Back to Blue by Economist Impact

Ensuring the role of science in the plastics treaty: insights from Global Plastics Summit

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 23:00:32 GMT

At our inaugural Global Plastics Summit held on Oct 11-12th in Bangkok, Naka Kondo, the lead editor of Back to Blue Initiative spoke to Winnie Lau, project director, preventing ocean plastics at The Pew Charitable Trusts and Margaret Spring, chief conservation and science officer and Monterey Bay Aquarium. They discussed their impressions of the summit, and shared their recommendations and aspirations for the role of science and evidence in the treaty moving forward.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Boosting ocean life's resilience to human impact - a conversation with Azul Bio

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 23:00:23 GMT

Back to Blue’s lead editor, Naka Kondo speaks to Ben Alva, the founder of Azul Bio, a startup developing microbiome-based treatments and probiotics from nature that give ocean life

immunity to human impact, such as coral resilience. They are planning their first pilot in November.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Ocean Census: Species discovery at speed and scale

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 23:00:56 GMT

Charles Darwin once dismissed the ocean as a ‘tedious waste, a desert of water.’ Some of his contemporaries disagreed. The brave Challenger expedition of the 1870s set out to discover what lurked beneath, traversing over 100,000 kilometres and discovered 4,772 specimens, from sea snails to snake eels, discovered the deepest trench on earth, and toppled false assumptions about the lack of life under the waves. Over a century later, the Census of Marine Life picked up the baton. An eighty-country collaboration, with 2,700 scientists, the project identified another 6,000 species. Yet even these numbers are a literal drop in the ocean.

Oliver Steeds, Ocean Census director and chief executive of Nekton, a UK-based marine science and conservation institute, speaks to Naka Kondo, the lead editor of Back to Blue initiative about a new mission, the Ocean Census, launches this year with a far greater ambition: to find at least 100,000 new marine species in its first decade.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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The Great Bubble Barrier

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 23:00:10 GMT

Back to Blue's lead editor, Naka Kondo speaks to Anne Marieke Eveleens, co-founder and chief strategy officer of the Great Bubble Barrier, a Dutch social enterprise, about how air bubble technology can help clear plastics from our rivers.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Limiting forever chemicals in drinking water

Thu, 25 May 2023 02:41:58 GMT

On March 14th 2023 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposal to establish legally enforceable levels for six types of ‘forever chemicals’ known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). It is expected to prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses attributable to PFAS.

The rule would require public water systems to monitor PFAS levels, notify the public of these and reduce them if exceeding the proposed standards. Developed over several years and grounded in the authority that the EPA has from US Congress, through the Safe Drinking Water Act, the goal is to issue a final PFAS drinking water standard by the end of 2023 or early 2024. This will result in a standard to which all water systems in the US must adhere.

Sarah Doll, national director for Safer States, an NGO fighting pollution, speaks to Naka Kondo, the lead editor of Back to Blue about the significance of the EPA proposal to limit PFAS in US drinking water - and what needs to happen next.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Takeaways from the World Ocean Summit 2023

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 01:47:29 GMT

The World Ocean Summit is an annual global event run by The Economist Group, which brings together the wide ocean community, from business and finance to governments, national and international policy-makers, civil society and academia. This year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of this event in Lisbon, Portugal.

In this episode, Martin Koehring, head of the World Ocean Initiative at Economist Impact, shares his firsthand experience at the summit and his key takeaways, with Naka Kondo, lead editor of Back to Blue at Economist Impact.

Make a submission at backtoblueinitiative.com/take-action-on-ocean-pollution to close the marine pollution data gap.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Peak plastics: bending the consumption curve

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 23:00:00 GMT

The world will continue to drown in plastic waste unless a bold and comprehensive set of policy changes is applied – this is according to Peak plastics: bending the consumption curve – a new report by Back to Blue, an initiative of Economist Impact and the Nippon Foundation. We delve into how we can decisively tackle plastic waste that is polluting our ocean and land environments with guest, Winnie Lau, project director of the Preventing Ocean Plastics project at The Pew Charitable Trusts. What will it take to decisively tackle the plastic waste crisis? Can we bend the consumption curve?

Download the Peak Plastics report at: https://backtoblueinitiative.com/plastics-consumption/

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Ocean Acidification: A crisis in the making

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 23:00:00 GMT

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 14, Target 14.3, calls for minimising and addressing the impacts of ocean acidification through co-operation at all levels. There is an urgent need for scientific communities to come together with the media, education systems, policymakers and civil society to help bring more attention to the issue and to come up with technological solutions and robust legislation.

