The Sustainability Imperative
As organizations struggle to define a strategy that balances purpose and profit, opportunities are increasingly emerging to take the lead in sustainability initiatives. Front-line advances in areas such as net-zero emissions, AI-powered solutions for the underserved, precision agriculture, digital healthcare, and more are delivering business benefits, while simultaneously contributing to the realization of the UN’s 17 SDGs. We provide the expert thinking, debate, and guidance to help your organization reposition and transform in the era of sustainability.
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This issue of Amplify focuses on practical solutions for businesses seeking to address biodiversity loss and regenerate nature. We invited authors to explore two questions. First, how can businesses address current failures to protect biodiversity? Second, what knowledge and resources are necessary to change business activity that impacts the health of ecosystems? The authors seek to answer these questions and help businesses in various industries put solutions in place.
Stefania Pizzirani, Robert Newell, Alesandros Glaros, Saeed Rahman, and Lenore Newman explore vertical farming as a pathway to biodiversity conservation. They provide three guiding principles for how vertical agriculture can conserve biodiversity: (1) diversification in produce, (2) localized, decentralized farming, and (3) integration with other social, economic, and physical systems. The authors then apply these principles in practice across several business models in vertical agriculture. They conclude by describing how management practices, complementary technologies, and policy collaboration are key to successful vertical farm implementation.
Legacy industrial sites ("brownfield sites") can be found across the US. Brownfield site redevelopment is commonplace, especially along the Eastern Seaboard, a stronghold of former industrial sites. Many of these sites have undergone a level of ecological succession during decades of unuse. This, combined with their proximity to major waterways, makes them prime locations for occupation by endemic (local) species. This Advisor provides an overview of brownfield redevelopment through a biodiversity and species-conflict lens.
The time is right for innovative tools, metrics, frameworks, and models that can convince businesses, governments, investors, and practitioners that systemic change is both needed and possible. For agriculture in particular, regenerating and revitalizing the entire ecosystem of the farm can and needs to contribute to mitigating climate change effects, strengthening biodiversity, and ensuring a satisfactory livelihood for farmers.
Although coastal wetlands cover less than 2% of the total ocean area, they account for approximately 50% of all carbon stored within ocean sediments. Consistent efforts are needed to ensure that such ecosystems are neither degraded nor damaged. This would result in the loss of their carbon-sink capacity, resulting in the release of large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. Projects to conserve, manage, and/or restore coastal ecosystems are essential to preventing this.
During this webinar on demand, you'll explore what is likely to transpire in the EV market in the next ten years, what it will take for legacy and emerging automakers to survive the transition to EVs, and the many risks these manufacturers are facing, including risks outside the direct control of the auto industry.
This Advisor explores the Detroit Tree Equity Partnership (DTEP), a US $30 million investment in Detroit to increase the city’s tree canopy and all the benefits that come with that.
As we explore in this Advisor, businesses can respond to biodiversity loss by laying out an enabling environment for various partnerships where trust, reputation, and stakeholder engagement are foundational.