related risks and help society to allocate capital in line with the 2°C climate goals. Important guidance for the financial sector is set in place by the “Greenhouse Gas Protocol” and the “Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions”, established by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resource Institute. Besides the components to develop models to quantify financed emissions, methodological constraints and limitations exist. They are explicitly shown in this article. Another very important ingredient to assess financed emissions is climate related data. Actually, there is still a big lack of standardised and internationally accepted data that could be used to estimate financed emissions, although several providers serve individual measurement tools.

Identifying Cool Food Meals

Cool Food is a global initiative that aims to help food providers sell dishes with smaller climate footprints. This technical note outlines the methods used by World Resources Institute (WRI) to identify a set of Cool Food Meals on a food provider’s menu. Drawing on the calculation methods established under the Cool Food Pledge, Cool Food Meals must fall under a maximum threshold of per-meal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions based on recipe data submitted to WRI. In addition, Cool Food Meals are subject to a nutrition safeguard to ensure they meet a minimum threshold of nutritional quality. Designation of Cool Food Meals is open to food providers that are Cool Food Pledge members, Cool Food “Heroes” who serve an especially low-GHG-emitting menu, or food providers for whom at least 20 percent of annual sales are dishes that qualify as Cool Food Meals. Publicly recognizing climate-friendly food providers, and steering consumers toward low-emitting menu options, can help accelerate the transition toward a sustainable food future.

Industrial insect production as an alternative source of animal protein

Industrial insect production as an alternative source of animal protein

What Does Urban Transformation Look Like? Findings from a Global Prize Competition

Different disciplines are grappling with the concept of ‘urban transformation’ reflecting its planetary importance and urgency. A recent systematic review traces the emergence of a normative epistemic community that is concerned with helping make sustainable urban transformation a reality. Our contribution to this growing body of work springs out of a recent initiative at the World Resources Institute, namely, the WRI Ross Prize for Cities, a global award for transformative projects that have ignited sustainable changes in their city. In this paper we explain the competition-based approach that was used to source transformative initiatives and relate our findings to existing currents in urban transformation scholarship and key debates. We focus on one of the questions at the heart of the normative urban transformation agenda: what does urban transformation look like in practice? Based on an analysis of the five finalists, we describe urban transformation as encompassing a plurality of contextual and relative changes, which may progress and accelerate positively, or regress over time. An evaluative approach that considers varying ‘degrees’ and ‘types’ of urban transformation is proposed to establish meaning within single cases and across several cases of urban transformation.

Where in the value chain are we losing the most food? The case of wheat in Jordan

Efforts to increase global food supply through increased productivity and intensity of cropping are well documented. However, the literature on measurement of food losses and wastage and techniques to reduce them is scanty. This study aimed at providing credible evidence on the levels of food losses and wastage at each node along the entire wheat value chain in Jordan - from farm to fork. The “life cycle of food” approach, along with standard protocols developed in line with international initiatives led by the World Resources Institute (WRI) were used for physical measurements and estimation of losses at each node. Our results show that 34% of the total wheat supply in Jordan (both from local production and imports) is lost or wasted – costing the country about US$105 million per year, which is also associated with high levels of losses in natural resources. We found that postharvest losses are more important in Jordan where, at a level of 12.95%, wastage during consumption by households ranks first. Households reported that 67% of the household food waste was fed to animals. This means Jordan is losing 43% and 48% respectively of total protein and energy for every 1US$ spent on bread that is fed to animals instead of barley. These results call for a concerted effort by individuals, civic societies, NGOs and the government towards awareness raising and measures targeting reduction of wastage, especially during consumption. The Government of Jordan has recently reviewed the subsidy on bread, raising hopes that it will reduce consumption losses.

