Sustainability Horizons is CISL’s monthly scan of issues and evidence coming into view, but which may not yet feature in the mainstream sustainability debate. This is not a prediction of the future, but a way of helping practitioners and policymakers to get early notice of new ideas, trends or evidence, to inform their own view of what might or should happen as a result. Find out more about our own work in developing new ideas and approaches that have the potential to deliver transformational change and rewire the economy.

Latest review

Vehicle Ownership

October 2019: Exchanging existing vehicles with cleaner versions may not deliver sufficient environmental benefits. The report recommends a shift towards car ‘usership’ instead of ownership and encourages the government to improve public transport and to diversify investments into future transport technologies.

Measuring water scarcity

October 2019: There is a lower level of access to clean drinking water in urban areas in the global south than previously thought. Access to piped utility water is often limited due to affordability, reliability, and quality of the water provided. The paper calls for a re-focus on public utility water provision.

Soil management

October 2019: Climate change changing rainfall patterns may show negative effects on soil’s ability to retain water. Reduced soil resilience increases risks of groundwater depletion, flash floods, and release of carbon stored in soil.

Environmental footprint of shared e-scooters

September 2019: Carbon emissions from upstream and downstream processes of electric scooters have similar overall emissions to travelling by bus, bicycle, or moped. These emissions could be mitigated if operators would use more efficient vehicles when collecting and re-distributing scooters, reduce the overall frequency of collection, and reduce the environmental impact during manufacturing.

Water resource management

September 2019: Groundwater levels are continuously decreasing around the world, emphasising calls for active governance and management of extraction practices. Impacts of depletion especially effect rural communities relying on groundwater as their primary source for domestic and agricultural use.

Climate change challenges human rights

September 2019: Climate change has the potential to erode human rights, such as social security, access to food, healthcare, shelter, and decent work. The report identifies government leadership and private sector investments as key drivers to adapt current human rights mechanisms.

Socially accepted litter – cigarette butts

September 2019: Cigarette ends remain one of the most socially accepted and common forms of litter, but can inhibit plant growth and are hazardous to marine life. New evidence supports calls to ban single-use plastic cigarette filters, and highlights the need for policy intervention.

Environmental footprint of cryptocurrency

September 2019: requires more computing capacity than previously anticipated and experts are calling to link the currency with renewable energy requirements to mitigate any knock-on effects for the energy sector and the currency’s overall carbon footprint.

Infrastructure investments

September 2019: The emergence and rise of new multilateral development banks is increasingly shaping how large infrastructure projects are financed. New evidence calls for collaborative guidelines and standardised lending approaches to promote the design of climate resilient infrastructure projects.

Climate change and land use

September 2019: Several land mark reports are calling for profound changes in the current ways we use land and produce food. Within the next decade, agricultural and food systems will have to transition to agro-ecological systems, requiring policy and financial incentives to accelerate the changes needed to combat climate change and alleviate the public health crisis.

Other resources

Education

Contact

Adele Wiliams

Adele Williams, Communications and Media Manager

Email | T: +44 (0)1223 768451

Disclaimer

The views expressed in these external research papers are those of the authors and do not represent an official position of CISL, the University of Cambridge, or any of its individual business partners or clients.

Sustainability Horizons: what’s coming into view?

Find out more about our own work in developing new ideas and approaches that have the potential to deliver transformational change and rewire the economy.