In early November 2023, The Circulate Initiative, a US non-profit, published the key global findings of its Plastics Circularity Investment Tracker, an online tool for investors. For the period 2018-2023, the tracker identified 3,700 investment deals around the world and USD 160 B worth of investments in upstream and downstream products and services, including materials,…(Read more)
Writing on the McLeod Group blog site, Edward Jackson, President of E.T. Jackson and Associates, notes that workers and their organizations are on the sidelines of COP 28 deliberations. However, he argues that net zero and a just energy transition are unachievable without the expert knowledge of workers and the participation of trade unions in…(Read more)
In climate finance for the global transition to clean energy, one of the most significant events of 2023 has been the establishment of the China-Singapore Green Finance Task Force. The group is chaired by Dr. Ma Jun, Chair of the China Green Finance Committee, and Ms. Gillian Tan, Assistant Managing Director and Chief Sustainability Officer…(Read more)
Nearly 180 world leaders and Nobel laureates signed an open letter published in the New York Times calling on Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to halt the judicial harassment of Grameen Bank founder and Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus, often called the father of microfinance. The signatories also urged the Prime Minister to ensure that…(Read more)
A new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) finds that: “the renewable power added in 2022 reduced the fuel bill of the electricity sector worldwide. New capacity added since 2000 reduced the electricity sector fuel bill in 2022 by at least USD 520 billion.” IRENA’s Director-General, Francesco La Camera, said: “There is no…(Read more)
On July 8, 2023, 13 Ghanaian young professionals graduated from the Young Impact Associates program, a one-year professional development and leadership program in monitoring, evaluation, and learning, funded by the Mastercard Foundation. In announcing the graduation-which was held at Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studie sin Wa in Ghana’s Upper West…(Read more)
Aspen Institute VP Maureen Conway, blogging on July 4, 2023, American Independence Day, argues that “America cannot truly be the Land of the Free until we liberate its working people and enable them to enjoy the fruits of their labor. This can only be accomplished by improving the quality of their jobs.” She points to…(Read more)
Singapore-based SWEEF Capital has published a Practitioner’s Manual to accompany its groundbreaking Gender ROI Assessment Tool. “Increasing numbers of organizations, government bodies, industry advocates and investors are engaging in frank conversations about barriers preventing women’s full participation in many activities, including access to capital and meaningful career pathways,” writes the gender-lens investment firm. “The new…(Read more)
Writing in Project Syndicate, Mariana Mazzucato of University College London and James Anderson of Bloomberg Philanthropies introduce their project to develop a new public sector index of the capabilities of cities to solve critical challenges. “What critical skills, processes, and structures”, the authors write, “will a given municipality need in order to detect emergent issues…(Read more)
The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Report is out and progress toward gender parity in the economy is slow. The top ranked countries are almost all small nations. As the report observes, “no country has yet achieved full gender parity, although the top nine countries (Iceland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Nicaragua,…(Read more)
