Reports and publications

The window of opportunity to combat climate change has not closed. A decade of extraordinary innovation has made the greening of the global economy not only feasible but also likely. But we’re going to need negative emission technologies, or NETs, to make it happen.

As ICAO finalizes CORSIA rules, policy-makers must move swiftly to bar bad carbon offsets. They must ensure that carbon offsets represent real emission reductions, are not double counted, and have host country approval. If bad credits are allowed in CORSIA—whether from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or other offset programs—airlines’ net emissions will grow and climate change will be worse.

Business leaders know it’s no longer enough to simply post their company values online. CEOs need to publicly and visibly put those values to work because investors, employees, and customers now demand it.

Plastics are convenient, cheap and durable - they also pose serious threats to our environment.

An interview with Rural Radio Network

Learn about the growing signs of climate change, its adverse impacts, and what EDF and others are doing in response.

Robust, functional, affordable and scalable commodity supply chain tracking systems are essential to reducing deforestation resulting from the production of tropical forest commodities. In Brazil, monitoring tools are becoming increasingly important to private sector efforts aiming to reduce and eliminate the risk of deforestation from tropical forest commodity supply chains. This report provides a comprehensive comparison of supply chain tracking tools for tropical forest commodities, specifically cattle, soy and timber, currently being used in Brazil. In addition to detailing the objectives, methodologies, scope and cost  of each tool, the report also describes the advantages and challenges of each system, and concludes with a comprehensive comparison. This report will inform private sector entities, other supply chain actors and consumers about the various supply chain monitoring tools available to help reduce and eliminate deforestation from tropical forest commodity production, and serve as a guide to help companies identify the most suitable tools to increase supply chain transparency and traceability.  

As environmentalists, we often refer to our work as “saving the planet.” This is unhelpful for a couple of reasons.

Coastal regions and deltas around the globe are seeking financing for resilience projects to cope with more frequent extreme events, sea-level rise and land subsidence. Interest is growing in natural infrastructure that generates multiple ecosystem services including flood risk reduction. The growth of the conservation finance market represents an opportunity to support these investments, but there is a need for pilot transactions that align incentives across private and public entities, along with rigorous performance metrics for natural infrastructure linked to resilience outcomes. We test the feasibility of the Environmental Impact Bond (EIB) model to address these challenges. An EIB is a form of Pay-for-Performance debt financing where investors provide upfront capital to implement a project and are repaid according to the degree to which desired environmental outcomes are achieved. We evaluate this concept for wetland restoration projects identified in Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan by developing a site selection procedure and designing a multi-stakeholder transaction tied to restoration outcomes. Based on our proposed model we conclude that an EIB could be used to accelerate restoration and increase the net benefits of wetland investments, aligning incentives of the investors and payors around metrics of wetland sustainability.

Coastal regions and deltas around the globe are seeking financing for resilience projects to cope with more frequent extreme events, sea-level rise and land subsidence. Interest is growing in natural infrastructure that generates multiple ecosystem services including flood risk reduction. The growth of the conservation finance market represents an opportunity to support these investments, but there is a need for pilot transactions that align incentives across private and public entities, along with rigorous performance metrics for natural infrastructure linked to resilience outcomes. We test the feasibility of the Environmental Impact Bond (EIB) model to address these challenges. An EIB is a form of Pay-for-Performance debt financing where investors provide upfront capital to implement a project and are repaid according to the degree to which desired environmental outcomes are achieved. We evaluate this concept for wetland restoration projects identified in Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan by developing a site selection procedure and designing a multi-stakeholder transaction tied to restoration outcomes. Based on our proposed model we conclude that an EIB could be used to accelerate restoration and increase the net benefits of wetland investments, aligning incentives of the investors and payors around metrics of wetland sustainability.