Rwanda, a growing country in Sub-Saharan Africa, has suffered significant damage to its environment over the last few decades, and has begun using policy to reverse this trend. Though aggressive strategies have achieved some success, growing social, environmental, and economic constraints have made increasing the effectiveness of these strategies critical.

Here's a policy brief outlining how various policy interventions can affect economic, poverty amelioration, and environmental outcomes in Rwanda.

Cities Turning to Blue-Green Infrastructure

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in collaboration with Valuing Nature, launched the "Corporate natural capital accounting - from building blocks to a path for standardization" report, as a contribution to the EU Life funded Transparent project. It looks at a critical point on how business impacts and depends upon nature, and how to truly value natural capital in our decision-making.

Two interesting webinars on natural capital to look out for this month:

12 May: The Capitals Coalition is hosting a webinar on "Valuing Natural Capital & Local Communities for Business in Eastern & Southern Africa: Capitals Impacts and Dependencies of the Tourism Industry". URL: https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/webinar/valuing-natural-capital-an…

25 May: Stanford University and Natural Capital Project are co-hosting a webinar on "Advances in land-use planning in the Amazon". URL: https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/webinar/stanford-university-natura…

According to an emerging analysis by Vivid Economics, for every single euro invested through the EU member states' National Resilience and Recovery Plans, only less than 2 cents benefit nature. This is a huge missed opportunity for jobs, economic stimulus, emission reductions and biodiversity gains - in contrast to what the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has described the EU Recovery Plans as "the opportunity of the century". Despite a wide array of available reports, tools, and guidance, there is still much work to be done in order to convince decision-makers of the significant benefits that climate-positive and nature-based solutions can offer as part of their recovery plans.

Greening the Skyline with Green Roofs

New report, “Corporate natural capital accounting – from building blocks to a path for standardization”, provides an overview of corporate natural capital accounting resources and applications and identifies best practices, challenges and standardization opportunities.

Two geologists walk into a bar. The first one says to the bartender, “You know, soon there’s going to be a shortage of sand.” The bartender looks up, waiting for the punchline. The second geologist says, “He’s not kidding and that’s not a joke.”... [It’s an increasing concern, particularly as] Consumption [is anticipated to] accelerate as governments resume infrastructure projects that were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic...

The first open-source, user-friendly artificial intelligence (AI) tool for rapid, standardized, and customizable ecosystem accounting launched last week.

The ARIES for SEEA Explorer allows users to generate ecosystem accounts for any user-specified terrestrial area in the world (such as a country, administrative region, watershed, etc.), by using freely available global remote-sensing derived data and models, and rapidly computes these accounts online, using a web browser.