Arctic Values Blog

Sustainable Investments to maintain and modernize crucial infrastructure in Europe!

by Adrian Braun
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February 2024
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Transport is crucial in our globalized world, public as well as private actors rely on a smooth way of delivering goods and services from “A” to “B” and the possibilities for individuals to travel safely, timely, and to affordable and reasonable costs. In many countries across the EU, we can perceive that transport systems and energy grids turn old and older, without the necessary large-scale modernization happening. Lots of the original infrastructure is still in place, railroads, roads, and bridges that were constructed in the mid of the 20th century and just “repaired sporadically if needed….

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Sustainable Investments for Climate Engineering solutions – The next controversy?
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by Adrian Braun
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January 2022
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Climate engineering (also known as geoengineering) is an umbrella term to comprise possible solutions to manipulate the climate in the upcoming decades, particularly to cool it down. It is controversially discussed as a strategy that could allow the global society and its governmental actors to remain on the path of high carbon emissions.
A situation may come up that climate engineering will be labelled as viable solution for sustainable investments, possibly just integrated into the novelized EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance in a few years. The question will be then, would the institutional investors jump on that train and provide their capital into financial instruments to finance these solutions….

 


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Circular Economy – Going beyond policies and diversifying Sustainable Investments…
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by Adrian Braun
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January 2021
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The desired transition to move from a linear economy to a circular economy is becoming element more and more of relevant discourses across the globe. It will not change in year 2021. This is an important development and it requires continually stronger engagement by various actors. We perceive that many circular economy pilot projects are under way. A very good example are smart-city initiatives across the globe that embrace the construction of green buildings that are energy-efficient and have sophisticated waste management systems. One essential aspect now and continually will be how to master the challenge of financing the circular economy initiatives. 

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COVID recovery stimulus packages – avoiding rebound effects
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by Adrian Braun
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August 2020 
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The economic lockdown across the globe led to serious implications for enterprises, employees and overall the global economic system! The answer of national governments and supranational bodies like the European Union are stimulus packages to compensate businesses for the lockdown damage and on the other hand to encourage individuals to increase consumption again.

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The EU taxonomy for sustainable finance: Is their guidance to leave the shutdown behind after the pandemic crisis?
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by Adrian Braun
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May 2020 
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The EU taxonomy was initiated and to the largest extent negotiated long before the corona crisis struck the global economy. Coincidentally the finalization of the taxonomy (the confirmation of the European Parliament) and the easing of the corona shutdown in multiple EU countries come at the same time.
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Global supply chains are currently not sustainable as we painfully learn these days!
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by Adrian Braun
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April 2020 
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Each crisis demands us in the end to learn at least something from it in order to be prepared that the same unfortunate outcomes will not happen again. The global supply chain disruptions in the light of the corona crisis show that there is lot of learning potential for diverse actors when it comes to international logistics and transportation.
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Sustainable Finance – Investments and Divestments
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by Adrian Braun
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December 2019
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What about the divestments, what about the withdrawal from previously invested capital into projects and venture that harm the natural environment and the overall society to an extent that makes the investment questionable?…

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Climate change and green bonds – Future generations have to pay anyway!

by Adrian Braun

October 2019

It is worth to discuss if future generations better pay for today´s mitigation solutions than for climate change caused damage repairs in the future when it is in fact too late. It will not become cheaper and easier to implement plans the longer we wait!


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Decoupling economic growth from exploitation of natural resources

by Adrian Braun

July 2019

The pursuit towards economic growth has prevailed long time ago. The idea is to increase productivity and business and society will benefit largely. However, a few other major discourses emerged rapidly in the past few years and decades, too. Notably, the discourse of sustainable development belongs to those. How could sustainable development work in line with continual economic growth on the markets? There are a myriad of answers and opinions towards this question.


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ESG and Circular Economy (CE):  Do they know each other?

by Adrian Braun

June 2019

ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and Circular Economy are both strongly emerging concepts in these days! These terms are used frequently in the discourses of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, by numerous actors, including policy-makers, enterprises, NGO´s, scientists, journalists, activists and many more.

Both concepts are fundamental for various actors, but the question is where are the intertwinements and resulting possibilities of cooperation and synergies?

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Sustainability Reporting in Arctic Businesses – Does anybody care about business practices in the far North?

by Adrian Braun

February 2019

Is the Arctic a remote place? Yes and No! To answer this question, the context and the perspective matters! If we try to embrace the complete picture for a second, it is obvious that the answer “No” becomes stronger all the time. In many perspectives the Arctic gets closer to the rest of the world and globalisation is one essential reason, but not the only one in this regard.

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An Un-snowy day at the Arctic Circle! November 17th, 2018

by Adrian Braun

November 2018

A few impressions of Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland (located on the Arctic Circle) on a November day that had been in the past frosty and snowy.

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Weak and Strong Sustainability – Interesting idea but Misleading!

by Adrian Braun

November 2018

What actions are sustainable and what actions are not? Can the generation of societal benefits outweigh the reduction of non-renewable natural resources, such as, oil, gas, metals and minerals and is this all in line with the concept of sustainability? The concept of “weak sustainability” offers apparently a solution to brand resource depletion as sustainable, but the created societal benefit (e.g. energy supply) is for the present generation and the resource is not available anymore for future generations at some distant (or not too distant) point in time! Thus depletion of non-renewable resources in line with sustainability is hardly to achieve without kicking out the future generations out of the equation. Needless to say without needs and demands of future generations, we are talking about something else than sustainability!

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The Russians are out there in the Arctic and where are the others?

Russia is active in research, fishery and exploration in the Arctic Ocean and everything at large-scale!

By Adrian Braun

August 2018

Eight Arctic countries are on this planet. These are Canada, Finland, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Most of them have shown stronger interest in the areas North of the Polar Circle in recent years (on- and offshore). All Arctic coastal states, except Iceland have filed a claim for territories in the Arctic Ocean beyond the exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles from their own shores. A main incentive for a state to claim the “North Pole” is largely based on the natural resources that are located in the Arctic Ocean.

However there are other reasons to be active in the Arctic!

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Change Management and Climate Change – Can we manage climate change?

By Adrian Braun

August 2018

While I am here at my desk in Northern Finland, in the city of Rovaniemi, located exactly on the Polar circle, I noticed that I come across quite frequently with two terms that sound somewhat similar. Climate change and change management. By the way, “quite frequently” is a massive understatement in terms of climate change, while not only the term, but also its impacts occur in the every-day life here in the Arctic.

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