The Business Case for a Green Economy, complements and extends the UNEP Green Economy Report.¹ Written for a corporate audience, it illuminates and clarifies the business benefits to companies that pro-actively participate in – perhaps even lead – the transition to a resource efficient and Green Economy.

This Annual Report shows the full range of UNEP’s work for environment and development. It also illuminates how the UN system as a whole is increasingly Delivering as One with respect to sustainability. Anyone interested in making green economy and sustainability principles an integral part of their decision making will fi nd this volume rich in theory and practice.

The TEEB study is underpinned by an assessment of state-of-the-art science and economics.  The goal is to provide the conceptual foundation to link economics and ecology and to posit a paradigm of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services. 

This report seeks to inform a broad audience about permafrost and communicate to decision-makers and the general public the implications of changing permafrost in a warming climate. It defines basic terminology and describes fundamental physical and biological processes that shape the permafrost landscape using the best scientific information available from published literature.

The third issue of the Chief Liquidity Series focuses on a number of sub-sectors within the broader extractive sector. The first part of the briefing displays how water risks may manifest themselves in different types of extractive sub-sectors and how this in turn could affect the finance sector. Within the realm of this publication we focused on the following sub-sectors: coal, seam gas, precious metals, oil sands and base metals.

UNEP Evaluation of 2010 World Cups Green Performance Shows South Africa Successes and Way Forward for Brazil. The actual footprint was 1.65 million Tonnes of CO2 equivalent, compared to a projection of 2.64 million. 

UNEP worked with the South African government through the Green Goal 2010 project to promote initiatives such as cutting the tournament’s carbon footprint, reducing waste and water use, and conserving and enhancing biodiversity. Such initiatives are set to be pushed to the next level in Brazil with the aim of creating truly green events.

The Review looks at the quantitative and qualitative environmental impact of Expo 2010, and its long-term influence on the development of Shanghai and surrounding areas. It acknowledges efforts by the city in nine key areas: air quality, transport, energy, solid waste, water, green coverage, protected areas, climate neutrality, and the overall situation of the Expo site.

This UNEP FI report outlines how current obstacles to the scaling-up of sustainable energy solutions in Africa - namely cost, infrastructure, and risk - can be tackled with the involvement of private finance.

This report by UNEP FI and FELABAN is the result of a pan-regional survey conducted among 85 financial institutions in 19 countries on how the Latin American financial sector has integrated sustainability in its activities.

Water is an essential resource for virtually all aspects of human enterprise, from agriculture via urbanization to energy and industrial production. Equally, the many uses for water create pressures on the natural systems.

This report shows that there is a way forward for a more sustainable future where restoration of ecosystems, often in the green hills and watersheds surrounding cities, can provide cheaper, efficient and resilient water supply systems in a changing world.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study is a major international initiative drawing attention to local, national and global economic benefits of biodiversity, to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, the benefits of investing in natural capital, and to draw together expertise from the fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical actions.