… Like many countries, Australia has a large existing buildingstock that is responsible for a substantial … replacementtime, focus hasshifted to retrofits and upgradesto existing buildingstock. This would both reduce the amount of greenhouse gasesthatthese buildings emit and reduce … Financial institutions are reluctantto lend when any claim thatthey might make in the event of a default is junior to the property mortgage holder. This is why the Environmental …
… After the recession, the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank (RIIB), a quasi-public state entity, soughtto bring much-needed clean-energy finance into the state market. This case study describes how this bank set up the EfficientBuildings Fund (EBF) and is iteratively improving it. This bank, which combinesthe features …
… Standing at water’s edge, Marina Bay Sands (MBS) annually attracted 45 million visitors who … center also became the first facility in Southeast Asia to obtain ISO 20121 Sustainable Events ManagementSystem certification. Beyond the physical plant, MBS looked to create … other aspects of the facility? Did a focus on sustainability make sense for a luxury brand associated with gambling? More globally, how could the MBSteam ensure thatthe work …
… During the 1950s, a small band of meteorologists, physicists and chemists began conducting … the burning of fossil fuels, these models implied that human activity was a contributor to this increase in global temperature. During the 1980s, the models drew more scientific … more efficient diesel engines on the U.S. market. Meanwhile, international effortsto prevent global warming had accelerated. A series of UN-sponsored conferences, bringing …
… Santam, the leading short-term insurer in South Africa, was actively pursuing a strategy and … expertise and decades of weather-related data to estimate the frequency of major weather events. It was widely acknowledged that climate change was likely to increase the frequency … crop insurance business in the rest of Africa. The company faced considerable challenges in this area as crop insurance had low penetration in other parts of Africa. Company officials …
… On July 12, 2017, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government bestowed the prestigious Ash award in policy … Using transaction enablers and risk mitigants like loan loss reserve funds, interest rate buy-downs, subordinated debt, or warehousing facilities, the Green Bank lowered the cost of … funds came from public sources. How then could the Green Bank, whose mission rested on buildingtrust, both insulate itself from the political winds from the north, and move …
… In early 2014 Alcoa announced that Ford's F-150 pick-up trucks, the best-selling vehicles in the U.S., would use aluminum1 rather … to the auto industry. First, there wasthe problem of consumer perceptions. Car and truck buyerstended to believe that aluminum was not asstrong assteel. Especially in the truck …
… In 2014, the four largest palm oil trading companiessigned an agreementto end deforestation, … their own operations, but also from all of their suppliers. For environmental NGOs, the Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge (asthe agreement was named) represented a dramatic advance in … many environmentalists believed thatthe agreement represented a breakthrough. The events of 2015 suggested otherwise, forcing businesses, NGOs and sympathetic government …
… Bryan Garcia, the President and CEO of the Connecticut Green Bank, had a big decision to make. Garcia is a … Connecticut had a long history of considering climate change in state policy. As part of thistradition, Connecticut’s governor Dannel Malloy established the GC3 on Earth Day 2015 … energy needs. The nuclear power all came from a massive plantsituated near New London, CT called Millstone. The facility included two reactorsthat produced almost half of …
… Palm oil is everywhere. Not only is it in the news, it is also an ingredient in roughly half of the products we buy. However, it is notsomething that consumers can easily spot or screen for. When, in … in the global economy. And, as firessetto clear land for palm oil plantations blazed in Indonesia throughoutthe fall of 2015, covering the region in haze, the ubiquitous commodity …