Sustainability

• [New] Nepal was expected to achieve 100 percent access to electricity within a few years, well ahead of the target year of 2030 set by Sustainable Development Goal 7.
• [New] Rapid population growth in poor countries will challenge efforts to meet sustainable development goals such as combating hunger and malnutrition.
• [New] Moving to a global scale, national energy investment banks, meanwhile, will invest in sustainable buildings, heating and lighting, so that by 2030 'the world's wealthier countries would see their CO 2 emissions fall to virtually zero'.
• [New] The Green Finance Strategy and the development of sustainable finance standards will help to deliver the significant changes needed across the whole economy to deliver the climate change target and establish the UK as the global leader in sustainable finance.
• [New] While cities and urban areas will offer important opportunities for economic development, they will also become increasingly vulnerable to the physical and transition risks posed by climate change.
• [New] The global green bond market will reach US$250 billion this year, up from US$167 billion in 2018, continuing a sustained growth trajectory as investors tap into sustainable investment opportunities.
• [New] From 2010 to 2050, the US economy could shift completely away from coal and oil, increase in size 2.6 times, and save $5 trillion by embracing only the efficiency and renewables available in 2011.
• [New] Modular construction in European and US markets has the potential to deliver annual savings of up to $22 billion, and there is reason to believe the current revival could be different.
• [New] Restoring only 12% of degraded agricultural land by 2030 could boost smallholders' incomes by US$ 35-40 billion per year and help to feed an additional 200 million people annually, while increasing resilience to drought and water scarcity and reducing GHG emissions.
• [New] The Pentagon's plans to develop weapons and strategies to penetrate Russian or Chinese complex defense networks are a waste of time and could lead to the defeat of U.S. military forces on the future battlefield.
• In the year ahead, the foodservice landscape will evolve, driven by increased awareness around social and environmental responsibility and innovation in technology-enabled customer service.
• The impact of the economic and social benefits created by this virtuous cycle of data, analytics and innovation on the U.S. economy alone to be substantial: The impact from using open data alone will range between $3.2 and $5.4 trillion by 2025.
• Between three and five 'Digital Innovation Hubs' will be established over the next three years, which pull data from GP practices, hospitals, social and community care providers for research and development purposes.
• Microsoft announced the formation of a Technology for Social Impact group that will work to bring cloud services to a total of 300,000 nonprofits in the next three years.
• China will become a leader in innovation in science, engineering and even human well-being [and] it will make a significant contribution to social change and ways to improve human survival.
• Canada will need to ensure that all of its citizens have opportunities to develop key skills.
• Academic business institutions and social enterprises in Brazil are already recognizing the unfair distribution of value and risk in the agricultural supply chain.
• AI technologies are going to have a significant impact on many aspects of traditional enterprise software, SaaS applications, and consumer oriented applications (such as social media and apps) over the next five years.
• Citi predicts social media is where the next wave of innovation is going to be.
• Innovation is going to be incredibly important in ensuring that services keep pace with technology and that systems are joined up and work for the whole of the NHS and care sector.
• Unleashing the potential of social innovation will be impossible without significant change from Canada's public sector.
• Social media spend is only expected to overtake newspaper advertising in 2019 to reach US$55 billion.
• Taking social innovation in East Asia to the next level will require an active exchange of ideas and collective cross-sector impact throughout the region.

Last updated: 13 July 2019