Mar 15, 2024
Jan Grumiller, Hannes Grohs, Werner Raza

Reconciling Efficiency, Resilience and Sustainability: Global Value Chains in a Post-Covid-19 World

In this article, we aim at making both a conceptual as well as a policy contribution to this debate. In sections 2 and 3, the interlinkages and trade-offs between GVC effi- ciency, resilience and sustainability will be explored and a conceptual framework be introduced that provides a sys- temic way of thinking about the issues involved. Section 4 provides an overview of policies to promote resilie...

Publication

Mar 15, 2024
Juliane Lang, Stefano Ponte, Thando Vilakazi

Linking power and inequality in global value chains

There is increasing interest in the study of globalization on whether the emergence and consolidation of global value chains (GVCs) have exacerbated inequalities within and across nations and/or how GVCs may be leveraged to mitigate them. Although power asymmetries have been identified as a central factor shaping (un)successful GVC participation, dominant discourses still disregard the links betwe...

Publication

Mar 15, 2024
Federico Colozza, Carlo Pietrobelli, Antonio Vezzani

Do global value chains spread knowledge and pollution? evidence from EU regions

In this paper we investigate the relationship between participation in global value chains and the environment from a spatial perspective. By drawing on an original dataset on global value chain participation, emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides, and green patents for European regions, we present novel evidence about the relationship between global value chains, green technologies and ...

Publication

Mar 15, 2024
Rasmus Lema and Roberta Rebellotti

The Green and Digital Transition in Manufacturing Global Value Chains in Latecomer Countries

This paper is based on a review of the literature that brings together GVCs, green and digital transformations. Or to be more precise, the analysis is based on three main components: (a) the greening of GVCs and environmental upgrading; (b) the digital transformation of manufacturing GVCs and (c) an initial exploration of the green and digital joint transformations in GVCs. The aim is to provide a...

Publication

Mar 15, 2024
Elisabetta Gentile, Rasmus Lema, Roberta Rabellotti, Dalila Ribaudo

Greening Global Value Chains: A Conceptual Framework for Policy Action

Publication

Mar 15, 2024
Rachel Alexander and Aarti Krishnan

Upgrading Trajectories in South Africa: Exploring the Roles of Customer and Supplier Link Types in Manufacturers’ Economic, Social and Environmental Upgrading

This study explores determinants of firms’ economic, social and environmental upgrading and downgrading trajectories in South Africa, with a focus on the manufacturing sector. Specifically, it considers connections between firms’ buyer and supplier relationships and their upgrading outcomes. Data is drawn from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys of 2007 and 2020 and analysed using social network...

Publication

Mar 15, 2024
Maria-Therese Gustafsson, Jorge E. Rodriguez-Morales, Lisa M. Dellmuth

Private adaptation to climate risks: Evidence from the world’s largest mining companies

Private companies have in recent years started to disclose information about their exposure and responses to climate risks. However, we still know little about how and why private actors engage in climate change adaptation, and to what extent they do so in ways that improve societal resilience. This article addresses these questions. It conceptualizes private adaptation as consisting of institutio...

Publication

Mar 7, 2024
Haiou Mao, Holger Görg, Guopei Fang

Time to say goodbye? The impact of environmental regulation on foreign divestment

We look at divestments by foreign firms – a topic that has received comparatively little attention in the literature – and investigate how changes in the regulatory environment in the host country may impact on such divestment decisions. We use the implementation of China’s Two Control Zone (TCZ) policy as a “quasi-natural experiment”, using detailed firm level combined with city level d...

Publication

Mar 7, 2024
Angela Heucher, Judith Ihl, Michèle Kiefer, Marcus Kaplan, Steffen Schmok, Kathrin Wolf

The Promotion of Sustainable Supply Chains Through German Development Cooperation Based on the Example of the Textile Sector

German development cooperation is pursuing the objective of reducing negative social and environmental effects in global (textile) supply chains and thus, in the long term, contributing to designing them more sustainably. This evaluation examines, in particular, the interaction between various development cooperation instruments and measures to promote sustainable global supply chains in the texti...

Publication

Mar 4, 2024
Johannes Jäger, Ewa Dziwok (Eds.)

