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The research paper assesses the carbon footprint and economic drivers of China's aluminium and steel industries. It highlights that primary aluminium production contributes significantly to global GHG emissions, particularly when accounting for coal-fired electricity. The paper also examines how export VAT refund rates and trade policies influence the production and export of these metals, using data from the World Bank and China Custom House to illustrate trends between 2003 and 2008.

The document outlines an educational activity where students role-play six distinct audience types—Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive—to practice science communication and evidence-based argumentation. It provides three scenarios: a coastal zoning law in 'Dune County', a school rain garden proposal, and a school sustainability plan. The goal is to foster social-emotional learning and critical thinking regarding climate change beliefs and misinformation.

Friends of the Earth Europe asserts that the EU is economically vulnerable due to its high dependence on imported resources and a lack of measurement tools to track resource use. The report proposes four specific indicators—land, materials, water, and greenhouse gas emissions—to measure the EU's total resource footprint, including imported goods. It highlights the social and environmental costs of overconsumption, such as human rights abuses in Indonesia's palm oil sector and energy poverty within Europe, while criticizing the EU's Raw Materials Initiative for prioritizing resource access over efficiency.

The document provides a comprehensive overview of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), describing it as a strategic framework for Chinese foreign investment and global influence. It highlights a systemic lack of environmental and social safeguards, the dominance of Chinese state-owned enterprises, and the tendency of BRI financing to favor fossil fuel projects over renewables. The briefing also details the 'debt trap' risks for recipient nations and the efforts of civil society organizations to advocate for a 'Green BRI' and greater corporate accountability.

The document analyzes the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a strategic tool for China to export industrial overcapacity and expand global influence. It highlights a systemic lack of transparency, the dominance of state-owned enterprises, and significant environmental risks, particularly through the financing of coal and hydropower projects. While China promotes a 'Green BRI' and 'ecological civilization,' the report argues that actual implementation often lacks rigorous safeguards, leading to 'debt traps' and biodiversity loss. It calls for international civil society to push for binding treaties on multinationals and the adoption of higher environmental and social standards.

The Green Economy Coalition and partner organisations highlight the link between inequality and environmental degradation, noting that green policies are not inherently fair. They call for a collaborative effort to integrate inclusion and sustainability, citing examples from Brazil, Tanzania, Kenya, and the UK to demonstrate how economic development can be both green and fair.

The report argues that inequality and sustainability are deeply interlinked, with the wealthiest individuals contributing most to environmental degradation while the poorest bear the brunt of its impacts. Through case studies in the UK, India, and Kenya, and analysis of the energy, transport, waste, and food sectors, it identifies recurring patterns of 'double injustice' where marginalised groups are most vulnerable to climate change and pollution. The document highlights 'win-win' examples—such as distributed solar power in Bangladesh, Bus Rapid Transit in Bogotá, and insect farming in Thailand—to show that sustainable development can be designed to reduce inequality.

The document details an 18-month pilot by Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) using two BYD electric buses in Cape Town. The trial demonstrated that electric buses can handle steep local topography, such as Hospital Bend, and achieve significant energy cost savings of nearly 69% compared to diesel alternatives. To mitigate the carbon intensity of the South African grid, GABS has installed rooftop solar PV at six depots, reaching 1.7MWp by March 2023, though it estimates a need for 80 to 100MW of renewable capacity to fully electrify its 1,100-bus fleet. The study concludes that while electric buses have higher upfront costs, fuel savings allow them to pay for themselves over a 15 to 20 year lifespan.

The document details a green finance mechanism where a solar developer finances, installs, and maintains a rooftop PV system on a commercial property. The property owner receives rental income, while the tenant purchases the generated electricity via a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). A specific implementation for Pick n Pay in Brackenfell, Cape Town, resulted in a 22.12% reduction in the outlet's carbon footprint and created a new annual revenue stream of approximately R188,000 for the property owner.

The guideline outlines a three-step process for farmers to achieve energy resilience: conducting energy audits to identify efficiencies, evaluating alternative energy technologies based on specific production needs, and navigating the financial and quality assurance aspects of implementation. It highlights the critical role of energy efficiency as a prerequisite to reducing the capital requirements of renewable systems and provides detailed comparisons of technologies such as solar PV, biogas, and battery storage, alongside various South African financing mechanisms and tax incentives.

The document presents Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) as a method to maximize food yield using indoor facilities and climate-regulated systems. It identifies key drivers for CEA adoption in South Africa, including severe water scarcity, soil loss, and high rates of urbanization. The study highlights benefits such as year-round production, reduced food mileage through vertical farming, and improved pest control. To scale the industry, the document argues for increased access to affordable financing and dedicated resources for research, development, and skills training.

