@Risk

The food supplies of Afghanistan and nine African states are those most at risk and vulnerable to rising costs, based on results of the Food Security Risk Index 2010, released last week by Maplecroft.

The Index uses 12 criteria developed in collaboration with the World Food Programme to evaluate risks to the supply of basic food staples for 163 countries. These criteria include: the nutritional and health status of populations, cereal production and imports, GDP per capita, natural disasters, conflict, and the effectiveness of government.

Following these calculations, Maplecroft rated Afghanistan as least secure in food supplies, while also ranking the African nations of the Democratic Republic of Congo (2), Burundi (3), Eritrea (4), Sudan (5), Ethiopia (6), Angola (7), Liberia (8), Chad (9) and Zimbabwe (10) as “extreme risk.” In all, African nations make up 36 of the 50 nations most at risk in the index. (more…)

Ever since 2002, the US Department of Labor has issued a list of products, by country of origin, that it has determined may be mined, produced or manufactured by forced or indentured child labor. By law, federal contractors who supply products on this “Executive Order 13126” list must certify that they have made a good faith effort to determine whether child labor was used to produce the items.

The current list, updated last month, is available here. It includes a variety of items, such as bamboo, beans and bricks from Burma, toys and cotton from China and cocoa from Nigeria (to name just a few) –many of which have been on the list repeatedly. This year’s list also names India as a country that uses child labor in garment manufacturing, and that has confirmed Indian apparel exporters’ “worst fears,” according to The Economic Times.

The US accounts for 30 percent of India’s apparel exports, estimated at some $10 billion, and as the article reports, appearing on the list poses huge reputation risk to a country that supplies garments to retail giants such as Walmart, GAP, H&M, Diesel, M&S and Levi’s, all of which say their working to abolish child labor. (more…)

Less than one in five companies see biodiversity as an important business issue, and only two out of the world’s largest 100 companies manage it as a strategic risk.

Yet, a new analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers concludes that no sector or business in the economy will escape unaffected by changes to the availability of environmental resources for business and consumers.

The research, which was conducted as part of a landmark study by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), puts the economic impact of biodiversity loss at between $2-4.5 trillion annually and says this impact will be felt in product pricing, availability of products and financing, and supply chain disruptions for consumers, business and government. For example, the study lists water used in food and drink production, timber for packaging, furniture and paper, productive land for fruit and vegetables, and fibers for clothes, as just some of the biodiversity and ecosystem ‘services’ whose economic value and protection are currently at risk. (more…)

Ten nations are at “extreme risk” of losing access to clean, fresh water, according to the latest Water Security Risk Index, released by Malplecroft last week.

Those ten nations are: Somalia (1), Mauritania (2), Sudan (3), Niger (4), Iraq (5), Uzbekistan (6), Pakistan (7), Egypt (8), Turkmenistan (9) and Syria (10).

To calculate the water risk index, Maplecroft measured these four key areas surrounding the issue: (more…)

This week, U.N. officials sat down for the first of five negotiating sessions aimed at developing a global, legally binding mercury treaty that will address the emissions and use of mercury in products, wastes and international trade.

The negotiations are expected to result in a global agreement that will be signed in late 2013.

But, there’s plenty that has to be settled before then.

After all, the single largest source of anthropogenic mercury emissions is power generation (particularly from coal-fired power plants), and as Noelle Selin, an assistant professor of engineering systems in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, with a joint appointment in atmospheric chemistry in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, points out in her informative Q&A with the MIT News Office, that means getting international consensus for the treaty won’t be easy. (more…)