Summary China and Russia have been purchasing gold in unprecedented amounts. The ISM Manufacturing report strengthens the case for investors to find safer assets. Fed rate cuts should boost gold’s price, given its nature as a deflationary asset. Intro In the past few months, I have written articles detailing the macroeconomic case for gold that...Read More

Article (PDF-766KB) Seven years ago, we unveiled research highlighting the existence of innovation’s eight “essentials”—a collection of attributes and behaviors that appeared to underpin superior innovation performance. 1 1. The eight essentials themselves comprise some 100 specific practices that are critical to innovation-led growth. For more, see Marc de Jong, Nathan Marston, and Erik Roth,...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) – The airline industry needs to take strong action to reduce carbon emissions and withstand the “flight shame” movement by environmentalists seeking to reduce commercial flying, an executive for London’s Heathrow airport said on Friday. The airport, which is Europe’s biggest and is set for record passenger numbers this year, has become a...Read More

Wind power currently accounts for just 0.3 per cent of the world’s energy mix, but amid falling costs and supportive policies, is on course to grow into a trillion-dollar industry which ultimately has the potential to provide sufficient clean electricty for every person on Earth eighteen times over, according to a major new industry report. What’s more,...Read More

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire delivers a speech during the Pledging Conference of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for the First Replenishment in Paris, France, October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol PARIS (Reuters) – Donor governments pledged $9.8 billion in fresh financing for the Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing nations tackle global...Read More

Full Report (PDF-7MB) African governments have made impressive progress in fostering development and improving people’s lives. The continent’s spending on infrastructure has doubled to around $80 billion a year in the past decade, investments in health systems have helped to halve infant mortality rates since 1990, and the average time African children spend in school...Read More

Ocean Conservancy, in partnership with the Trash Free Seas Alliance, recently released its new “Plastics Policy Playbook: Strategies for a Plastic-Free Ocean.” Based on desk-side research, in-country workshops and robust financial modeling, the report is an in-depth guide to some of the most impactful public sector and private sector interventions available to tackle the scourge of...Read More

The Recycling Partnership announced the first-ever roadmap aimed at addressing systemic issues in the U.S. recycling system and catalyzing the transition toward a circular economy for packaging. The report, “The Bridge to Circularity: Putting the ‘New Plastics Economy’ into Practice in the U.S.,” is inspired and endorsed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, whose New Plastics Economy Global...Read More

Icon will 3D-print six more tiny homes at a property in Austin housing the city’s homeless population. Katie Canales/Business Insider Icon is an Austin startup that designs 3D-printing technology capable of building tiny homes in about a day for a fraction of the cost of traditional construction methods. Icon cofounder Evan Loomis told Business Insider...Read More

Will work for data We’ve been running a data science experiment over the past few months. Our first goal was to compare and contrast the amount of data we could actively gather using a link to an online survey (please click here to take it) vs. the amount of data we could passively gather using...Read More