In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, which reinforce climate obligations on States under existing treaties, conventions and protocols. It may open the way for countries to enforce climate obligations on other nations. This is a major step forward for decarbonisation, the acceleration of renewables and a renewed focus on Industrial Revolution 5.0.
A map showing clean energy projects supported by government has been published by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. It supports the government’s clean energy mission to deliver clean power by 2030 and accelerate progress towards net zero. This map includes projects being supported by the National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy.
Even the accountancy profession is talking about communications. Time and again it proclaims that financial and non-financial reporting (especially in relation to climate and nature impacts) should be integrated; but increasingly it says that this integration – and the outcomes of business strategy underpinned by green credentials – should be communicated. But it rarely is.
Campaign group Clean Creatives has put forward a way for the marketing industry to exit fossil fuel relationships while taking up the opportunities available to them from emerging high-growth industries such as renewables, the circular economy and healthcare.
Hot on the heels of the UK Government’s commitment to the most significant programme of investment in homegrown clean energy in the UK’s history, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, has talked through what energy transformation means for the UK in coming years.
The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken. This is the stark warning set out in ‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’ by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) in collaboration with climate scientists.
Anyone who has read the article “Why well-off Brits who think collapse is coming still stay silent” will recognise the scenarios it calls out. Those silent Brits are familiar to us all: they know the planet is hurtling towards existential crisis but they do not use their voice to influence others while they live comfortably within a system that cannot endure (and they know it).
Severe climate impacts can come from nowhere. Their effects can cascade across society, and create a bigger problem than the sum of their individual parts. These impacts are similar to those resulting from pandemics or traditional security threats. That is why we need to plan for climate like we plan for security – at the national level, supranational level and across continents.
AMR (anti-microbial resistance) is a world health issue. Many believe there cannot be too much investment in and coordination globally on this issue. Standards and regulation – across the use by humans and animals of antibiotics and antifungals – are one thing; but are they the only way forward?
The jury is out on whether the old adage ‘you can manage what you can measure’ will come up trumps for Britain’s bug life; but a scheme for measuring the bug population is making citizen scientists of many people in the UK, and proving a valuable entry point for them to understand the catastrophic impact of nature loss.
The UK and the EU have agreed a substantial cooperation agreement in relation to trade and free movement. Included in the package are two energy and emissions trading arrangements.
If there is one thing the advertising and communications industry is expert in it’s behaviour. From decades of consumer data, the advertising industry knows what makes people do something, what moves them and increasingly they know what consumers are likely to do next.
People keep getting packaged up by business. Be it in gender pay gap reporting, racial equity programmes, menopause initiatives or the muddle of staff surveys. But shouldn’t the conversation about people be about the sweet spot where business looks after its people and people serve their employers?
This is why we are called The Dragonfly Files. If the dragonfly is a symbol of all three – transformation, growth and adaptability – then let’s be informed by its joyful lifecycle transformation, the lightness of spirit with which it matures and the freedom with which it adapts. Global business and all its institutions would do well to take note.