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The report examines the challenges facing sustainable investing due to substandard ESG data, highlighting issues such as lack of standardization, poor coverage, and a specific inability to quantify physical climate risks. Based on interviews with investment practitioners managing $5.2 trillion in assets, it argues that while disclosure frameworks like TCFD and SASB are improving the landscape, investors still lack the granular asset-level data and standardized methodologies required to translate sustainability metrics into financial materiality. The document proposes several solutions, including the development of a Physical Resilience Protocol and the use of geospatial data to fill context gaps in corporate reporting.

The report argues that wealth and wellbeing depend on natural capital—the stock of renewable and non-renewable resources that provide essential ecosystem services. It highlights that natural capital can account for 30% to 50% of national wealth in various countries, yet traditional GDP measures fail to capture this value. The document outlines how governments can generate societal returns (e.g., poverty reduction and public health), economic returns (e.g., business resilience and green infrastructure), and environmental returns (e.g., ecological resilience). To scale these benefits, the report proposes twelve specific levers for government action, ranging from implementing UN-SEEA accounting frameworks and creating public-private partnerships to mainstreaming natural capital into macro indicators and implementing mandatory non-financial disclosures.

The report examines the increasing engagement of UN human rights treaty bodies (HRTBs) with climate change, specifically analyzing their 2018 Concluding Observations (COBs), general comments, and thematic initiatives. It highlights a shift toward addressing a broader diversity of countries, including developed nations, and identifies a continuing emphasis on adaptation and procedural rights over mitigation. The document provides detailed syntheses of recommendations from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), emphasizing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women, children, and persons with disabilities.

The document reports on the growth of sovereign green bond issuance in 2018, noting that sovereign issuance reached 10.5% of the green bond market share. It details specific issuances from countries like France, Indonesia, and the Seychelles, and outlines the development of the Green Bond Market Development Toolkit for emerging markets. Additionally, it describes the EU's progress toward a sustainable finance taxonomy and the efforts of central banks, such as the Bank of England and De Nederlandsche Bank, to integrate climate risk into financial supervision and stress testing.

The authors argue that the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) currently hinders the low-carbon transition by treating fossil-fuel and renewable energy investments identically. They propose a modernization process that abandons 'energy-source neutrality' in favor of state-specific lists that encourage low-carbon investments and phase out carbon-intensive ones. The paper also suggests reforming Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) by requiring the exhaustion of local remedies, introducing state-to-state dispute settlement, and clarifying 'denial of benefits' clauses to protect climate policy space. Substantive recommendations include narrowing the 'Fair and Equitable Treatment' (FET) standard, defining indirect expropriation to protect public welfare measures, and adopting a 'sunk-costs' approach for valuing damages in the phase-out of fossil fuels.

The report details a series of Swedish-led dialogue forums in five countries aimed at integrating climate policies (NDCs) with sustainable development goals (SDGs). Common findings across the forums include a critical need for capacity building at local levels, the challenge of translating national policies into regional implementation, and the necessity of securing both international and domestic financing. While stakeholders generally recognized the synergies between NDCs and SDGs, concerns persisted regarding trade-offs between rapid industrialization and environmental sustainability. Country-specific insights highlight Vietnam's focus on integrated water management, Tanzania's debate on the economic costs of environmental degradation, Zambia's emphasis on research and solar potential, Cambodia's focus on inter-ministerial policy coherence, and Uganda's concerns over institutional silos and external financing dependencies.

The document advocates for the integration of communication rights into global development frameworks, specifically proposing a new UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 18) titled 'Communication for All'. It explores the philosophical basis of communication as an essential human need, examines how 'communication and information poverty' undermines existing SDGs—particularly regarding gender equality, ICT infrastructure, and peace and justice—and provides case studies on media restrictions and digital divides in Palestine, Gaza, and Ethiopia. Additionally, it discusses the role of community media for Indigenous Peoples and the use of communication to support memory and justice processes in Argentina.

The document examines the link between community land tenure and global sustainability goals, highlighting that while indigenous and rural communities manage over 50% of the world's land, only 10% is legally recognized. It presents evidence that secure tenure reduces deforestation and carbon emissions more cheaply than technological carbon capture. The author calls for legal reforms, simplified formalization procedures, and a more equitable playing field between communities and corporations to protect these critical carbon sinks and support rural livelihoods.

The report assesses gender disparities in Nigeria, specifically within Northern states targeted for solar IPP sub-projects. It identifies systemic barriers for women, including limited land ownership, lower literacy rates, and energy poverty, while outlining a regulatory framework and a Gender Action Plan to promote inclusive employment and energy access.