Understanding Green Finance: A Critical Assessment and Alternative Perspectives

Exploring how green finance has become a key strategy for the financial industry in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis, this timely book critically assesses the current dominant forms of neoliberal green finance. Understanding Green Finance delivers a pioneering analysis of the topic, covering the essential tenets of green finance with an emphasis on critical approaches to mainstream views a...

Publication

Feb 12, 2024
Kate Macdonald, Rachael Diprose, Janina Grabs, Philip Schleifer, Justin Alger, Bahruddin, Ben Cashore, Paul Cisneros, Deborah Delgado, Rachael Garrett, William Hopkinson

Jurisdictional Approaches to Sustainable Commodity Governance

Jurisdictional approaches (JAs) have emerged over the past decade as a significant mode of sustainable commodity governance, particularly in tropical forest countries. JAs are characterized by multi-stakeholder initiatives with substantial government involvement, aiming to integrate environmental, social, and economic objectives in land use management within territorial jurisdictions. Often framed...

Publication

Jan 30, 2024

“Sustainable global supply chains in times of geopolitical crises” Annual Report 2023

The overarching topic of this year's report is "The Role of Geopolitics in Global Supply Chains", highlighting ways in which recent geopolitical and geo-economic developments are shaping and influencing current debates and policy processes around global supply chains (GSCs). Following forewords from the network hosts and Dr. Bärbel Kofler (German Ministry for Economic Cooperation a...

Publication

Nov 2, 2023
Vito Amendolagine, Ulrich Elmer Hansen, Rasmus Lema, Roberta Rabellotti, Dalila Ribaudo

Taking advantage of Global Value Chains to spread green energy technologies across countries

Renewable energy technologies, such as wind turbines and solar photovoltaic (PV), are key to achieve a low-carbon transition and make our planet greener (Pegels and Altenburg, 2020). While countries in Europe have previously been the lead markets, the development and diffusion of renewable energy technologies are increasingly taking place on a global scale, including in several latecomer countries...


Feb 21, 2023
Bo Meng, Yu Liu, Yuning Gao, Meng Li, Zhi Wang, Jinjun Xue, Robbie Andrew, Kuishuang Feng, Ye Qi, Yongping Sun, Huaping Sun, Keying Wang

Developing countries’ responsibilities for CO2 emissions in value chains are larger and growing faster than those of developed countries

Carbon emissions associated with international trade are significant. The emergence of complex global value chains (GVCs) in recent decades, in which a country can operate as both a consumer and producer simultaneously, has led to a further rise in emissions. The complexity of these GVCs makes it increasingly difficult to determine what country is responsible for the emissions embodied within them...

Publication

Jan 30, 2023
Yuwan Duan

Is the Global Value Chain also a Global Pollution Chain?

One of the most well-known theories in international trade and environment is the “Pollution Haven Hypothesis” (PHH). According to the theory, high-income countries with strong environmental regulations will have a comparative disadvantage in pollution-intensive industries, and will tend to offshore their polluting industries to poorer countries. Hence, developing countries will become polluti...


Jul 25, 2022
Günther Maihold

Die neue Geopolitik der Lieferketten – “Friend-shoring” als Zielvorgabe für den Umbau von Lieferketten

Eine lange Reihe von Störungen des Welthandels in den letzten Jahren hat eine Reorganisation der internationalen Lieferketten auf die politische Tagesordnung gebracht. Die Unregelmäßigkeiten begannen mit dem Handelskrieg zwischen den USA und China, setzten sich fort mit der Covid-19-Pandemie und den dadurch ver­ursachten Unterbrechungen der Versorgungsketten und kulminierten zuletzt nach Russl...

Publication

Apr 5, 2022

Sustainable Global Supply Chains Report 2022

Global supply chains affect the economy, the environment and social welfare in many ways. Worldwide, economies are experiencing global supply shortages today, affecting key industries such as automotive and consumer electronics as well as vaccine and medical supplies industries. These preoccupy policymakers, who are debating independent national production capacities and restrictions on internatio...

Publication

Apr 1, 2022
R.D. Garrett, J. Grabs, F. Cammelli, F. Gollnow, S.A. Levy

Should payments for environmental services be used to implement zero-deforestation supply chain policies? The case of soy in the Brazilian Cerrado

Over the past decade public and private actors have been developing a variety of new policy approaches for addressing agriculturally-driven deforestation linked to international supply chains. While payments for environmental services (PES) have been advocated in many contexts as an efficient and pro-poor environmental policy to incentivize conservation, they have been the subject of intense scrut...

