Sustainability Archives - International Development Journal

Evaluation for the Public Good or as a Public Good?

Ken Fullerton January 15, 2018

By Ken Fullerton and Jade Maloney Sandra Mathison, Professor of Education at the University of British Colombia, kicked-started some soul searching among Australasian evaluators when she opened the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) International Evaluation Conference in Canberra in September 2017. She told the audience that evaluation is not delivering on its promise to support the […]

China/ Environment/ Renewable Energy/ Sustainability

China going green with the “world’s largest” floating solar farm

Ken Fullerton December 3, 2017

In June 2017, the world’s largest floating solar farm officially came online nearby the city of Huainan in China. According to EcoWatch, this happened “around the same time President Donald Trump announced the U.S is pulling out of the landmark Paris climate agreement.” The floating solar park has the capacity to generate 40 megawatts of […]

Europe/ Renewable Energy/ Sustainability

German Government Offers Financial Incentives for Electric Cars

Ken Fullerton September 29, 2017

As part of its electromobility scheme and its effort to get between 300,000 and 500,000 new electric vehicles on its roads the German government has introduced generous financial incentives to encourage buyers to buy and use electric cars. The incentives have been agreed by Chancellor Merkel in May 2015 and the scheme involves 600 million Euros […]

Africa/ Renewable Energy/ Sustainability

Africa’s Telecommunications Towers Could Soon Become Solar Powered

Ken Fullerton September 19, 2017

Ambitious thinking means that many of Africa’s more than 240,000 telecommunications towers may soon become solar powered. Presently many are powered by expensive diesel generators as they are often attached to unreliable electricity networks or are in remote areas without access to power. GreenWish Partners, a Mauritius based renewable energy company, has recently announced plans […]

Africa/ Renewable Energy/ Sustainability

Landlocked Lesotho Receives Funding for First Solar PV Plant

Ken Fullerton September 18, 2017

In what is positive news for the development of renewable energy in the southern Africa region, Lesotho has recently acquired a grant of almost USD 700,000 to develop a 20-megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) plant. USD 695,000 in grant funding has been awarded to NEO I SPV, a subsidiary of OnePower Lesotho, and will be used […]

Environment/ Sustainability

Earth Overshoot Day: We Need Funding to Fight Climate Change

Ken Fullerton August 31, 2017

The recent passing of Earth Overshoot Day greatly emphasises the need to obtain additional financing to help combat the threats of climate change. Earth Overshoot Day “Marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.” For, 2017 Earth Overshoot Day was […]

Entrepreneurship/ Environment/ Sustainability

Can We Use Internet Searches to Plant Trees?

Ken Fullerton August 31, 2017

Internet search platform Ecosia has set itself the ambitious goal of funding the planting of one billion trees around the world. It is an approach which is both innovative and unique and that, so far, has resulted in the planting of over 12.3 million trees, at a rate of one every two seconds, with over […]

Environment/ Sustainability

Finance: Key Agenda Item of UN Climate Change Negotiations

Ken Fullerton August 30, 2017

The provision of finance is set to be a key item on the agenda at the upcoming United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) 23 climate change negotiations. The conference is being convened under the Presidency of Fiji and will take place at the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany between 6 and 17 November 2017. […]

Africa/ Renewable Energy/ Sustainability

SOLARKIOSK Joins UN Business Call to Action

Ken Fullerton August 29, 2017

In very recent news, German based sustainable energy firm SOLARKIOSK has joined the United Nations’ Business Call to Action (BCtA). In joining the BCtA it has pledged to establish 940 solar-powered retail businesses, known as E-HUBBS, across the east African countries of Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya by 2020. Doing this promises to provide “Sustainable energy […]

Environment/ Sustainability

Going Carbon Neutral: Google and Lego Lead the Way

Ken Fullerton August 28, 2017

Increasingly, businesses and organisations are realising that in order to remain competitive and to their increase market share they will have to do so in a low-emissions future by becoming carbon neutral. Becoming carbon neutral means that an organisation effectively has a net zero carbon footprint. Any carbon dioxide it is responsible for releasing into […]