In honor of World Soil Day, Food Tank is highlighting 15 organizations around the globe working to use soil to reverse the damaging effects of climate change, stop soil from disappearing due to erosion, and improve farmers’ well-being and connection to their land.

Droughts are one of the starkest consequences of climate change and are becoming increasingly frequent, prolonged and intense. The extent of the short-, medium- and long-term damage they cause depends on the degree of vulnerability of the ecosystems, societies and economies affected. Those that are…

A new study has analysed how to reduce the environmental footprint of EU trade by preferentially importing goods from countries that have greener production processes. The study concludes that the environmental impacts of 200 product groups imported into the EU could be considerably reduced in this…

Resilience to climate change? Using The EIU’s new Climate Change Resilience Index, this special report looks at the long-term impact of climate change on some of the world's largest economies. A new report from The Economist Intelligence Unit is making some dire predictions about the effects of…

Climate Box is an interactive learning programme targeting school children to teach them about the science behind climate change, including practical tips on how to reduce their carbon footprint and adapt to impacts of climate change. It was developed by a multidisciplinary team of authors -…

This new OECD platform for environmental indicators gives access to recent data through interactive graphics and provides trends on major environmental issues. The indicators help track environmental performance and compare country progress.

The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) define an ambitious action plan for the future we want but say little about implementation. For advanced countries such as Australia, rapid progress towards the SDGs is there for the taking and greater gains will be made by addressing all…

There is a clear need for transformative change in the land management and food production sectors to address the global land challenges of climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, combatting land‐degradation and desertification, and delivering food security (referred to hereafter as…

A publication by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) identifies four building blocks for innovative and inclusive national data systems for SDGs. The recommendations respond to main data challenges identified in the…

Achieving global restoration goals will require increasing enthusiasm and funding, as well as a common understanding of how to design and implement successful restoration projects that proactively and collaboratively engage local communities. SER’s International Standards provide essential tools and…

Many countries already have ambitious goals to plant trees. In Africa, a group of countries have pledged to restore 100 million hectares of forest. In Latin America, countries plan to restore another 20 million hectares. China deployed thousands of soldiers last year to plant trees covering an area…

In the dry stretch between Africa’s Sahara Desert and tropical forests, the landscape has been slowly changing, giving new signs of life in places where there was previously none, or where there once was before the effects of climate change took hold. These are the building blocks of the Great Green…

Restoration needs along Africa's drylands have been mapped and quantified for the first time. A groundbreaking map of restoration opportunities along Africa's Great Green Wall has been launched at the UN climate change conference, based on collection and analysis of crucial land-use information to…

Immediate measures on agriculture, forestry, wetlands and bioenergy can cut down a third of the emissions to keep temperatures below 1.5°C

In the report “Towards our common digital future”, the WBGU makes it clear that sustainability strategies and concepts need to be fundamentally further developed in the age of digitalization. Only if digital change and the Transformation towards Sustainability are synchronized can we succeed in…

A huge tension exists between recognizing sustainable development (SD) as a meta-discourse and accepting a limitless interpretational width. We analyse the impacts of diversity of worldviews on the interpretation of SD—as a knowledge-based concept—through a critical literature review, resulting in…

Today, many countries are at risk of running out of water, especially in the Arab region – the most water scarce region in the world – with water availability now cited as one of the greatest risks to business continuity and growth. We need a new paradigm to achieve water security - one that depends…

on World Food Day, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) released the CEO Guide to Food System Transformation which outlines seven pathways and clear actions for CEOs to transform our food system in the next decade. It highlights the business leadership needed for a deep…

As much as half of the world’s work is unpaid. And most of it is done by women. This imbalance not only robs women of economic opportunities. It is also costly to society in the form of lower productivity and forgone economic growth. It follows that a fairer allocation of unpaid work would not only…

Drought is a complex and recurring natural disaster that occurs throughout the world and often has negative impacts on many sectors of society. Drought monitoring is challenging given the complex spatio-temporal dimensions of drought and its severity. Traditionally, drought monitoring has relied…

Since 1966, ISRIC - World Soil Information has compiled a large collection of articles, country reports, books and maps with emphasis on the developing countries. The subject emphasis is on soils, but related geographic information on climate, geology, geomorphology, land degradation, land use, and…

Desertification processes overall (which are caused by a combination of unsustainable land management and climate change) are driving losses in agricultural productivity and incomes in drylands. Local and national studies show how desertification is already causing farmers to suffer losses in income…

Land and soil underpin life on our planet. The way we currently use these vital and finite resources in Europe is not sustainable. Human activities — growing cities and infrastructure networks, intensive agriculture, pollutants and greenhouse gases released to the environment — transform Europe’s…

A new JRC dataset shows where in the EU there is a lot of potential to produce large quantities of energy from renewables.If renewable energy was the primary energy source in the EU, what would that look like? Would PV panels and wind turbines cover every square meter of land?No, say the authors of…

UN CC:Lean launches eduCCate Global in collaboration with UK based Harwood Education to take climate change into the classroom. The project has been progressively expanding and attracting the attention of teachers around the world.