Publication

Mar 25, 2022
Janina Grabs, Federico Cammelli, Sam Levy, and Rachael Garrett

How to find synergies between effectiveness and equity when designing supply chain sustainability policies

Companies with global supply chains are under growing pressure to ensure that their activities and sourcing patterns abroad do not contribute to environmental degradation and human rights abuses. In response, many businesses create supply chain sustainability policies. Such company-internal schemes, such as supplier codes of conduct or internal guidelines, specify companies’ commitments and expe...


Mar 23, 2022
Kailan Tian, Yu Zhang, Yuze Li, Xi Ming, Shangrong Jiang, Hongbo Duan, Cuihong Yang, Shouyang Wang

Regional trade agreement burdens global carbon emissions mitigation

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have been widely adopted to facilitate international trade and cross-border investment and promote economic development. However, ex ante measurements of the environmental effects of RTAs to date have not been well conducted. Here, we estimate the CO2 emissions burdens of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) after evaluating its economic effects. ...

Publication

Mar 23, 2022
Burcu Gözet, Henning Wilts

The circular economy as a new narrative for the textile industry: an analysis of the textile value chain with a focus on Germany’s transformation to a circular economy

At the end of March 2022, the European Commission published its new EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. Its ambitious vision is to reduce textile waste, promote circular measures and minimise the negative environmental impacts of the textile industry. But what would a textile industry that keeps textiles in a closed loop look like, and what political conditions would be required in ...

Publication

Mar 7, 2022
Stefano Ponte

Who Gains and who pays the costs of environmental sustainability in global value chains?

The mainstreaming of sustainability management in business is providing new avenues of value creation, capture and (re)distribution, and new opportunities to transfer the costs of environmental compliance along Global Value Chains (GVCs). Suppliers, workers, and farmers – often based in the Global South – create new value through environmental improvements, which are showcased by lead firms to...


Feb 1, 2022
Tilman Altenburg, Nele Wenck, Smeeta Fokeer, and Manuel Albaladejo

Green hydrogen: Opportunities for industrial development through forward linkages from renewables

Green hydrogen will be a key element in any decarbonisation strategy. All major economies are investing heavily in green hydrogen, and often also in international energy partnerships to secure long-term imports. This creates new opportunities for industrial development. Countries which are well-endowed with renewable power sources can induce investments in electrolyser plants and related methanol ...


Jan 1, 2022
Inga Carry, Günther Maihold

Illegal logging, timber laundering and the global illegal timber trade

Deforestation claims an estimated 10 million hectares each year (FAO 2020). Today’s global demand for timber products1 simply cannot be met by legal, sustainable forestry anymore. The competition for cheap wood products on the global timber market has become a major driver of illegal deforestation and the global illegal timber trade. This article focuses on activit...

Publication

Jan 1, 2022
Federico Cammelli, Samuel A. Levy, Janina Grabs, Judson Ferreira Valentim, Rachael D. Garrett

Effectiveness-equity tradeoffs in enforcing exclusionary supply chain policies: Lessons from the Amazonian cattle sector

To address ongoing deforestation for global food commodities production, companies and governments have adopted a range of forest-focused supply chain policies. In the Brazilian Amazon, these policies take the form of market exclusion mechanisms, i.e., immediately dropping suppliers who have cleared their land after a specific cut-off date. Theory suggests that strict exclusionary policies such as...

Publication

Dec 1, 2021

Renewables pull: climate neutrality and supply chains

Can it be that tomorrow’s heavy industries will be located where the sun shines stronger and longer and the wind blows night and day? How will climate friendly policies change the international division of labor in energy intensive industries? This is what we want to discuss today in our sixth episode of shaping sustainable supply chains. Heavy industries such as iron and steel or chemicals a...


Nov 25, 2021
Katharina Löhr, Bujar Aruqaj, Daniel Baumert, Michelle Bonatti, Michael Brüntrup, Christian Bunn, Augusto Castro-Nunez, Giovanna Chavez-Miguel, Martha Lilia Del Rio, Samyra Hachmann, Héctor Camilo Morales Muñoz, Franziska Ollendorf, Tatiana Rodriguez, Bettina Rudloff, Johannes Schorling, Arne Schuffenhauer, Ingrid Schulte, Stefan Sieber, Sophia Tadesse, Christian Ulrichs, Claudia Vogel and Michael Weinhardt

Social Cohesion as the Missing Link between Natural Resource Management and Peacebuilding: Lessons from Cocoa Production in Côte d’Ivoire and Colombia

Social cohesion plays a key role in processes of peacebuilding and sustainable development. Fostering social cohesion might present a potential to enhance the connection of natural resource management and peacebuilding and better functioning of sustainable land use systems. This contribution explores the nexus between social cohesion, natural resource management, and peacebuilding. We do so by (1)...

