Sustainability Research Project Days 2-3: More Skimming

I’m continuing on in the skimming phase of my sustainability research project! Here are my notes from days 2 and 3.

Research Day 2: Skimming the COP26 Accomplishments UNEP Post

What it is: A story on the UNEP website

When it’s from: Nov 15, 2021

Type of language: Layman’s

Number of readable pages: About 2 pages if printed. Hard to tell because it’s a webpage.

The six initiatives it lists are:

  • climate-friendly cooling,
  • reducing methane emissions,
  • calling for more ambition,
  • boosting nature-based solutions,
  • universities pledging net-zero,
  • ending deforestation, and
  • protecting peatlands ecosystems.

Questions I have: How big a scale-up is this from what we had in place previously? What investments might it lead to? What is the US’s role? What job or volunteer opportunities might it lead to?

Resources to add to my ‘to be read’ (TBR):

  • UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2021: The Gathering Storm
  • ‘Six Sector Solution’ seems to be a roadmap report that UNEP created, and looks like the sector-wide solution I’m looking for.

Research Day 3: Skimming the HBR article about Supply Chain Transparency

What it is: An article explaining the concept of ‘supply chain transparency’ and advice for businesses who want to be more transparent about their supply chains

When it’s from: August 2019

Type of language: Layman-friendly, business-y

Number of readable pages: Looks like it would be about 3 pages. Can’t be sure since it’s a webpage.

Questions I have: 

  • How can this knowledge help us urge more companies to be transparent?
  • Can we apply this at our own jobs?
  • What is the best way to ask companies we frequent to to be more transparent?
  • Are there any policy levers that could be pulled to require transparency?
    • Is any current organization or movement already working to pull those policy levers?

Quotes from the article that reference more sources I want to check out:

  • “A well-known Innovator is the apparel company Patagonia. Its Footprint Chronicles map a subset of raw materials, mills, and factories that make Patagonia products and drills down into details about vendors’ operations and staff.”
  • “Based on our learnings over the last decade, we have applied part of the innovation diffusion theory, a concept originally posed by Everett Rogers that outlines how an innovation spreads and is adopted, to map the progress of firms moving towards supply chain transparency.”

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