Institute for Sustainable Finance (ISF) at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, is Canada’s first multi-disciplinary hub aligning finance with environmental sustainability. It conducts research, publishes policy guidance, and runs education and collaboration programmes to help policymakers, investors, and firms integrate climate risk, nature, and ESG considerations into capital allocation and regulation.

Conservation International (CI) is a global non-profit that champions nature conservation to benefit both biodiversity and human societies. It uses science, fieldwork, policy and finance to protect critical land and marine ecosystems. Since 1987, CI has helped safeguard 13 million km² of land and sea across more than 70 countries.

BirdLife International, a global partnership of over 120 bird and nature conservation organisations, works worldwide to conserve bird species, protect vital habitats, and sustain biodiversity. Through science-based research, habitat protection and community engagement, BirdLife helps prevent species extinction and supports ecosystem health across continents.

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a global membership Union—comprising governments, NGOs and civil-society organisations—that works to conserve biodiversity and promote sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN mobilises a network of over 1,400 Member organisations and around 16,000 experts worldwide. IUCN monitors species and ecosystems, develops data-driven policy guidance, and supports conservation and restoration projects across lands, oceans, freshwater systems and climate-sensitive regions.

The Climate Policy Database (CPDB) is an open, collaborative resource that compiles detailed information on climate-change mitigation policies worldwide. It categorises and tracks over 6,500 policies across nearly 200 countries, enabling comparison of policy adoption, identification of mitigation gaps, and support for climate-policy analysis.

The Health Attribution Library is a curated “living” database compiling peer-reviewed studies that quantify human-health impacts of anthropogenic climate change through end-to-end detection and attribution analysis.

This report outlines how climate and nature risks threaten the Earth system that underpins economies and societies. It proposes a Planetary Solvency framework, using risk-led assessment principles to inform policymakers of escalating systemic risks, tipping points and mitigation needs, emphasising the urgency of realistic global risk management to avoid severe disruption.

The report outlines climate change scenarios for New Zealand’s agriculture sector, assessing physical and transition risks across regions and farm systems. It presents orderly, disorderly and hothouse futures, highlighting impacts on production, land use and communities, and providing a foundation for sector-wide resilience planning and adaptation.

The report outlines climate change risks and opportunities for New Zealand’s agriculture sector, presenting shared scenarios and an adaptation roadmap. It identifies key challenges, drivers of change and priority actions to strengthen resilience, guide investment, support innovation and enable a coordinated, sector-wide response.

This guide provides a framework for incorporating climate-related risks and opportunities into business valuations. It outlines a five-step process, highlights data and disclosure challenges, and illustrates application through case studies. The aim is to support more consistent, transparent and informed valuation practice as climate impacts become increasingly material.

This month’s sustainable-finance roundup highlights faster transition momentum, rising physical risks and a tightening focus on accountability. COP30 reinforced expectations for stronger 2035 targets, while national actions underscored diverging paths toward decarbonisation. Markets continued shifting toward clean energy and resilience, and new science made climate harms more visible. With regulatory scrutiny and litigation increasing, transition credibility and real-economy resilience are becoming core drivers of financial risk and investment decisions.

The article explores the paradox in which institutional investors focus heavily on climate-risk disclosure, an area of comfort and perceived legitimacy, while underinvesting in real-economy climate policy that could meaningfully reduce systemic risk. It argues that meaningful climate action requires shifting from technocratic “managing tons” approaches toward politically challenging asset revaluation and more robust policy engagement.

This article dives into an analysis of over 12,000 YouTube videos and finds that while outright climate-change denial is dropping, content undermining climate solutions and trust in scientists is rising sharply. It also highlights concerns over YouTube’s ad policies, which still allow monetisation alongside videos that downplay impacts or spread misleading claims about climate policy.

This case study explores how Access Bank integrates the UN Principles for Responsible Banking into its operations, advancing green finance, financial inclusion, and gender equality. It highlights the bank’s green bond issuances, ESG frameworks, and stakeholder engagement, offering investors insight into sustainable finance practices within emerging markets.

This article explores the growing interest in deep-sea mining as a source of critical minerals for clean technologies, detailing how it works, its potential economic benefits, and the significant ecological and governance risks it poses. It also examines ongoing international regulatory disputes and alternative solutions such as recycling and circular mineral economies.

This month’s sustainability roundup traces a rapidly evolving landscape in climate finance and accountability, spotlighting the weaknesses exposed by Hurricane Melissa’s disaster-risk finance system alongside new policy frameworks now reshaping sustainable investment. It highlights how vulnerable nations continue to bear the costs of climate impacts, how regulatory reforms such as Australia’s 2035 emissions target and global disclosure regimes are embedding accountability, and how renewed scrutiny of carbon markets is driving the search for credible, incentive-based pathways to real decarbonisation.