COMMENT: Nicky Chambers of Global Canopy reflects on a pivotal week, when leaders and investors pledged a raft of new initiatives to scale up funding for nature-based solutions to climate change, from the Prince of Wales' Terra Carta initiative to the Natural Capital Investor Alliance
While corporate reporting on water risk is increasing, action is far behind amid growing scarcity of Earth's most precious resource. This month we profile some that are bucking the trend, and look at how the finance sector is waking up to the biodiversity crisis
CDP’s Cate Lamb tells Terry Slavin she hopes her new role championing water at next year’s COP26 in Glasgow will lead to joined-up thinking on water’s role in the race to net-zero
Comment: Cate Lamb, head of water risk at CDP, says with only 10% of fashion firms showing awareness of their environmental impacts, the sector urgently needs a redesign
Agriculture accounts for 70% of water use, yet despite increasing reporting of water risk to CDP, water withdrawals by companies in the food and drink and agriculture sectors continue to rise. Mark Hillsdon reports on three companies that are taking a restorative approach
The World Bank's 2030 Water Resources Group and Ceres' Valuing Water Finance Taskforce are among groups coordinating collective action to address water scarcity as a systemic risk. Angeli Mehta reports
Comment: Ling Sin Fai Lam of CDP says there is an urgent need to hold cattle and soy industries to the same high standards set for other forest risk commodities in supply chains
Comment: BVRio’s Pedro Moura Costa says the 3R Initiative, backed by Danone, Nestlé and Tetra Pak, has created the first global marketplace for the circular economy with the Circular Action Hub
Comment: Eric Usher of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative and Corli Pretorius of the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre say banks should urgently set targets for financing the protection of nature in the critical next decade in the same way that many have set climate targets
Comment: Mars Inc’s Dave Crean calls for greater public-private collaboration to eradicate hunger by ensuring open access to safe food for all far beyond the pandemic
Angeli Mehta looks at the new surveillance technologies being used in the battle to end illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and how the biggest seafood players are collaborating to shine light on murky waters through the Stockholm Resilience Centre-convened Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship
By empowering consumers to make more sustainable choices in the fish they buy, the impact for biodiversity in the oceans could be profound, reports Angeli Mehta
Protecting at least 30% of oceans by 2030 is critical to prevent the collapse of Earth’s life-support system, but with destructive activities like bottom-trawling happening even in the 7% of areas that are meant to be protected, the challenge is huge. Angeli Mehta reports
With textiles the biggest source of the 1.4 quadrillion chemically laced microfibres that are floating in our seas and entering the food chain, Mark Hillsdon looks at nascent efforts by the likes of H&M and other Fashion Pact members to clean up its act
With wild-fish stocks falling, a huge increase in farmed fish will be needed to meet the protein needs of the planet. James Richens reports on how the search for sustainable sources is focusing on the deep oceans, on land and even the laboratory
Rachel Cox of Global Witness warns that those who stand on the frontline of environmental defence must be protected, as new figures reveal 2019 was the most dangerous year on record for indigenous and community activists