Blogs
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Equity and inclusion should be a primary business objective. Here’s why
Thursday 24th of September 2020
The world has spent this year battling COVID-19, which globally has claimed almost one million lives. In the United States, this dynamic is complicated by our original sin: slavery, discrimination and its vestiges. This manifests in concurrent realities: COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Black people and the most marginalized communities; and, that persistent inequities in policing in communities of colour too often culminate with the deaths of unarmed Black people. These problems are amplified when individuals occupy more than one marginalized identity, like LGBTQ people of colour.
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Big powers must set rivalry aside to combat shared threats like COVID and climate change – but how?
Thursday 24th of September 2020
The United Nations is 75, and, according to Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, it is showing its age.
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COVID-19: How open data can help us beat the pandemic
Thursday 24th of September 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has been the world’s largest ever collective learning exercise. Cooperation, unprecedented on a global scale, has underpinned this dynamic. Perhaps the most obvious is scientific cooperation, with governments and universities opening up and sharing their research. Cities around the world have also been exchanging strategies through international urban cooperation networks, while the alliance between Apple and Google to improve contract tracing apps is perhaps the most unexpected example of collaboration in the private sector.
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How is COVID-19 changing airports?
Thursday 24th of September 2020
COVID-19 has wreaked huge damage on the world’s once-booming aviation sector. Passenger numbers have plummeted and many airlines have warned they may not survive if the pandemic drags on much longer.
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The climate loop: 6 ways global warming is fuelling US fires
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Fires blazing across the Western United States have claimed dozens of lives, destroyed countless properties, displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, and worsened air quality at a time when the coronavirus pandemic threatens respiratory health. The ominous skies are a preview of what’s to come in a world of continued inaction on climate change. What was seemingly a distant future is now playing out in front of our eyes.
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3 innovations leading the fight to save our forests
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Forests are critical to the health of the planet. They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers. They harbour 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, and are a treasure trove of innovation and a source of subsistence and survival for 350 million people.
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These 5 innovators are turning the tide on plastic pollution
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Maintaining a focus on reducing plastic pollution while the world is battling a global pandemic might feel like a big ask at times. But that’s exactly what these five entrepreneurial, innovative businesses are doing.
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SDI 2020: This company is powering India’s green revolution
Thursday 24th of September 2020
ReNew Power is India’s largest independent renewable energy company, generating one percent of the country’s power.
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Google shows huge panic attack rise during COVID-19
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Based on a Google Trends analysis, psychologists have discovered a major jump in searches related to anxiety, panic attacks, and treatments for panic attacks.
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The rise of Covidnomics
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Boundaries between academic disciplines are always artificial creations intended to facilitate analysis, given our limitations. But as the economist Albert Hirschman once argued, there are times when it is incumbent on us to trespass them. The ongoing battle against COVID-19 and its economic fallout is such a time.
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Despite COVID-19, the end of the office is far from nigh
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Reading the papers and listening to certain commentators you could be forgiven for thinking that the end was nigh for the office, but as with a lot of things it is difficult to generalise.
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This is how Americans are spending the time they saved on the commute
Thursday 24th of September 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a sudden, massive shift to working from home (WFH) around the world. There is great concern about how this development will play out over time, whether it will exacerbate inequalities in economic circumstances and how the economy will adjust (e.g. Adams-Prassl et al. 2020, Baldwin 2020, Bartik et al. 2020, Barrero et al. 2020, Berg et al. 2020, Dingel and Neiman 2020, Milasi et al. 2020).
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Coronavirus mutations: what we’ve learned so far
Thursday 24th of September 2020
In early January, the first genome sequence of Sars-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – was released under the moniker “Wuhan-1”. This string of 30,000 letters (the A, T, C and Gs of the genetic code) marked day one in the race to understand the genetics of this newly discovered coronavirus. Now, a further 100,000 coronavirus genomes sampled from COVID-19 patients in over 100 countries have joined Wuhan-1. Geneticists around the world are mining the data for answers. Where did Sars-CoV-2 come from? When did it start infecting humans? How is the virus mutating – and does it matter? Sars-CoV-2 genomics, much like the virus itself, went big and went global.
