World Wildlife Fund Sustainability Works

  • Date: 03 May 2022

Spring is in the air and as the days grow longer and warmer, there is a natural desire to spend more time outside. If you are looking for a fun outdoor activity that can give you some time in the fresh air, while also helping the planet, we encourage you to plant a pollinator garden with native wildflowers. WWF will be doing the same, through our continued work with Air Wick® to reseed 1 billion square feet of native wildflower and grassland habitat in the Northern Great Plains. In celebration of National Wildflower Week, we’ve outlined some easy tips on planting your own pollinator garden.

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  • Date: 03 May 2022
  • Author: Katherine Devine, Director of Business Case Development, WWF

Animal nutrition is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the food sector, mainly due to deforestation and land conversion, whereby habitats are turned into farmland or rangeland. Nutreco, a leading manufacturer of both aquaculture and livestock feed, is taking innovative action to reduce its environmental impact by 2025. Its RoadMap 2025 outlines the company’s ambitious set of goals that address health and welfare, climate and circularity, and good citizenship.

WWF recently developed a business brief to examine Nutreco's plan and see what lessons could be applicable to the entire feed industry. The goal-setting process for RoadMap 2025 involved engaging stakeholders, including the staff who carry out essential business functions and external partners like suppliers and customers. These stakeholders provided input that fed into the RoadMap’s three pillars, each of which contains key priorities and an action plan for accomplishing them.

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  • Date: 27 April 2022
  • Author: Tara Doyle, World Wildlife Fund
Alex Yee smiles, wearing a suit and tie.

Alex Yee, the Coastal and Water Program Manager for Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resiliency.

In this blog series, I’m speaking with sustainability officials in local governments around the country to learn about how they’re tackling socio-environmental issues within the public sector. This week, I interview Alex Yee, the Coastal and Water Program Manager for Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resiliency. Yee grew up in Hawai’i and received his Master of Planning from the University of Southern California before returning to his home state. He aims to use his background in urban planning to ensure that future generations have the same opportunity to enjoy Hawai’i’s beautiful beaches as he has.

Honolulu’s climate adaptation strategy, called Climate Ready O’ahu, focuses on five main impacts of climate change: sea level rise and coastal erosion, increasing temperatures, decreasing precipitation, extreme precipitation events (also known as “rain bombs”), and hurricanes. The adaptation plan identifies actions that can be taken at different scales, from the city-wide level to specific neighborhoods, and down to the individual level.

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  • Date: 25 April 2022
  • Author: Julia Kurnik, Director of Innovation Startups, WWF Markets Institute

Asian carp are decimating native fish populations throughout the Mississippi River Basin and the Great Lakes in the US – and my dog, Peaches, couldn’t be happier about it.

A dog asleep with her tongue out

Peaches when she's not saving the world from invasive species.

Three species of carp were inadvertently introduced to the Mississippi River in the 1970s. With no natural predator, they have proliferated, eating plankton and mussels as well as fish eggs while outcompeting other species for food and space. They even lower the water quality, further damaging the ecosystem.

Carp are also expensive: North America has spent more than $26B annually fighting a number of invasive species since 2010 with little success to show for it. The carp not only cost money, but they also reduce income in the region’s economy. Sport fishing generates billions in annual revenue along the Mississippi River and Great Lakes – an economic generator now threatened by carp, especially since Silver Carp leap out of the river and endanger boaters.

But this is where Peaches gets excited. WWF’s Markets Institute aims to identify innovative, market-based solutions to address major environmental issues across food and agriculture. While people in the US have little interest in eating Carp, a bony fish, there could be a robust pet food market for this invasive species. Demand from pet food companies would incentivize harvesting, reducing the population to manageable levels and avoiding the worst environmental damage while generating employment and reducing pressure on wild caught fish.

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  • Date: 22 April 2022

In our Behind the Scenes series we speak to WWF staff to learn more about their work and what makes them tick. For today’s special Earth Day segment, we had the pleasure of chatting with Sheila Bonini, WWF's Senior Vice President of Private Sector Engagement.

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  • Date: 22 April 2022
  • Author: Marcene Mitchell and Sheila Bonini

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced a proposed rule that would require companies to include climate-related information in their regulated financial reporting, including in their annual 10-K statements. The climate-related disclosures would range from the company’s greenhouse gas footprint to climate risks and the strategies they are employing to mitigate the impact of climate change on their business.

WWF welcomes the SEC rule, particularly in light of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which makes clear the risk of inaction on climate change. The world has now reached 1.1°C of warming, and we’re already seeing enormous harm and damage to our communities, economy, human health, food and water security, and natural ecosystems. The report highlights the urgent need for a whole-of-society approach to staving off the worst effects of the climate crisis. The corporate disclosures required by the SEC’s proposed rule are an integral part of the solution.

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  • Date: 21 April 2022

In our Behind the Scenes series we speak to WWF staff to learn more about their work and what makes them tick. For today’s post, we caught up with David Kuhn, WWF's Lead of Corporate Resilience on the Climate team.

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  • Date: 20 April 2022
  • Author: Tara Doyle, World Wildlife Fund
Beth Markham, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator for the Town of Vail, smiling.

Beth Markham, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, Town of Vail.

In this blog series, I’m speaking with sustainability officials in local governments around the country to learn about how they’re tackling socio-environmental issues within the public sector. This week, I interviewed Beth Markham, the Environmental Sustainability Coordinator for the Town of Vail. Markham’s deep love for the natural world led her to Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon, where she spent 11 years developing and teaching environmental education programs for students. Later, she worked for the Cycle Effect, a nonprofit that builds leadership skills and self-esteem in young women through mountain biking. In 2019, Markham took on the challenge of driving environmental stewardship through policies and partnerships at the municipal level.

Q: What are the most critical climate-related challenges facing Vail right now?

Climate systems are so interconnected, but if I had to choose one thing, I would say that the biggest issue is water. We’re already seeing the impact of climate change on our snowpack in winter and river flow in summer. Droughts are increasing the frequency and severity of our wildfires, and last summer we had the worst wildfire season in Colorado history. Vail has a tourism-based economy, so what happens when tourists can’t ski because of a lack of snow? What happens when wildfire smoke causes unhealthy air quality? It’s clear that our seasons are changing, and our precipitation is changing, especially in the form of snow. Many people live here because they love to ski, so if we want to continue our way of life here then we need to make some big changes.

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  • Date: 20 April 2022
  • Author: Patrick Browne, Vice President, Sustainability, UPS

When I think back on all the times I’ve spent out in the natural world, the one that stands out the most is a trip I took with the Corporate Eco Forum in 2016 to Cody, Wyoming. For this excursion I had the opportunity to experience Yellowstone National Park through the eyes of wildlife ecologist Arthur Middleton, and as we made our way on horseback for three days I felt like I was stepping back in time. The trip was a truly pivotal moment – I was able to see our country in its raw natural state. We were studying the migration patterns of the Yellowstone wildlife, the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and on the lookout for grizzlies; we drank water from streams, and needless to say there was no cell service or modern amenities. Nothing I could study or learn could have prepared me for this trip.

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  • Date: 18 April 2022

In our Behind the Scenes series we speak to WWF staff to learn more about their work and what makes them tick. For today’s post, we talked to Alexander Nicolas, a Program Officer on WWF's Wildlife Conservation team.

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