Listen to the panel discussion on ocean acidification by Steve Widdicombe, director of science, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Peter Thomson, United Nation Secretary-general's special envoy for the ocean, Malaika Vaz, explorer, National Geographic, and Founder, Untamed Planet and moderated by Charles Goddard, editorial director, Economist Impact.

Learn more about ocean acidification at: https://backtoblueinitiative.com/ocean-acidification/

Follow the Back to Blue series for more podcast episodes, or visit backtoblueinitiative.com for more content.

Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Deep sea mining and ocean pollution (part 2)

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 23:00:00 GMT

In the second part of this podcast on deep sea mining, released during the World Ocean Summit Asia-Pacific, we dive deeper into the pollution risks of deep sea mining with Craig Smith, deep sea ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. How has deep sea mining emerged as a sector and where are things standing today with this industry?

In part 1 of this 2-part episode, we discussed the environmental impact of deep sea mining on our oceans and marine life, and it being an issue on the COP agenda, listen to the previous episode on the Back to Blue website: https://backtoblueinitiative.com/back-to-blue-podcasts/

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Deep sea mining and ocean pollution (part 1)

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 23:00:00 GMT

At the COP27 summit, Emmanuel Macron became the first head of state to call for a ban on deep sea mining. In part 1 of this 2-part episode on deep sea mining, the Back to Blue team talks to Phil McCabe, an ocean campaigner, a member of the deep sea conservation coalition about the past, present and future of deep sea mining projects. What has been driving deep-sea mining as a trend? And what are the environmental risks to our ocean?

Learn more about marine chemical pollution at: https://backtoblueinitiative.com/marine-chemical-pollution-the-invisible-wave/

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Back to Blue at the UN Ocean Conference

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 03:38:51 GMT

The Back to Blue team was at the UN Ocean Conference in Portugal and spoke to President Surangel Whipps Jr. of Palau about the ocean pollution issues they face, and Professor Bethanie Carney Almroth, Associate Professor of EcoToxicology, University of Gothenberg about her research into marine pollution and why she and her colleagues believe the pollution planetary boundary has been breached in the ocean.

Learn more about marine chemical pollution at: https://backtoblueinitiative.com/marine-chemical-pollution-the-invisible-wave/

Follow the Back to Blue series for more podcast episodes, or visit backtoblueinitiative.com for more content.

Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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The Invisible Wave: Can green and sustainable chemistry be the solution?

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 04:42:12 GMT

What is green and sustainable chemistry and can it be the solution to marine chemical pollution? What role can the private sector play? How can the circular economy accelerate the transition to safer and less hazardous chemicals?

Charles Goddard, editorial director at Economist Impact discusses the responses to chemical pollution with Joel Tickner, professor of public health at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Professor Tickner is also the founder and executive director at the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council.

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Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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The Invisible Wave: how is marine chemical pollution linked to climate change?

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 02:00:00 GMT

Charles Goddard, editorial director at Economist Impact speaks to Pascal Lamy, president of the Paris Peace Forum, and Naoko Ishii, director at the Centre for the Global Commons at University of Tokyo, about marine chemical pollution in a broader context.

Is chemical pollution a key anthropogenic challenge on a par with climate change and biodiversity loss? Why do we need to include chemical pollution as a broad set of global environmental challenges? Are we already at a tipping point?

Relevant content:

Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Registration and regulation of chemicals

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 09:45:01 GMT

In the second podcast of this series, we look at the extraordinary number of chemicals that have been created, produced and in use, what inventories exist on these chemicals, how much we know about their toxicity and potential for harm, and how well they are regulated. We’ll also explore the legislative, regulatory and other interventions needed to better manage, reduce and prevent chemical pollution. This episode is hosted by Charles Goddard, editorial director at The Economist Group, he is joined by Dr Zhanyun Wang, scientist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, and a leading thinker on this issue.

To learn more, watch Dead zones: how chemical pollution is suffocating the sea, or listen to other Back to Blue podcasts.

Back to Blue is an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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Chemical pollution in the ocean

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 04:29:04 GMT

Charles Goddard, editorial director at The Economist Group speaks to two experts about the scope and scale of the problem of chemical pollution in the ocean, and asks how worried we should be about the impact of chemical pollution on ocean life and ecosystems, and human health. The guest speakers are:
- Elsie Sunderland, the Gordon McKay professor of environmental chemistry, and professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University
- Alex Rogers, director of science at REV Ocean, a privately funded research and expedition vessel, and visiting professor at Oxford University

Relevant content:
- World Ocean Summit Asia-Pacific on-demand
- Other Back to Blue podcasts

This is the first of a series of podcasts on chemical pollution under the Back to Blue initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation.

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