Library | ESG issues
Health
Health encompasses physical, mental, and social well-being. Ensuring universal access to quality healthcare is essential to sustainable development, as it improves life expectancy, reduces child and maternal mortality, and combats infectious and non-communicable diseases. While significant progress has been made, persistent challenges remain, requiring healthcare funding, improved sanitation, and greater access to medical services to enhance global health outcomes.
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Measuring companies’ environmental and social impacts: An analysis of ESG ratings and SDG scores
This study compares ESG ratings with SDG scores across major providers. It finds little correlation. SDG scores align with investor exclusions and EU Taxonomy assessments, while ESG ratings largely measure financial risk exposure, not real-world environmental or social impacts.
The i-frame and the s-frame: How focusing on individual-level solutions has led behavioral public policy astray
The report argues that behavioural public policy has over-emphasised individual-level (“i-frame”) solutions, often aligning with corporate interests and weakening systemic reform. It contends that structural (“s-frame”) interventions, alongside institutional changes in research and policy design, are necessary to address entrenched social and economic problems effectively.
Global climate highlights series
This benchmark series provides a recurring, standardised overview of global climate conditions, produced using consistent observational and reanalysis datasets. It tracks changes across key climate indicators to support comparability over time and inform assessment of longer-term climate trends within a recognised reference framework.
UN SDG Portal
The United Nations SDGs platform (sdgs.un.org) is an online hub for the 2030 Agenda and 17 Sustainable Development Goals, offering goals, targets, indicators, events, publications and global actions to track and support SDG implementation. It also includes registries of voluntary commitments and multi-stakeholder partnerships.
FIRMS Fire Information for Resource Management System
NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) provides global near-real-time satellite data on active fires and thermal anomalies, viewable via interactive maps, alerts and downloadable files. It uses MODIS and VIIRS instruments to detect fire locations and deliver data within hours for monitoring, analysis and decision-making.
Climate risk index series
The Climate Risk Index is an annual benchmark series that compares countries’ exposure and vulnerability to extreme weather events using a consistent, historical, data-driven framework. Across all editions, it supports comparative assessment of physical climate risk over time and informs policy, risk analysis, and climate-aware financial decision-making.
Fashion’s plastic paralysis: How brands resist change and fuel microplastic pollution
The report examines fashion brands’ continued reliance on synthetic fibres, highlighting how voluntary commitments, lobbying, and weak accountability delay fibre reduction and regulation. It links current business models to rising microplastic pollution and concludes that systemic policy and production changes are required.
Connecting planetary boundaries and planetary health: A resilient and stable earth system is crucial for human health
The Lancet comment argues that integrating planetary boundaries and planetary health frameworks is essential to protect human health. It outlines health risks from Earth system destabilisation, stresses justice and equity, and calls for coordinated research, policy alignment, and improved monitoring and communication.
The spirit level at 15: The enduring impact of inequality
The report evidences how income inequality drives environmental, social and health harms, worsening trust, mobility, wellbeing and climate impacts. It shows cross-country correlations and calls for structural reforms, including redistribution, public investment and participatory governance, to reduce disparities and improve population outcomes.
Forecasting the fallout from AMR: Economic impacts of antimicrobial resistance in humans
This report analyses AMR's economic impacts, projecting US$159 billion annual health costs by 2050 in business-as-usual scenario. Interventions like better treatment and new antibiotics could save US$97 billion in costs, add US$960 billion to GDP, at US$63 billion yearly cost with 281 ROI.
Assessment of the health impacts and costs associated with indoor nitrogen dioxide exposure related to gas cooking in the European Union and the United Kingdom
The report estimates premature mortality, years of life lost and asthma cases in the EU and UK attributable to indoor nitrogen dioxide from gas cooking. Using modelling of indoor exposures and concentration–response functions, it quantifies associated economic costs and highlights potential health gains from transitioning to cleaner cooking energy
Moving forward imagining a sustainable transport system
The report outlines a universal basic services approach to UK transport, highlighting inequitable access, high emissions, and car dependence. It assesses current government reforms and recommends long-term, publicly oriented investment to expand affordable, integrated, low-carbon mobility, prioritising public transport and active travel within environmental limits.
Blueprint to close the women’s health gap: How to improve lives and economies for all
The report outlines a global framework to reduce the women’s health gap by improving data, research, care delivery, inclusion and investment. Focusing on nine high-impact conditions, it quantifies health and economic gains achievable by 2040 and proposes measurable actions to enhance outcomes for women and strengthen economies.
McKinsey Health Institute (MHI)
McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) is a global health research institute embedded within McKinsey & Company. It produces public research, data tools and insights on population health, mental health, health systems and workforce productivity, supporting evidence-based decision-making across healthcare, policy and business.
Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research institute based at University of Washington. IHME produces data, metrics and analysis on disease burden, mortality, risk factors and health systems, supporting evidence-based policy, planning and health impact assessment worldwide.
A just world on a safe planet: A Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations
The Lancet Planetary Health Earth Commission report quantifies eight safe and just ESBs for biosphere, climate, nutrients, freshwater, and aerosols. Seven ESBs transgressed globally. Defines safe and just corridor for minimum resource access amid transformations to avert harm to health and planet.
