A solar device turning waste heat into electricity in rural China and an Ugandan business manufacturing stationery from agricultural waste are among the dozens of winners of a United Nations-backed sustainable development award, it was announced today. The Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (SEED) Award recognizes promising new locally-driven enterprises that work to improve livelihoods, tackle poverty and manage the sustainable development of natural resources in developing countries. The SEED initiative...

After nearly two decades of debate, governments from around the world today agreed to a new United Nations treaty on managing the planet’s wealth of genetic resources – from animals to plants to fungi – more fairly and systematically. The decision came on the last day of the two-week conference of parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan. The new pact, which is a protocol to the...

Businesses and policy-makers need to recognize the tremendous economic value of ecosystems, as well as the social and economic costs of losing such natural resources as forests, freshwater, soils and coral reefs, a new United Nations report released today said. The report by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a body hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), seeks to galvanize the world to recognize the economic consequences of failing...

A United Nations-backed intervention involving cook stoves holds the promise of saving lives, uplifting health, improving regional environments, reducing deforestation, empowering local entrepreneurs, speeding development, and helping to stem global climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has joined international efforts to dramatically boost the efficiency of some 3 billion cook stoves across Africa, Asia and Latin America, with the aim to protect women’s health and provide significant environmental...

Intensifying investments in clean energy can accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eight globally-agreed targets to slash poverty by 2015, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says in a new publication. A “green economy” is one that “not only improves human well-being and lessens inequality but also reduces environmental risks and ecological scarcities,” the brief says, underscoring its importance in realizing the MDGs. In 2008 amidst the...