Publication

Nov 12, 2021
Peter Kannen, Finn Ole Semrau, Frauke Steglich

Green gifts from abroad? FDI and firms’ green management

Improvements of firms' environmental performance crucially determine the speed of a country's green economic transformation. In this paper, we investigate whether firms with foreign ownership are more likely to adopt 'green' management practices, which determine the capability to monitor and improve a firm's impact on the environment. By using multi-country firm-level da...

Publication

Sep 1, 2021
Janina Grabs, Federico Cammelli, Samuel A. Levy, Rachael D. Garrett

Desgning effective and equitable zero-deforestation supply chain policies

In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information...

Publication

May 1, 2021
Joseph Sarkis

Mandating Sustainable Governance of the Supply Chain – Complementing Old Carrots with New Sticks?

In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, supply chain challenges have received renewed attention and have become a major concern from both resilience (Golan et al., 2020) and sustainability (Sarkis, 2021) perspectives. For example – based on its Green Deal – the European Union (EU) is considering the circular economy as a tool for Post-COVID recovery, which in turn requires closed-loop supply chain...


Jan 1, 2021
Chuan Liao, Kerstin Nolte, Jonathan A. Sullivan, Daniel G. Brown, Jann Lay, Christof Althoff, Arun Agrawal

Carbon emissions from the global land rush and potential mitigation

Global drivers and carbon emissions associated with large-scale land transactions have been poorly investigated. Here we examine major factors behind such transactions (income, agricultural productivity, availability of arable land and water scarcity) and estimate potential carbon emissions under different levels of deforestation. We find that clearing lands transacted between 2000 and 2016 (36.7...

Publication

Jan 1, 2021
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor, Andrea Lenschow, Edward Challies, Benedetta Cotta, Jens Newig

Contextualizing certification and auditing: Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil

The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing...

Publication

Jan 1, 2021
Günther Maihold.; Viktoria Reisch

Environmental Rights and Conflicts over Raw Materials in Latin America. The Escazú Agreement Is Ready to Come into Force in 2021

On 5 November 2020 Mexico ratified the so-called Escazú Agreement, a treaty between Latin American and Caribbean states on establishing regional transparency and en­viron­­ment standards, as the eleventh country to do so. The prescribed quorum of ratifications has thus been attained, and the agreement can come into force in 2021. This will launch an innovative multilateral instrument that is i...

Publication

Jan 1, 2021
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

Integrating Human Rights and the Environment in Supply Chain Regulations

To address the negative externalities associated with global trade, countries in the Global North have increasingly adopted supply chain regulations. While global supply chains cause or contribute to interconnected environmental and human rights impacts, I show that supply chain regulations often exclusively target one policy domain. Furthermore, an analysis of the first experiences with the imple...

Publication

Jan 1, 2021
Larissa Rodrigues, Felipe Bastos, Radolfo Finatti, Marta Salomon

What is the real socioeconomic impact of gold and diamond exploration in the Amazon?

Gold and diamond mining in the Amazon has become a major debate topic in recent years, and has intensified during the term of the current federal administration, alongside the issues of increased deforestation and armed conflict over land use. The question remains: does mineral exploration actually bring about socioeconomic advances? And how long do such advances really last? These and other quest...

Publication

Jan 1, 2021
Larissa Rodrigues, Felipe Bastos, Radolfo Finatti, Marta Salomon

Protected areas or threatened areas? The endless gold rush in the Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units of the Amazon

This study features updated data until 2020 on the size of the threat that gold poses to protected areas in the Legal Amazon. To accomplish this, the study analyzed all gold prospecting requests (prospecting applications and permits) registered with the National Mining Agency (Agência Nacional de Mineração – ANM) – since these requests indicate private interest in the areas – while being ...

