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This report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) examines the necessity and current state of leadership training for young professionals in the sustainable development sector. It identifies a critical leadership gap driven by the retirement of senior practitioners and a growing demand for 'green jobs' that exceeds the current training capacity. The document surveys various non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations to analyze existing training models, identify essential cross-cutting skills—such as communication and innovation—and propose collaborative frameworks for networking alumni and evaluating program effectiveness.

This discussion paper by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) analyzes the rise of unsolicited proposals (USPs) in infrastructure procurement. It synthesizes findings from a Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) report, highlighting the risks USPs pose to transparency and value-for-money, and provides recommendations for governments to establish robust management frameworks. The paper specifically examines the tension between the expediency of USPs and the principles of sustainable public procurement (SPP), which emphasizes life-cycle costs and strategic needs analysis.

This report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) examines the difficulties of achieving consistency and coherency in watershed indicators across Canada and in transboundary contexts. Based on activities conducted by the Canadian Sustainability Indicators Network (CSIN) in 2014–2015, including webinars and a workshop, the document identifies systemic challenges such as jurisdictional fragmentation, varying data collection methodologies, and imbalanced institutional capacities. It provides a series of recommendations for developing and improving indicator frameworks to better inform policy and environmental management.

This research paper by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) investigates the relationship between vehicle weight and safety, challenging the perception that lighter vehicles are inherently more dangerous. Using a virtually modeled ultralight concept vehicle (the 'UltraLight') compared against a 2007 Ford Edge, the study demonstrates that while an unoptimized ultralight design may offer less protection to its own driver, it is significantly less aggressive toward other road users and can be improved through iterative design without adding mass.

This technical appendix from RMI provides a detailed overview of thirteen services that battery energy storage can provide to customers, Independent System Operators (ISOs), Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), and utilities. It categorizes these services by stakeholder benefit and time scale, providing definitions, technical backgrounds, and estimated value ranges for each. The document also details the valuation and dispatch methodologies used in four specific use cases across the U.S. and includes a meta-study of six influential energy storage valuation publications from the past decade.

This policy brief examines the challenges of measuring and reporting local procurement in the African mining sector. It argues that aggregate spending figures often mask a lack of genuine local value addition, as many 'local' suppliers are merely importers. While some governments and international standards are beginning to demand more granular data, the document highlights a significant gap between current reporting practices and the data needed to steer effective economic policy.

This final report describes the activities and outcomes of the CIRCLE ERA-Net project, which aimed to establish a Nordic research network focused on local climate adaptation and mitigation within a multilevel governance framework. Through three workshops held in Norway, Sweden, and Finland between 2008 and 2009, the project explored the determinants of adaptive capacity, the role of national and international policies, and the importance of communication and stakeholder engagement in local contexts.

This briefing paper from the Stockholm Environment Institute addresses the gap between global climate and socioeconomic scenarios and local social realities. It argues that current global models, such as the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), often fail to capture the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of local vulnerability. The document proposes a ten-step 'glocal' research methodology to integrate global drivers with local outcomes by focusing on the changing relationships between them to better inform adaptation strategies.

This conceptual review by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines the role of risk and the cost of capital in utility-scale renewable energy investments, with a specific focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. It analyzes how risk mitigation and transfer (RMT) instruments can be used to lower the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) and improve the Net Present Value (NPV) of projects to attract private investment in developing countries.

This technical annex, published by the Stockholm Environment Institute in November 2018, identifies research needs to support Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and a related target from SDG 8. Using a combination of literature reviews and an expert workshop, the report focuses on three key themes: cross-cutting issues, natural resource management, and food waste and loss, with a particular emphasis on the Swedish context while considering both developed and developing country perspectives.

This briefing by the Stockholm Environment Institute discusses the concept of indirect climate change impacts—risks that originate outside a country's borders but are transmitted through biophysical, trade, finance, and human pathways. It highlights a systemic lack of attention to these international dimensions in national adaptation planning and proposes the 'Adaptation Without Borders' project to improve conceptual frameworks and evidence bases for decision-makers.

This desk study by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), commissioned by the World Bank, examines the relationship between improved cookstoves (ICS), indoor air quality, and health outcomes in Central America. It evaluates the technical performance of various stove models, analyzes factors that drive or hinder household adoption, and compares results against World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines.

This policy brief, produced as part of the European Commission FP7 funded MEDIATION project, evaluates Robust Decision Making (RDM) as a decision support tool for climate change adaptation. RDM focuses on identifying strategies that perform well across a wide range of plausible futures—prioritizing 'robustness' over 'optimality'—particularly in situations of 'deep uncertainty' where probabilistic data is scarce.

This executive summary from the Stockholm Environment Institute describes the cumulative impact of global and local stressors on marine ecosystems. It highlights that over 40 percent of the marine environment is already affected by combined stressors, such as ocean warming, acidification, and overfishing. The document argues that current management strategies are often too narrow, focusing on single issues rather than the synergistic interactions between stressors, and calls for a cross-scale governance system to increase ecosystem resilience.

This report evaluates the state of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in Niger, identifying potential technologies, their impacts on soil fertility and crop yields, and the socio-economic constraints hindering their widespread adoption in rural areas.

This research paper by the Stockholm Environment Institute provides a generic framework for institutional capacity development (CD) in developing countries. It integrates traditional institutional development, governance, and micro-economic approaches to define capacity as a combination of functions, resources, and structures. The document outlines the process of CD, strategies for sustainability, and provides generic capacity areas and indicators to monitor progress, alongside specific examples from Tanzania, the Philippines, Mozambique, and Madagascar.

This report argues that transforming gender relations in sub-Saharan African agriculture is essential for improving agricultural productivity, food security, and overall human development. It posits a causal link between gender equality in households and communities and better agricultural outcomes, asserting that standard development interventions cannot fully succeed unless women and men are on equal footing.

This research paper, commissioned by the Global Commission on Adaptation for its 2019 flagship report, examines the transition from incremental to transformative climate adaptation in cities. It focuses on systemic changes to development processes to address equity and climate justice challenges.

This research paper examines how climate services (CS)—systems that provide climate information to users—can be enhanced to support 'transformative adaptation' in agriculture. Transformative adaptation involves long-term, systemic changes to agricultural production systems to maintain resilience against severe climate impacts. The author argues that while current CS effectively support daily and seasonal farming decisions, there is a critical gap in providing the decadal and long-term projections (up to 2050) necessary for high-level policymakers and planners to design systemic shifts.

This working paper evaluates how long-term low-emission development strategies submitted to the UNFCCC manage uncertainty and utilize scenario analysis, proposing a model-assisted quantitative approach to enhance these practices.