Spatial-Temporal Characteristics of the Driving Factors of Agricultural Carbon Emissions: Empirical Evidence from Fujian, China

With the development of agricultural modernization, the carbon emissions caused by the agricultural sector have attracted academic and practitioners’ circles’ attention. This research selected the typical agricultural development province in China, Fujian, as the research object. Based on the carbon emission sources of five main aspects in agricultural production, this paper applied the latest carbon emission coefficients released by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the UN (IPCC) and World Resources Institute (WRI), then used the ordered weighted aggregation (OWA) operator to remeasure agricultural carbon emissions in Fujian from 2008–2017. The results showed that the amount of agricultural carbon emissions in Fujian was 5541.95 × 103 tonnes by 2017, which means the average amount of agricultural carbon emissions in 2017 was 615.78 × 103 tonnes, with a decrease of 13.13% compared with that in 2008. In terms of spatial distribution, agricultural carbon emissions in the eastern coastal areas were less than those in the inland regions. Among them, the highest agricultural carbon emissions were in Zhangzhou, Nanping, and Sanming, while the lowest were in Xiamen, Putian, and Ningde. In addition, this paper selected six influencing variables, the research and development intensity, the proportion of agricultural labor force, the added value of agriculture, the agricultural industrial structure, the per capita disposable income of rural residents, and per capita arable land area, to clarify further the impacts on agricultural carbon emissions. Finally, geographically- and temporally-weighted regression (GTWR) was used to measure the direction and degree of the influences of factors on agricultural carbon emission. The conclusion showed that the regression coefficients of each selected factor in cities were positive or negative, which indicated that the impacts on agricultural carbon emission had the characteristics of geospatial nonstationarity.

Behaviour Of Bamboo Reinforcement In Flexural Strength Of Sea Water Concrete Slab

World Resources Institute data shows that there will be a fresh water crisis in 2040 including Indonesia. Responding to the above, many studies have been carried out using seawater, one of which is on concrete. Several studies have shown that seawater does not reduce the quality of concrete, but provides a corrosion effect on reinforcement. In this study, sea water concrete slabs have been made using bamboo as a reinforcement that will not corrode due to seawater. For concrete mix design refers to SNI SNI 03-2834-2000 and for slab flexural strength refers to 03-2847-2002. Slab specimens with sea water concrete that have been made consist of Slab concrete of steel reinforcement (SCS), Slab concrete of bamboo reinforcement V type notch (SCBV) and Slab concrete of bamboo reinforcement U type notch (SCBU). The result of the compressive strength of sea water concrete can reach the compressive strength of the plan. Tensile strength of bamboo reaches 223.5MPaand approaching the tensile strength of steel reinforcement. The maximum load of SCBV and SCBU were decrease than theoretical analysis of0.14% and 21.51% respectively. Otherwise, the maximum load of SCS greater than theoretical analysis with a difference of 14.67%. The flexural strength of the concrete slab was not affected by sea water as in compressive strength of cylinder. Keywords : Bamboo reinforcement slab, Flexural strength, Seawater concrete

Reducing our waste size

Reducing our waste size

Sustainable Aquaculture Futures

Sustainable Aquaculture Futures

Addressing Rage: The Fast Fashion Revolt

Addressing Rage: The Fast Fashion Revolt

Reducing Food Loss and Waste: Setting a Global Action Agenda

The world is at a critical moment in the fight against food loss and waste, with momentum building to address the 1.3 billion tons of food that is lost or wasted each year. But action is not yet at a pace needed to achieve SDG Target 12.3 by 2030. The report Reducing Food Loss and Waste: Setting a Global Action Agenda identifies a three-pronged approach to halve food loss and waste by 2030. The report calls on governments, companies, farmers, consumers, and everyone in between to: “Target-Measure-Act”: Set food loss and waste reduction targets, measure to identify hotspots of food loss and waste and monitor progress over time, and take action on the hotspots; pursue a short “to-do” list per player in the food supply chain as “no regret” first steps toward taking action; and collaborate on 10 “scaling interventions” to ramp up deployment of Target-Measure-Act and the to-do list. There are enormous benefits to reducing food loss and waste. Successfully halving food loss and waste would close the gap between food needed in 2050 and food available in 2010 by more than 20 percent. It would avoid the need to convert an area the size of Argentina into agricultural land. And it would lower greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 gigatons per year by 2050, an amount more than the current energy- and industry- related emissions of Japan. This report has been produced by World Resources Institute with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, and in partnership with United Nations Environment, Natural Resources Defense Council, Iowa State University, The University of Maryland’s Ed Snider Center, The Consortium for Innovation in Postharvest Loss and Food Waste Reduction, Wageningen University and Research, the World Bank, and WRAP.