Publication

Dec 15, 2020
Adriana Erthal Abdenur

Protecting archaeological sites in the Amazon is essential for environmental wellbeing

Raging fires, expanding mineral extraction and land clearing for agribusiness are not only destroying Amazonian lands and biodiversity, they are also eradicating fundamental knowledge on land stewardship. Climate diplomacy has a key role to play in protecting archaeological sites that preserve lessons from the past that could help the Amazon recover in the future. The Brazilian Amazon is seeing...

Publication

Nov 23, 2020
Adriana Erthal Abdenur

How Can Artificial Intelligence Help Curb Deforestation in the Amazon?

Deforestation has traditionally been viewed as an environmental issue, but, increasingly, illegal logging in rainforests is being understood as an issue of transnational organized crime. Forests cover 31 percent of the planet, are home to 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial species of animals and plants, and provide for the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people. Yet rising deforestation rates are ...

Publication

Jul 29, 2020
Adriana Erthal Abdenur

Gender, Climate and Security in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Diagnostics to Solutions

The evidence base on the relationship between climate change and security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has expanded over the past two years. Recent research has shown that a wide variety of phenomena—from extreme weather events in the Caribbean, to soil erosion in Central America, to changing rainfall patterns in the Amazon basin, to melting glaciers in the Andes—multiply risks aro...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
DeMarchi, V, DiMaria, E, Krishnan, A and Ponte, S

Environmental upgrading in global value chains

Responding to stakeholder pressure, firms are increasingly challenged to reduce their environmental impacts. This chapter reviews the potential upgrading trajectories for firms engaged in global value chains (GVCs) to effectively reduce the impacts on the environment of all activities linked to their products - not just those that are carried out in house - and the major drivers of these investmen...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Clara Brandi, Jakob Schwab, Axel Berger, Jean-Frédéric Morin

Do environmental provisions in trade agreements make exports from developing countries greener?

Environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are increasing in terms of their number and variety. The economic effects of these environmental provisions remain largely unclear. It is, therefore, necessary to determine whether the trend to incorporate environmental provisions in PTAs counteracts the goal to spur economic development through trade via these PTAs. This is the firs...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Neus Escobar, E. Jorge Tizado, Erasmus K.H.J. zu Ermgassen, Pernilla Löfgren, Jan Börner, Javier Godar

Spatially-explicit footprints of agricultural commodities: Mapping carbon emissions embodied in Brazil’s soy exports

Reliable estimates of carbon and other environmental footprints of agricultural commodities require capturing a large diversity of conditions along global supply chains. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) faces limitations when it comes to addressing spatial and temporal variability in production, transportation and manufacturing systems. We present a bottom-up approach for quantifying the greenhouse gas...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Clara Brandi, Jakob Schwab, Axel Berger, Jean-Frédéric Morin

Do environmental provisions in trade agreements make exports from developing countries greener?

Environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are increasing in terms of their number and variety. The economic effects of these environmental provisions remain largely unclear. It is, therefore, necessary to determine whether the trend to incorporate environmental provisions in PTAs counteracts the goal to spur economic development through trade via these PTAs. This is the firs...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Raza, W., Krajewski, M., Tröster, B., Wolfslehner, B.

How can international trade contribute to sustainable forestry and the preservation of the world’s forests through the Green Deal?

High deforestation rates, particularly in tropical areas, remain a pressing concern for the international community, given their impacts on the global climate and the loss of biodiversity. The EU has committed to promoting sustainable forest management both domestically and internationally. However, efforts so far have concentrated on promoting the legality of trade in timber and timber products, ...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

Putting the French Duty of Vigilance Law in Context: Towards Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations in the Global South?

The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually con...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Joseph Goeb, Andrew Dillon, Frank Lupi, David Tschirley

Pesticides: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

Agricultural intensification can negatively affect farmer and social welfare through health and environmental externalities if producers have imperfect knowledge of the risks posed by agricultural inputs. This paper explores the effects of health-risk information on the demand for substitutes in the pesticides market and farmer preferences for risk-mitigating technologies using a choice experiment...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Fabio Landini, Rasmus Lema, Franco Malerba

Demand-led catch-up: a history-friendly model of latecomer development in the global green economy

This article examines the role played by demand in catching up and in leadership changes in green industries, motivated by the belief that demand-led catch-up is a prevalent pathway in such industries. The article first examines stylized cases of sectoral green catch-up by China in which the local market and domestic demand played an important role before the sector started expanding globally. In ...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Joachim von Braun