The analysis argues that EUSIPA perpetuates the flaws of old-generation Bilateral Investment Treaties by providing vague investor protections and a biased dispute settlement system that lacks sufficient judicial independence and fails to prioritize public interest over investment claims.

The document argues that public participation is essential for achieving sustainable development goals, as it provides local knowledge and increases the legitimacy of decisions. It distinguishes between 'invited spaces' (formal state-led processes) and 'created spaces' (citizen-led mobilization), noting that these often interact to influence policy. However, the authors warn that without intentional design to address social injustice, participation can reinforce existing inequalities and be hindered by technocratic exclusion.

The report details a participatory framework developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to identify synergies and conflicts between SDG targets in Colombia. It outlines a 7-point scoring system to evaluate first-order (direct) and second-order (indirect) interactions, which are then analyzed using network analysis to inform policy prioritization. The methodology will be piloted through workshops in Bogotá and Antioquia, focusing on a preselected set of 20 targets with a particular emphasis on water management as a transversal element. The goal is to provide a systemic tool for national and subnational decision-makers to ensure that progress in one area does not hinder another.

The document advocates for Sustainable Land Management (SLM) as an integrated approach to combat land degradation, desertification, and climate change, with a specific focus on the Mediterranean Basin. It identifies four primary barriers to SLM implementation—economic, educational, institutional, and monitoring—and suggests that mainstreaming SLM into broader policy frameworks can overcome these obstacles. In the Mediterranean Basin, where water availability is the most critical limiting factor, the brief proposes specific SLM actions such as reforestation, improving irrigation efficiency, and preserving traditional extensive systems to manage the water budget. The authors highlight the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD) 2016-2025 and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) as key institutional frameworks that can facilitate the scaling of local SLM successes to a regional level.

The document examines how the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) integrates climate change into its monitoring of State obligations. In 2018, the CRC issued climate-related recommendations to 47% of reviewed States, focusing heavily on procedural rights, education, and disaster-sensitive social protection. While mitigation was addressed in only 14% of climate recommendations—specifically targeting fossil fuel exploitation in Norway and coal-fired power plants in Spain—the CRC also urged Niger to address deforestation and land regeneration. The briefing highlights a trend of linking recommendations to Sustainable Development Goal 13 and emphasizes the need for children's meaningful participation in climate policy-making.

In 2019, IDFC members committed $197 billion in green finance, a 47% increase from 2018. The vast majority of this funding (95%) was dedicated to climate finance, with green energy and GHG mitigation receiving 87% of those funds. While 87% of commitments remained in the home countries of member institutions, the East Asia and Pacific region received the largest share of total commitments at 69%.

South Africa is identified as the most economically unequal country in the world, with the wealthiest 10% of the population holding 90–95% of the wealth. The document asserts that poverty rates have increased, with 55.5% of the population living below the official national upper bound poverty line in 2015. It criticizes the government's use of fiscal austerity, noting real-term spending cuts in health and education, and argues that the tax system is insufficiently progressive, citing a corporate income tax rate that dropped from 50% in 1990 to 28% today. The report concludes that these policy choices threaten the fulfillment of social and economic rights and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.

The document analyzes the intersection of five major agricultural voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) and gender equality themes. It finds that while VSSs can improve working conditions for waged women and promote children's education, they risk exacerbating gender inequalities if they prioritize cash crops over women's subsistence farming or increase women's unpaid labor burdens without providing childcare or gender-transformative training.

The report evaluates global environmental governance in 2019, highlighting a disconnect between urgent scientific warnings and stalled political action. While progress was made in managing hazardous wastes and plastics, climate and biodiversity governance faced significant setbacks. The document emphasizes the growing need for integrated governance to address the interlinked nature of climate, ocean, and land degradation, while noting that most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not on track for 2030.

The report reviews global environmental governance in 2019, highlighting progress in plastic waste regulation and scientific reporting, while noting failures in climate ambition and biodiversity negotiations. It emphasizes the growing need for integrated governance and forecasts 2020 as a critical year for the Paris Agreement and the post-2020 biodiversity framework.

The document analyzes the intersection of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and gender equality in agriculture. It identifies six key themes—household food security, access to productive resources, education, unpaid domestic work, decision-making, and decent work—where VSS can either support or potentially hinder women's empowerment. The guide provides specific recommendations for development organizations to ensure VSS implementation is gender-transformative and does not exacerbate existing inequalities.