A Federal US Carbon Tax: Major Design Decisions and Implications

Download : Download high-res image (107KB) Download : Download full-size image Noah Kaufman is a Research Scholar at the Columbia SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) where he directs the Carbon Tax Research Initiative. He worked on energy and climate change policy for World Resources Institute, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and NERA Economic Consulting. Download : Download high-res image (92KB) Download : Download full-size image Jason Bordoff is the Founding Director of the CGEP. Previously, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Energy and Climate Change on the Staff of the National Security Council, and prior to that he held senior policy positions on the White House's National Economic Council and Council on Environmental Quality.

Closing the loop on Canada's National Food Policy: A food waste agenda

In the near future, Canada will be implementing a national food policy; in doing so, it will be joining a growing number of countries with policies and strategies that address the growing problem of food waste. Food waste is a major economic drain estimated to cost Canada $31 billion dollars annually or $107 billion in true cost, when the costs of wasted water, energy, and resources are included (Gooch & Felfel, 2014). Despite the staggering cost, there is currently a limited number of scholars tackling the issue of food waste in Canada (Abdulla, Martin, Gooch, & Jovel, 2013; MacRae et al., 2016; Parizeau, von Massow, & Martin, 2015). Some of the leading think tanks and research institutions, such as the World Resources Institute (WRI), National Defence Research Council (NRDC), as well as inter-sectoral collaboratives such as Canada’s National Zero Waste Council (NZWC) have identified several priorities to address food waste. Key priorities include, but are not limited to: 1) education and awareness; 2) harmonizing food waste quantification through waste audits and establishing reduction targets; 3) addressing confusion over “best before” labels; 4) incentivizing surplus food donation; and 5) landfill bans on food waste. While these priorities are currently being debated and consulted upon in Canada, several countries around the world have already reached the implementation stage. Canada is therefore in a position to learn from the impacts of policies in other countries with a view to developing a more sustainable, systematic, and just approach to food waste prevention and reduction in Canada.

Democracy, electoral systems and emissions: explaining when and why democratization promotes mitigation

ABSTRACTDoes democratization help countries mitigate climate change? On the one hand, by increasing the value placed on quality of life, creating more opportunity for environmental actors to influence policymaking and holding elected politicians accountable, an increase in democratic institution and process should promote emissions reduction. On the other hand, the desire to safeguard individual freedom presumably brings with it an aversion to intervene in lifestyle and market decisions, thereby raising the risk of climate inaction. This outcome is further encouraged by the political need to balance (conflicting) environmental and energy interests.This article evaluates the thesis that democratization promotes mitigation in light of national emissions levels from 1990 to 2012. Using data from the Freedom House, Polity IV and V-Dem indices, World Bank World Development Indicators and the World Resources Institute Climate Data Explorer it conducts a large-N investigation of the emissions levels of 147 countries. Although several quantitative studies have found that domestic political regimes affect emissions levels, this article goes beyond existing research by building a more sophisticated – multilevel- research design to determine whether democracy: (a) continues to be an important driver of emissions when country-level clustering is accounted for and (b) has uniform effects across countries. The results indicate that, even after controlling for country-level clustering and holding constant the other confounding factors, democracy is indeed a significant driver. More strikingly, they reveal that while democracies tend to have lower emissions than non-democracies, democratization spells within the same country do not have the same kind of inhibitory effects as they do between countries. This article also finds tentative evidence that the type of electoral system plays a critical role in shaping the effect of democratization on individual countries.Key policy insightsDemocracies tend to perform better in terms of emission levels than non-democracies.Democratization has non-uniform effects across different countries, with the type of electoral system playing a key role in determining the effect that democratization has on national emissions.Further research is needed to develop our understanding of how the political context influences emissions, especially with regard to the influence of pro and anti-decarbonisation actors.