Climate Change Risks for Agriculture, Health, and Nutrition

The stability of global, national, and local food systems is at risk under climate change. Climate change affects food production, availability of and access to food, food quality, food safety, diet quality, and thus people’s nutrition and health. Climate change may further slow progress towards a world with food security for all. Climate change impacts will exacerbate food shortages, especially...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Juliano Correa, Elías Cisneros, Jan Börner, Alexander Pfaff, Marcelo Costa, Raoni Rajão

Evaluating REDD+ at subnational level: Amazon fund impacts in Alta Floresta, Brazil

The Amazon Fund is the world's largest program to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), funded with over US $1b donated by Norway and Germany between 2008 and 2017 to reward Brazil for prior deforestation reductions. Olhos D'Água da Amazônia is cited as a leading project success − with over one thousand small-to-medium-sized crop and livestock producers ...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Henning Wilts, Jennifer Schinkel, Carina Koop

Effectiveness and efficiency of food-waste prevention policies, circular economy, and food industry

According to the World Food Organization about one third of produced food is lost every year on the way from the field to the plate. This level of waste is not only irresponsible from an ethical and social point of view, but also represents a considerable loss of natural resources that are necessary for the production and processing of food. Against this background the discussion on food-waste pre...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Morris M, Robbins G., Hansen U., and I. Nygard

Energy and Industrial Policy Failure in the South African Wind Renewable Energy Global Value Chain: The political economy dynamics driving a stuttering localisation process

This paper utilises a combination of a political economy approach and a GVC framework to analyse the dynamics of the wind energy value chain in South Africa. The paper focuses on the complex intertwined interplay between energy and industrial policy and shows how they negatively impacted on efforts to increase localisation of domestic manufacturing and services industries. Itdiscusses th...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Insa Flachsbarth, Jann Lay, Kerstin Nolte, Angela Harding, Ward Anseeuw, Jeremy Bourgoin

Responsible Large-Scale Agricultural Investments in and by G20 Countries: A Call for more Transparency

Many international agricultural land investment projects are criticized because of their disrespect of land tenure rights, the few benefits they provide local populations, and the often displayed negative environmental impacts. The Group of 20 (G20) has recognized the need for more responsible land investments in targeted lower- and middle-income countries, but land deals remain opaque. This polic...

Publication

Jan 1, 2020
Wilts, H.; Schinkel, J.; Feder, L.

Prevention of plastic waste in production and consumption by multi-actor partnerships

The study sheds light on the background of the prevention of plastic waste from packaging and disposable products by explaining the need for action, the environmental impacts and risks to human health. Experiences of the members of the PREVENT Waste Alliance and their partners in the prevention of plastic waste by multi-actor partnerships are presented by means of 17 best practice examples. Finall...

Publication

Jan 1, 2019
Stefano Ponte, Gary Gereffi, Gale Raj-Reichert

Handbook on Global Value Chains

Global value chains (GVCs) are a key feature of the global economy in the 21st century. They show how international investment and trade create cross-border production networks that link countries, firms and workers around the globe. This Handbook describes how GVCs arise and vary across industries and countries, and how they have evolved over time in response to economic and political forces. Wit...

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Jan 1, 2019
World Bank

World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains

Publication

Jan 1, 2019
Inga Carry

Climate Change, Water Security, and National Security in Jordan, Palestine, and Israel

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is considered a climate hotspot due to its natural water scarcity, low levels of socio-ecological resilience, social tensions and political conflicts, and ongoing immigration crisis. Over the course of the century, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel are projected to experience an average temperature rise over the Mediterranean of ~1.4C to ~4C; a general de...

Publication

Jan 1, 2019
Stamm Andreas, Tilman Altenburg, Maximilian Müngersdorff, Tim Stoffel, Kasper Vrolijk

Soziale und ökologische Herausforderungen der globalen Textilwirtschaft: Lösungsbeiträge der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

Bekleidung für den rasch wachsenden Weltmarkt wird fast ausschließlich in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern gefertigt. Die Produktionsbedingungen in diesen Ländern gehen mit erheblichen sozialen und ökologischen Problemen einher. Diese in den Griff zu bekommen, ist eines der wesentlichen Ziele der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Dabei werden Maßnahmen in den Produktionsländern verkn...

