Publications

The International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation (ICSA) believes that industry and government policymakers must commit to a pathway for the industry that includes near- and long-term goals and reflects an ambitious contribution to the overall effort necessary to achieve the 1.5C temperature goal.

With support from GIZ, WWF and Arup conducted a review of innovative practices across several regions of the world that integrate both ecosystem services and climate change projections in planning and design. With 60% of the land expected to be urbanized by 2030 yet to be built, alongside an estimated 25 million km of new roads by 2050, there is urgent need to identify and replicate practices that preserve ecosystem services and mitigate the expected effects of climate change. Reviewing more than 90 cases of infrastructure planning or design, this report presents three brief case studies in developing economies to highlight recent advancements in such integrated approaches: the Mexico water supply system, the LAPPSET development corridor and Lamu port in coastal Kenya, and the Shenzen sea wall. It also highlights a number of innovative examples in the US and UK as examples to learn from to inform improved infrastructure planning moving forward.

The report summarizes important conclusions and recommendations for improving infrastructure development moving forward, including:

• While holistic approaches to infrastructure development at scale is an emerging trend, it has yet to mature;
• More effort is needed to share effective approaches and examples in practice across a diverse group of stakeholders, including industry, NGOs, multilateral financial institutions, and country governments to demonstrate the business case.
• There is an opportunity to shape the convergence of different approaches and frameworks in order to standardise them across institutions and simplify complex planning considerations for practitioners.
• A review of global standards and frameworks for decision-making and investment design could advance the agenda. This could be promoted under parent global processes like the Paris Agreement, CBD, UN Sustainable Development Goals, etc. The design and construction industry would likely follow and contribute actively.
• A holistic approach to the lifecycle of the infrastructure across themes as complex as ecology and climate change, should require procurement to adapt: this means including these topics fully in tender notes, procurement processes, budgets, and, ultimately recruitment and management.
• Advocacy must make efforts to prove that costs for planning and designing sustainable infrastructure with holistic approaches, are amply justified over the mid to long-term.
• There is also a clear role for designers and practitioners to play in influencing the ‚Äòclients‚' who are funding or implementing infrastructure projects.
• Each of the case study examples demonstrates the important of strong stakeholder relationships which are often made more complex by the holistic approaches, and which may not correlate directly with lines of responsibility or governing boundaries.
• When operating at a large scale, particularly at regional, water catchment or even international level, the coordination and commitment between all stakeholders involved is critical.

The crisis of depletion affecting fisheries worldwide is one of the defining environmental and social challenges of our times. The well-documented harmful impact of certain forms of fisheries subsidies on the environment and the health of fish stocks and the consequences for the economic stability of fishing communities, has been subject of discussion within the WTO for two decades. It is now high time for WTO members to take effective action to secure healthy oceans and sustainable livelihoods for the years to come.

Ending overfishing, fleet overcapacity, and illegal fishing

WWF has conducted the largest consumer survey about ivory trade in China‚ – 2,000 people in 15 cities‚ – for three consecutive years with GlobeScan, providing the best available assessment measuring changes in attitudes, purchasing and ban awareness over time.

The 2019 survey shows consumer demand for elephant ivory has stabilized at reduced levels and support for the ban among Chinese nationals remains strong. While the purchase of ivory from vendors in mainland China has dropped, those who reported buying during travels have increased from 18% in 2018 to 27% of travelers in 2019.

South Africa Alliance for Climate Action Declaration

Scientific consensus is building around risks to business from the loss and degradation of nature, or 'nature-related risks'. These risks are not adequately addressed by businesses, and to be addressed, they need to be considered together with climate-related risks. The two are inextricably interlinked because climate change drives change in nature, and change in nature drives climate change.

The terminology used in this report draws on both nature- and climate-related risk to facilitate a unified approach. This report and framework aim to catalyze the incorporation of nature-related risks into private-sector decisions in a manner that facilitates sustainable development at all scales.

The report includes:

1. A literature summary of existing work on the topic that outlines how nature-related risk is not adequately accounted for by businesses.
2. A synthesis framework for how nature-relate risk emerges that builds on the many existing frameworks and that brings together understanding of natural capital and climate-related risk.
3. A typology based on analysis of existing literature which serves as a proxy for risks that are most widely acknowledged as high importance.
4. A set of case studies–examples of businesses facing consequences due to nature-related risk.

Poaching and the illegal trade of tiger parts are continuing to threaten wild tiger populations. TRAFFIC‚'s latest report on the illegal trade in tiger parts analyzes data over a 19 year period from 2000 to 2018, providing details and statistics on trends and the urgent threats facing wild tigers.

The importance of biodiversity below the forest canopy is often underappreciated, and yet it is a crucial component of healthy functioning forest ecosystems. Below the Canopy: Plotting Global Trends in Forest Wildlife Populations is the first-ever global assessment of forest-dwelling wildlife populations and highlights the multitude of threats forest-living species are facing.

A July 2019 Board resolution committed us to strengthen our social and environmental safeguards framework, which was designed to increase the role of communities in all of our field-based projects; better identify, manage, and escalate risks; and enhance due diligence. This strengthened safeguards framework was modeled after similar frameworks used by the World Bank and the US Millennium Challenge Corporation, and includes learnings from six years of applying such safeguards to our Global Environment Facility and Green Climate Fund projects. The resolution is as follows.