The Transnational Tilt of the Treadmill and the Role of Trade Openness on Carbon Emissions: A Comparative International Study, 1965–2010

There are various schools of thought regarding the relationship between the environment and economy. Ecological modernization argues that the harmful effects of economic growth and development on the environment decline through time, whereas the treadmill of production and ecologically unequal exchange postulate different perspectives. This study relies on World Bank and World Resources Institute data for the period of 1965–2010. Time‐series cross‐sectional Prais‐Winsten (PW) regression models with panel‐corrected standard errors (PCSE) are employed to examine whether economic growth and trade openness intensified or decoupled in relation to three measures of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during this period. The findings of this study indicate that there has been a “tilt” in the treadmill of production—that is, the most environmentally degrading production processes have moved to less developed countries. Furthermore, integration into the world economy has been associated with an intensification in CO2 emissions for less developed countries. Surprisingly, however, this phenomenon does not seem to be driven by exports sent to high‐income nations, suggesting that there are mechanisms embodied within the global organization of production that require further exploration.

China creates world’s largest carbon trading program

The Chinese government announced on Dec. 19 the start of what could become the world’s largest carbon emissions trading program. The program will begin with the nation’s electric utility sector and branch out to other emitters of carbon dioxide, according to the government’s National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC). China began a trial carbon emissions trading marketplace in 2013. The trial consisted of seven regional and city-specific pilot programs that will serve as models for the national program, which will be phased in over three years, the government says. The trading program will be a conventional cap-and-trade approach in which covered companies and other enterprises are assigned emission caps. Those producing more carbon than their assigned share must buy unused allowances from those producing less pollution on an exchange market. “The scheme is a bold movement by the government,” says Ranping Song, senior associate at the World Resources Institute’s Global

EVALUATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM THROUGH THE WORK ENVIRONMENT MEASUREMENTS OF THE KUWAIT PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRIES COMPANY

It became necessary to integrate environmental management system strategy in these institutions to ensure their contribution to the preservation of the work environment. Next to the external environment and the formation of an influential responsible economic institutions participating in the national economy to achieve this, governments proceeded to use the legal tools (legal regulation) and economic instruments where it takes assess the damage resulting from the effects of external economic institution. Contemporary institution committed to accept doing some activities with an environmental secured through the realization of the security measures and safety and the institutions that they want to stay and development in the current economic environment that the Environmental Management for environmental management gradually and continuously in its strategy and long-term Where it changed the environmental management of the circumstances of many of the institutions activity across all markets and imposed new competitive conditions, and in a report issued in April 2002 by United Nations Environment Programmed and the Board of Directors of the World and the World Resources Institute World Resource Institute (WRI) under the title of (tomorrow's markets: trends and its effects on business administration) and the connection between economic indicators and social environment on the one hand, and the evolution of the overall market on the other hand, in order to help organizations discover the stakes of the future through environmental management to achieve, the first two terms of averted pressures by the government through tools environmental policy as we have seen in the first quarter, and the acquisition is And the second is the acquisition of green famous constitute a component of a strategy to diversify its products and thus increase their profits. The interesting economic institutions environmental management beyond the economic responsibility regarding to include the social environment and the work environment and Ocean Environmental around and which reflects the activities and contributions made by the business development and the protection of the community environment Such attention that makes the organization live up becomes an environmental organization and a part of the social environment, because the society is source inputs and outputs. The activity of economic enterprises moving towards cleaner production, so it has to be of interest to the work environment which leads to interest workers, a core area of work of the Environmental Management System. The most prominent application of environmental management system within the institution they are set projects to reduce pollution of the work environment and the preservation of workers, it is the most important environmental and social measurements direction of workers, and follow the safety system and occupational health and that these projects are designed to improve the reduction of pollution of the work environment strategy, project environmental measurements, and the development of the production structure within the institution, and projects of energy and water, and operations of industrial Security and the draft seawater desalination, saving natural resources, the application of environmental management system as a result of the large size wastes which leads to environmental imbalances (pollution) and the depletion of natural resources, said the organization has not taken whom proceedings voluntary limit those risks, and in the field of cleaner production, the institution that bears its costs and audit and review the EMS and access to the highest ISO certificates. The research and study, which concluded it proves the opposite first hypothesis and the second and the third, fourth and fifth, and environmental management system leads to reduction of pollution of the work environment and increase profits in the Kuwaiti Petrochemical Corporation P.I.C and that there is a growing attention to the application of environmental management system and that an effective system of results.