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Jan 1, 2019
Stefano Ponte

Green Capital Accumulation: Business and Sustainability Management in a World of Global Value Chains

Tackling climate change and other environmental crises entails a critical reflection on processes and outcomes that are behind sustainability management by business. Sustainability has become a commodity itself, to be traded, bought, sold and managed like all others. How lead firms in global value chains (GVCs) address sustainability issues has become a key competitive element and a source of valu...

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Jan 1, 2019
M. Kaplan, K. Vorwerk, S. Leiderer

From the Paris Declaration to the 2030 Agenda: Is the global sustainability agenda overburdening development cooperation?

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Jan 1, 2019
Janpeter Schilling

An Environment of Insecurity: The Relationship between Environmental Change and Violent Conflict in Northwest Kenya

About the book: Security threats today are increasingly complex, dynamic, and asymmetric, and can affect environmental factors like energy, water, and food supply. As a result, it is becoming evident that the traditional model of nation-state based security is incomplete, and that purely military capabilities, though necessary, are insufficient to protect the United States and other democracie...

Publication

Jan 1, 2019
Mahwish J Khan, Stefano Ponte, Peter Lund-Thomsen

The ‘factory manager dilemma’: Purchasing practices and environmental upgrading in apparel global value chains

Economic and environmental upgrading in global value chains are intertwined processes. The existing global value chain literature has so far articulated the relationships between economic and social upgrading but has only recently started to explore the challenges of environmental upgrading from the perspective of suppliers in the Global South. In this article, we examine the ‘factory manager di...

Publication

Jan 1, 2019
R.D. Garrett, H.K. Gibbs, B. Soares-Filho, R. Sarsfield, X. Rueda, R. Rivero, L.L. Rausch, J.C. Milder, S. Lake, S. Hall, B. Døvre, S. Levy, R. Barr, B. Ayre, Y. le Polain de Waroux, R. Heilmayr, P. Dauvergne, J. Clapp, J. Godar, T.A. Gardner, K.M. Carlson, N. Villoria

Criteria for effective zero-deforestation commitments

Zero-deforestation commitments are a type of voluntary sustainability initiative that companies adopt to signal their intention to reduce or eliminate deforestation associated with commodities that they produce, trade, and/or sell. Because each company defines its own zero-deforestation commitment goals and implementation mechanisms, commitment content varies widely. This creates challenges for th...

Publication

Jan 1, 2018
Christina Saulich; Siegmar Schmidt

Das Konfliktpotential großer Rohstoffvorkommen in Mosambik

Current protests and acts of violence have sparked a debate on a potential resource curse in Mozambique. This paper analyses the role of resource abundance in recent societal conflicts in Mozambique. The strand of literature on resources and conflicts sheds no light on the underlying structural sources of conflict in resource rich countries. The authors therefore draw on Edward E. Azar’s model o...

Publication

Jan 1, 2018
Bo Meng, Glen P. Peters, Zhi Wang, Meng Li

Tracing CO2 emissions in global value chains

This paper integrates two lines of research into a unified conceptual framework: trade in value-added and embodied emissions in trade. This allows both value-added and emissions to be systematically traced at the country, sector, and bilateral levels through various routes in global value chains. By combining value-added and emissions accounting in a consistent way, the potential environmental cos...

Publication

Jan 1, 2018
Inga Carry

Good Water Neighbors? A Study of Environmental Peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine

Water scarcity, pollution, and unequal distribution add complexity to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In response, EcoPeace Middle East engages Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians in cross-border environmental cooperation while promoting dialogue and trust among members of all three societies. This study explores how EcoPeace fosters environmental peacebuilding between Israel and Palestine, l...

Publication

Jan 1, 2018
Raphael Kaplinsky, Mike Morris

Standards, regulation and sustainable development in a global value chain driven world

Regulations and standards have become an increasingly important factor affecting the capacity of producers to participate in global markets. Directly and indirectly, they not only determine the terms of market-entry but also affect the extent to which different producers are able to position themselves in global value chains in a manner which provides for socially and environmentally sustainable i...

Publication

Jan 1, 2018
Nina Engwicht; Janpeter Schilling; Christina Saulich

A local to global perspective on resource governance and conflict

This article serves as an introduction to the special issue ‘A Local to Global Perspective on Resource Governance and Conflict’. It advances the debate on natural resource governance and conflict by bringing together three different strands of literature with the aim of developing a local to global research perspective and framework for analysis. First, this article reviews and identifies rese...

