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José Lopez: Keeping nature’s balance sheet in balance
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December 2012 – Sustainable development – providing sufficient material and spiritual well-being to enable a good
life for all of humankind, within the limits imposed by our one planet – is by definition a concept with global reach. This has significant implications for policymakers and the private sector alike, which influence each other.
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Natural Resource Security
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Dr Bhaskar Vira: The political economy of ecosystem services
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December 2012 – The past decade has seen a growing interest in ecosystem services, one of the focus areas of Dr
Bhaskar Vira and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Geography. Ecosystems services have been defined by landmark research projects like the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” and “the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human wellbeing”.
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Natural Resource Security
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Julian Allwood: Sustainable Materials With Both Eyes Open
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December 2012 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global greenhouse gas reductions of 50–85 per cent will be needed by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change, representing a radical shift away from today’s fossil-fuel-derived economy. This begs the question: is such a reduction achievable, and if so, how? This is one of the key challenges tackled through the research of Dr Julian Allwood and his Low Carbon Materials Processing Group (LCMPG) at the University of Cambridge.
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Natural Resource Security
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Resilient Value Chains Report
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June 2011 – It is increasingly accepted that significant changes are needed in the level of practical
actions and policy that can deal with longterm risks to business, customers and wider society from the degradation of our natural resource base. This major new business-led programme brings together a cross-sectoral group of leading companies to explore how to bring about such significant changes.
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Natural Resource Security
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Sustainable Shipment Letter of Credit: A financing solution to incentivise sustainable commodity trade
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January 2014 – The first tangible result of the ‘Soft Commodities’ Compact has been produced. The BEI’s Sustainable Shipment Letter of Credit is a financing solution that can be used by banks to incentivise the international trade of sustainably produced commodities. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has confirmed it will offer preferential terms for this type of shipment to its partner banks, offering the potential reductions in the cost of capital.
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Sustainable Finance
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Product Stewardship Overload!
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May 2010 – While organic food labelling started in the 1960s, it was the timber debate that first triggered the idea of product stewardship. In the late 1980s, growing recognition of the loss of tropical rainforests led to the creation of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which delivered the closest solution: to provide an economic incentive for the sustainable harvesting of forests.
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Archive publications
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Carbon Management: A Practical Guide for Suppliers
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2009 – Carbon management: a practical guide for suppliers is a step-by-step carbon management guide for companies who supply retailers and other major corporations. It helps them respond to increasing requests from their customers for information about carbon management. It also shows how effective carbon management can cut costs and bring other business benefits.
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Archive publications
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Sustainable Consumption and Production: A Business Primer
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January 2007 – Business innovation and enterprise provide the fuel for economic growth, employment and social progress. Through increased choice, and the availability of affordable products and services, business plays an essential role in helping people improve their lives.
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Archive publications
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Multi-sector collaboration between blue chips, start-ups and banks delivers new model to improve the sustainability of global supply chains without increasing production costs
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17 September 2019 – A successful experiment by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), bringing together Sainsbury's, BNP Paribas, Unilever, Barclays, Standard Chartered and Rabobank, has shown how a new model of blockchain and other data sharing technologies can enhance the sustainability of global supply chains without increasing production costs.
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Centres
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Centre for Sustainable Finance
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News
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Trado: New technologies to fund fairer, more transparent supply chains
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17 September 2019 – There is a growing understanding of the transformative potential of harnessing digital innovation and financial technologies to improve the sustainability of global supply chains. This report details the learnings and methodology of the collaborative project Trado, convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).
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Sustainable Finance