Editor's Choice
Reputational damage, financial vulnerability and a lack of access to capital are likely the impacts for firms that fail to respond to the climate crisis this decade, experts surveyed for a new study say.
Five experts outline what the new COP26 president must do to make the Glasgow climate talks a success.
While the Southeast Asian country's human toll has been small — just 16 confirmed infected individuals, 15 of whom have since recovered, out of a population of 96 million people — the economic effects have been wide-ranging, including a steep decline in its timber trade.
Modern development strategies often recognise the pivotal importance of enabling women to fulfill their potential and contribute effectively to their economies. Yet they fail to recognise the need for concerted action to protect women from violence, and uphold the rights of victims. They are thus grossly inadequate.
Featured
Businesses hardly ever adopt renewable energy for altruistic reasons, but does that matter? In this interview with Eco-Business, Lionel Steinitz, CEO of LYS Energy, talks about why firms go green, and how Southeast Asia can unlock its solar potential.
Six in 10 Prudential Singapore staff are women. Outgoing CEO Wilf Blackburn explains how addressing gender bias, ageism and hierarchy is helping the firm to achieve its main sustainability ambition: help people live longer.
Carbon & Climate
Gasp! Air pollution in Jakarta and Hanoi is now worse than in Beijing, global study reveals
While air quality in China improves, Southeast Asia's air is becoming less breathable as a result of urbanisation, coal burning and forest fires. Nowhere is the air as suffocating as South Asia, but there are signs of improvement in India and Pakistan, as policymakers start to respond to the world's single biggest public health threat.
How to dispose of old batteries from redundant electric vehicles? The good news: we can harvest their valuable parts to make new ones.
Scientists found that biodiversity hotspots including the Amazon, Congo, Salween and Mekong watersheds are likely to be hard hit, with river fragmentation potentially averaging between 25 per cent and 40 per cent due to hydropower expansion underway in the tropics.
Impact investment group Green Century Capital Management has withdrawn a shareholder proposal compelling Tyson Foods Inc, the world’s second-biggest meat processor, to address sustainability in its supply chain.
Lustier plant growth as greenhouse gases climb should counter global heating and atmospheric carbon build-up. But it’s not quite so simple.
Company policies, new technologies, innovative financing and more are brightening prospects for the tropical rainforests — but time is short.
In the face of the challenge posed by climate change, the focus of monetary policy often seems very short term. Central bankers must break this “curse of...
The global impact of COVID-19 is still unfolding as the virus spreads. But there could be a silver lining to the outbreak for China and the world's...
With key reforms, Pacific states could move toward cleaner, more affordable sources of energy that eventually eliminate fossil fuels completely.
CSR
Who are the most influential corporate sustainability leaders in Asia Pacific? The Eco-Business A-List revealed...
After months of deliberation, Eco-Business has compiled a list of the most impactful sustainability executives in Asia Pacific—people who are changing their businesses and industries for the better. They are, the Eco-Business A-List…
Carbon & Climate
After a 40-year struggle, indigenous guardians of Indonesian forest gain rights over their land
The Dayak Iban community of Sungai Utik has long fought to protect the forest and their place in it. After nearly half a century, they are now owners of over 10,000 hectares of customary land.
[EB SPECIAL REPORT] What does it take to transform a business into a good corporate citizen? Eco-Business spoke to some of Asia’s most influential sustainability executives to find out.
The car industry is among the world’s most polluting. Amid growing public pressure to cut emissions and with new solutions disrupting their business model, how can automakers prepare for the dramatic changes ahead and help tackle global warming?
Industries are requiring ever more water in an increasingly water-stressed world. What can businesses do to reduce their risks and reliance on the resource?
As Singapore-based salad bar chain SaladStop! marks its 10th anniversary, co-owner Katherine Desbaillets talks to Eco-Business about phasing out meat, food waste and single-use packaging, and dealing with customers who refuse to pay 10 cents for a plastic bag.
Six in 10 Prudential Singapore staff are women. Outgoing CEO Wilf Blackburn explains how addressing gender bias, ageism and hierarchy is helping the firm to achieve its main sustainability ambition: help people live longer.
Food & Agriculture
Drought, deluge, disease: How should the natural rubber industry respond to climate change?
Rising temperatures, drought and heavy rain will affect rubber yields and disease outbreaks. Rubber growers can boost resilience by adopting better cultivation methods, but will need more support.
From banks to builders, more companies are going carbon neutral. Carbon offsetting is not without controversy, but in cases where sustainability can only be approached and not achieved, it may be the appropriate way to balance out emissions.
A Japanese printing and packaging manufacturer is trialing a reusable container scheme in Singapore. It costs nothing for the user, offers cut-priced meals and reduces single-use plastic waste. But it is not working. Why?
An alliance between an environmental group and an agribusiness company aims to reduce encroachment by smallholder coffee farmers in the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, one of Sumatra’s last stands of lowland forest.
The Eco-Business A-List: Asia's most influential sustainability executives
Meet the Eco-Business A-Listers: Ellie Tang, real estate sustainability builder
Sustainability chief for Asian conglomerate New World Development, Ellie Tang was behind the creation of Hong Kong's first urban biodiversity museum. In this interview, Tang talks about how to sell sustainability to CEOs, and one question sustainability leaders should be asking themselves this year.
Sustainable solutions and the SDGs
‘New agricultural revolution’ needed to boost food security, cut emissions
Much of the technology to reduce emissions from agriculture and farming, and to optimise feed yields, is already available. But adoption of the science is lagging, says Pieter Nuboer, Asia Pacific president of DSM Nutritional Products.
Changing lives through the palm oil industry
Combining old knowledge and new ideas in fishing in Kalimantan
Smallholder fish farmers in rural Kalimantan are turning towards sustainability, with some assistance from an agribusiness company.
An alliance between an environmental group and an agribusiness company aims to reduce encroachment by smallholder coffee farmers in the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, one of Sumatra’s last stands of lowland forest.
Food & Agriculture
After another haze outbreak chokes Southeast Asia, can palm oil smallholders shift to sustainable farming?
Smallholders have taken much of the blame for this year's haze-causing forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan. How can they be motivated to switch to more sustainable, fire-free production methods?
As global attention focuses on forests and the plight of orangutans, the untold part of the palm oil story is people. What is the industry doing to protect palm oil workers' rights and those of the people who defend their land as the industry expands?
RSPO's new standards ban deforestation and growing on peat. But what are the challenges of putting the new rules into practice, and how will they be effectively enforced? On this podcast, Eco-Business spoke to industry experts from RSPO, WWF and Wilmar International.
[The EB Podcast] In the fourth episode of the series Tomorrow’s cities: Engineering the energy transition, we explore the potential for low-carbon cooling as Southeast Asia gets richer and hotter.
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