The report argues that solar PV is highly suitable for packhouses because their peak energy demands for cooling and packing align with daytime solar generation. Through modelling an apple packhouse, the report finds that large-scale systems (500 kWp) are consistently profitable across various tariff and financing scenarios, while smaller systems (≤10 kWp) require favourable financing to be viable. It emphasizes that the primary value is derived from replacing expensive grid electricity rather than selling excess power back to the grid, which offers lower returns. The report also identifies regulatory hurdles, noting that feed-in tariffs are only available in specific Western Cape municipalities.

The document examines the intersection of the circular economy and international trade, highlighting how shifting from primary to secondary raw materials can significantly reduce carbon emissions. It discusses the growth of secondary material markets, the rise of circular business models like sharing economies and product longevity, and the need for trade policies to eliminate barriers to circular goods and services. The authors advocate for international standards, the use of bilateral and regional free trade agreements, and a more proactive role for the WTO in facilitating a low-carbon circular economy.

The paper contends that traditional industrial policy is outdated because it focuses almost exclusively on manufacturing, despite services accounting for approximately two-thirds of global GDP. It proposes a 'service-led' industrial policy based on five pillars: infrastructure, investment/FDI, human capital, regulatory quality, and connectivity. The author highlights that services offer developing economies a more inclusive and sustainable path to growth due to lower capital intensity and smaller minimum scales for global competitiveness. Furthermore, the document notes that the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) provides governments with more policy space for experimentation compared to the stricter rules governing goods.

INFASA is a forum for scientists, policy-makers, producers, food industry leaders, and consumers to converge on the definition and measurement of sustainable agriculture. The initiative focuses on moving beyond the creation of new indicators to understanding how existing assessment tools work in practice and how to integrate them into mainstream farm management. Key priorities include balancing technical complexity with user manageability, incorporating stakeholder participation, and addressing the need for holistic approaches that include the social domain. INFASA seeks to optimize tool use across the food chain, develop guidelines for next-generation tools—such as those measuring carbon footprints—and use demonstration projects to build capacity for wider implementation.

The document warns that increasing residential solar PV adoption in the Western Cape will likely lead to significant municipal revenue losses, as high-income consumers reduce their reliance on the grid. Using the International Futures (IFs) model, the authors project that under a 'Current Path' scenario, the province could lose nearly 11% of municipal revenue cumulatively by 2040. To counter this, the brief proposes a sequential policy approach: short-term investment in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) to gather data, medium-term implementation of feed-in tariffs (FIT) and Time of Use (ToU) tariffs to reclaim revenue, and long-term strategic investment in a 'smart grid' and the local PV manufacturing industry. The 'Embrace and Enhance' scenario, which combines high levels of smart infrastructure investment with local manufacturing and ICT spillovers, is forecast to result in the lowest cumulative revenue losses, although it still does not fully offset the impact of decentralized energy production.

The document outlines three strategic approaches for artist unions to address the climate crisis: integrating climate action into core union work, building and sustaining networks, and fostering a 'climate utopia' through radical imagination. It provides a framework for categorising actions as 'dutiful', 'disruptive', or 'dangerous' and includes a toolkit of workshop exercises and a mapping of existing and needed capacities for artist organisations.

The report evaluates a wide range of U.S. food companies, including fast food chains, grocers, and distributors, on three sustainability metrics for meat sourcing. The vast majority of the assessed companies, such as Subway, Starbucks, and Costco, have no commitments to reducing Scope 3 emissions, implementing sustainable feed sourcing, or ensuring responsible manure management. A few companies show partial progress: Walmart's 'Project Gigaton' aims to reduce Scope 3 emissions by one billion tons by 2030, and McDonald's has a Science Based Target to reduce emissions intensity by 31 percent by 2030. However, the report notes that many of these efforts are voluntary or lack the rigorous standards and reporting necessary to ensure absolute emissions reductions across the full supply chain.

The document outlines the environmental and economic dangers of expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure. It highlights that the LNG process is energy-intensive and prone to methane leaks, with US-sourced LNG potentially having a carbon footprint 28% higher than coal. Financially, the report warns of severe overcapacity in Europe, where import capacity may reach 400 billion m3 by 2030 despite a projected demand of only 150-190 billion m3, leading to a high risk of stranded assets in countries such as France, Germany, and Italy. It concludes that conversion to hydrogen or biomethane is largely technically and economically unfeasible, urging financial actors to cease all support for gas expansion.

Gold Fields implemented a 40 MW solar PV project at its South Deep Gold Mine in South Africa to mitigate rising electricity costs from the utility Eskom and reduce its carbon footprint. Developed with assistance from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and DNV GL, the project utilizes a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with an independent power producer. The installation is expected to offset 15–20 percent of the mine's energy consumption and achieve a 114 percent lifetime benefit-to-cost ratio.