Browse Research

This report Aligning Development Co-operation and Climate Action: The Only Way Forward outlines how providers of development co-operation can make changes at home, in developing countries and in the international development co-operation system, to help create low-emissions, climate-resilient economies, and how they can avoid supporting activities that lock the world into an unsustainable future.

The report Green Buildings - A Finance and Policy Blueprint for Emerging Markets shows how financiers, governments, developers and building owners can take the lead in shaping and accelerating multitrillion-dollar business opportunity of investing in green buildings.

The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) carried out a study on the impact of the circular economy on the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Industry for the European Economic and Social Committee. The focus of this study is mobile phones – a key product in the consumer electronics sector with a varied price range and lifetime duration.

The study finds that there is a large untapped potential for recovering materials from both the annual flow of new mobile phones sold in Europe once they reach the end of their life and the accumulated stock of unused, so-called hibernating devices in EU households. Achieving high recycling rates for these devices can offer opportunities to reduce EU dependence on imported materials and make secondary raw materials available on the EU market. As such, policy action would be required to close the collection gap for mobile phone devices. Implementing circular approaches in the mobile phone value chain can furthermore lead to employment opportunities in the refurbishment sector. Extending the lifetime of mobile phones can also provide CO2 mitigation benefits, particularly from displacing the production of new devices.

This new report series Renewables in Cities 2019 Global Status Report focuses specifically on the state of renewables in cities around the world and on the role of local action in the renewable energy transition.

This Policy Brief looks at how circular economy can support EU climate policy, emphasizing that circular economy is more than just another ‘product standards’ policy. It calls for a framework that is able to systematically address trade-offs, a mechanism to steer and monitor progress, and the need to develop and then scale up successful products and processes to create opportunities for new value chains while addressing risks, such as dependency on raw materials.