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Humans destroyed an ecosystem the size of Mexico in just 13 years
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Between 2000 and 2013, Earth lost an area of undisturbed ecosystems roughly the size of Mexico.
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Poll: This is how accepting the world is of migrants
Thursday 24th of September 2020
The world is becoming less tolerant of migrants, according to a poll as Europe prepared to unveil a new asylum plan in the wake of a blaze at an overcrowded camp in Greece that left thousands without shelter.
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This 3D map shows the U.S. cities with the highest economic output
Thursday 24th of September 2020
At over $21 trillion, the U.S. holds the title of the world’s largest economy—accounting for almost a quarter of the global GDP total. However, the fact is that a few select cities are responsible for a large share of the country’s total economic output.
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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 24 September
Thursday 24th of September 2020
1. How COVID-19 continues to affect the globe
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Smarter investment can help prevent violent extremism. Here’s how
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Around the world, existing and sometimes new violent extremist groups are using the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate their rhetoric against governments, minorities and international organizations. At the same time, more individuals – especially young people – are becoming vulnerable to the appeal of violent extremism; in lockdown, spending even longer online, facing increasing economic uncertainty, and unable to participate in the educational, social and religious events that have traditionally helped insulate them.
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Here’s how we can eradicate plastic pollution by 2040
Thursday 24th of September 2020
A new analysis published in the journal Science shows that the business-as-usual approach to tackling ocean plastic pollution isn’t working. Even worse, should we continue down the current trajectory, the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean is set to triple by 2040.
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This is how AI could feed the world’s hungry while sustaining the planet
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Artificial Intelligence is transforming the world at a rapid and accelerating pace, offering huge potential, but also posing social and economic challenges. Human beings are naturally fearful of machines – this is a constant. Technological advancements tend to outpace cultural shifts. It has taken the shock of a global pandemic to accelerate the uptake of many technologies that have been around for at least a decade.
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COVID-19 has intensified the digital divide
Thursday 24th of September 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has given us valuable reminders about what is important. All of a sudden, we see just how closely interconnected we are and how much of our happiness, progress and prosperity depend upon others. This is true at both the individual and other levels.
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Emissions fell during lockdown. Let’s keep it that way
Thursday 24th of September 2020
We’re at a pivotal moment when it comes to global warming. As the focus shifts to rebuilding and recovering from COVID-19, we need to make decisions to restore shattered economies, but will they also contribute to the commitments in the Paris Agreement?
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Will your next phone be made from recycled materials? These 6 tech giants are working on it
Thursday 24th of September 2020
Electronic products are a vital part of our daily lives. Particularly during the pandemic, we have needed the connectivity they bring more than ever before. However, our old electronics products contain many valuable materials which often go unused or – worse – fall into the informal sector or landfill.
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The dark side of digitalization – and how to fix it
Wednesday 23rd of September 2020
The digital economy has finally arrived. During the mid-1990s, technology enthusiasts predicted that the rapid spread of the internet and super-computing would generate new efficiencies, innovations and economies of scale. But the promised revolution in e-business and e-commerce stalled when the dot-com bubble burst. Since then, however, the world’s digital footprint has increased exponentially. Today, global IP traffic is almost 150,000 GB per second compared to 100 GB per day three decades ago. Ubiquitous data and connectivity – around 60 zettabytes are anticipated in 2020 and almost three times as much by 2025 – is powering the new economy. The spread of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and billions of digitally connected devices are taking things to an entirely new level. These trends have only accelerated since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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What COVID-19 means for employee leave policies
Wednesday 23rd of September 2020
As employers navigate COVID-19-related challenges, they are questioning how employees’ need for time off will be affected by legislation, health and safety issues and talent availability.