World Resources Institute

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The WRI is a global research collaberation of 60+ countries. We are depleting our Earth's resources faster than they can be replenished, and every year it gets worse.
It doesn't have to be like this; wise management of natural resources would solve the problem - if communities, business and governments work together. WRI's remit is to identify the issues, conduct research to design solutions, and communicate those solutions to the powers that be.

WRI have a ton of excellent resources: maps, infographics, videos, and charts and graphs.

Corporate Consultative Group

As part of their mission, WRI builds strategic relationships with businesses to work together on shared priorities. Corporate Consultative Group members are companies that want to engage with the problems; they have access to expertise in 6 areas: Climate Change, Water, Forests, Food, Energy, and Cities & Transport.[1]
As of Mar.2018, nearly 40 Fortune 500 companies are advancing business practices that mitigate risks and support sustainable growth.

The Elephant in the Boardroom: Why Unchecked Consumption is Not an Option in Tomorrow’s Markets

ref ref ... Underneath ... lies an uncomfortable truth: Most businesses’ growth is still predicated on more people buying more goods. The world will have more than 9bn people by 2050, and the middle class will have swelled by 3bn by 2030. On top of this, consumer expectations for yet more are being stoked by trends such as fast fashion. The rapid expansion of consumption-driven markets in the coming decades is the anticipated engine for continued business growth. The problem is that the planet’s natural systems and finite resources cannot keep up; we are already at or close to the limits of the planet’s ability to provide. Without a change to current business models in which growth is predicated on selling more goods to more people, environmental stresses will pose increasing business risks and costs. Ultimately, it will be a brake on business growth. Whether we look at consumer durables, fast-moving consumer goods, or consumables (this paper looks at all three), the pattern and risk of selling more stuff to more people is the same, and we see that efficiency improvements underway are not sufficient to counteract anticipated global growth. We look at 3 examples.

Cars: with an increasing number of households able to spend more on transportation, companies could stick with current business models and sell more cars to more people. In this business-as-usual scenario, global GHG emissions from transport would increase 55% from 2010 to 2030. The price tag for road air pollution and associated health costs will increase to $3 tn. Traffic congestion and gridlock is reducing GDP up to 10% in some megacities such as Beijing.

Meat: animal-based proteins have the highest impact on the environment of any food, and beef is the most impactful. Overall, worldwide consumption of animal-based foods (meats and dairy) is expected to increase 79% between 2006 and 2050, and beef demand by 95%. Agriculture is estimated to be the dominant driver of 80% of the world’s deforestation; it accounts for 70% of all freshwater withdrawn from rivers, lakes, and aquifers; and it accounts for 80–90% of freshwater that is consumed and not returned. Agriculture and related land-use change accounted for nearly 25% of global GHG emissions in 2010. By 2050 these sources could be responsible for as much as 70% of the total allowable global emissions “budget” that would limit global warming to 2°C.

Clothes: The number of clothes the average consumer purchases has increased 60% between 2000 and 2014, and the clothes are kept about half as long. The apparel industry generates huge profits. It is also responsible for 10% of the world’s GHG emissions, 5tn litres of water for dyeing processes a year, and sends around 40–120bn square metres of fabric waste from factories to the landfill each year. For example: producing cotton for a single T-shirt uses ~2,700 litres of water. Synhetics require less water, but 2–4 times more energy. The apparel and textile industry is moving away from natural fibres to man-made ones, increasing the plastic pollution problems that synthetics generate.

ResourceWatch

Check out Pulse, ... https://resourcewatch.org/data/pulse

Climate Watch

The Climate Watch platform allows you to explore historical and projected emissions, countries' climate targets and their linkages with progress on the United Nations § Sustainable Development Goals. This free platform enables users to create and share custom data visualizations and comparisons of national climate commitments. It contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement by using open data to increase transparency and accountability, and provide actionable analysis on how countries can enhance their efforts to combat climate change. ref
WRI manages Climate Watch; it is a contribution to the NDC Partnership link. The platform is a collaboration between: todo

CAIT Climate Data Explorer

As countries implement their Paris Agreement targets and policies, and develop more detailed pathways to reduce their emissions, it’s important to fully understand our global emissions picture and how it changes over time. The CAIT Climate Data Explorer shows the world’s top greenhouse gas-emitting countries with the latest global data available (2013). You can explore by country and by economic sector, showing how the top emitters have changed (or not) in recent years.
CAIT Climate Data Explorer has begun migrating features to Climate Watch. Climate Watch will maintain many of the same tools from CAIT, while continuing to add a range of data sets and tools for actionable analysis on climate change.

Articles

References

  1. ^ Get Involved: Corporations. World Resources Institute. Accessed Sept.10.2018.