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Jan 1, 2018
Svenja Schöneich

Ambigüedades del Petróleo – Cambios de percepción de riesgo al nivel local por la Reforma Energética Mexicana

Este artículo muestra el ejemplo de la comunidad campesina Emiliano Zapata, afectada durante varias décadas por actividades de extracción de hidrocarburos, y cómo entró en un estado de “incertidumbre tóxica” (Auyero y Swistun 2008) debido a las condiciones del cambio político de la extracción de hidrocarburos en México. La costa del Golfo de México en la zona de Veracruz ha sido una ...

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Jan 1, 2017
Harry K. Hoffmann, Klas Sander, Michael Brüntrup, Stefan Sieber

Applying the Water-Energy-Food Nexus to the Charcoal Value Chain

Globally, natural resources are increasingly under pressure, especially due to population growth, economic growth and transformation as well as climate change. As a result, the water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus approach has emerged to understand interdependencies and commonly manage resources within a multi-scale and multi-level framework. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the high and growing consumption ...

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Jan 1, 2017
Altenburg Tilman, Dani Rodrik

Green industrial policy: Accelerating structural change towards wealthy green economies

The Chapter discusses the conceptual foundations of green industrial policy. Altenburg and Rodrik explain why looking through the lens of industrial policy provides important insights for a green transformation. They summarize lessons learned from decades of experimentation with, and research on, industrial policy and bring out key principles of smart policymaking that maximize the government’s ...

Publication

Jan 1, 2017
Jungmichel, Norbert; Christina Schampel, Daniel Weiß

Atlas on Environmental Impacts: Supply Chains

Identifying critical sustainability topics and areas of action in the supply chain represents a first important milestone for companies in sustainable supply chain management. The focus is important to be able to use the limited human and financial resources as effectively and efficiently as possible. This is often not easy. Both the procurement of data across national boundaries and the ability t...

Publication

Jan 1, 2017
Inga Carry

Environmental Peacebuilding Across Borders and Sectors: A Concerted Approach to Multilateral Cooperation in the Middle East

Disputes over water constitute a major area of disagreement between Israel and Palestine. The uncoordinated and irresponsible environmental actions on both sides have created serious ecological and humanitarian hazards that require rapid, yet sustainable action. Those who argue that the water problem can be resolved only as part of a comprehensive peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians f...

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Jan 1, 2017
Melanie Müller; Bettina Engels; Kristina Dietz

Ausgebaggert: Weltweite Proteste gegen den Bergbau

Publication

Jan 1, 2017
Ximena Rueda, Rachael D. Garrett, Eric F. Lambin

Corporate investments in supply chain sustainability: Selecting instruments in the agri-food industry

Private investments to address environmental issues are perceived as a powerful engine of sustainability. For the agri-food sector, multiple instruments have been developed to green supply chains. Yet little is known about the underlying process and conditions under which green sourcing concerns lead to the adoption of specific sustainability instruments among agri-food companies. This study: i) o...

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Jan 1, 2016
Fiorini Matteo, Schleifer Philip, Sollerder Olga, Tainasova Regina, Jansen Marion, Wozniak Joseph, Hoekman Bernard

Social and environmental standards: Contributing to more sustainable value chains

Publication

Jan 1, 2016
Xuemei Jiang, Quanrun Chen, Dabo Guan, Kunfu Zhu, Cuihong Yang

Revisiting the Global Net Carbon Dioxide Emission Transfers by International Trade: The Impact of Trade Heterogeneity of China

To revisit global net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions transfers by international trade for year 2007, this study employs a new world‐wide, multiregional input‐output (MRIO) table in which China's production is separated into domestic use, processing exports, and nonprocessing exports. The results show that processing exports in China involves relatively lower CO2 emissions than other produ...

Publication

Jan 1, 2013
Manfred Wiebelt, Clemens Breisinger, Olivier Ecker, Perrihan Al-Riffai, Richard Robertson, Rainer Thiele

Compounding food and income insecurity in Yemen: Challenges from climate change

This paper provides a model-based assessment of local and global climate change impacts for the case of Yemen, focusing on agricultural production, household incomes and food security. Global climate change is mainly transmitted through rising world food prices. Our simulation results suggest that climate change induced price increases for food will raise agricultural GDP while decreasing real hou...

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