All publications and documents

The Civil Society Shadow European Strategy for Sustainable Textile, Garments, Leather and Footwear 65 civil society organisations, one joint vision for a fair and sustainable textile sector. The global Textile, Garments, Leather and Footwear (TGLF) sector has long been characterised by labour rights and human rights abuses along with the immense pressure it exerts on our environment and…

As the EU and the entire world face an unprecedented health and economic crisis, the textiles, garments, leather and footwear supply-chain is particularly hard hit. On the one hand, two major production hubs (China and Italy) have been severely affected by the virus, causing significant disruption on the supply side. On the other, a collapse of demand has, in turn, led to brands and retailers…

SARS-Cov-2 was dubbed the “great equalizer.” Humanity needed a submicroscopic organism to realize that we may, after all, not have individual destinies that are shaped by the perceived strength of our respective economies. But beyond its immediate effects, the pandemic will mold the world order in which we will be living long after it is gone. It will act as a catalyst to the transformation that…

Soils are the basis of life and while humanity is building extensive genomic libraries there is no comprehensive library of the soils upon which much of life on Earth relies. That gap in human knowledge is being filled this week with the launch of a global system of universal standards to measure and classify soils across the planet. The University of Sydney is one of…

A section of scientists say there is a ‘biodiversity dilution effect’ in which declining biodiversity results in increased infectious-disease transmission. Scientists have observed a clear link between decrease in disease frequency with increase in host diversity. Incidence of West Nile Disease and Lyme Disease has been linked to the biodiversity dilution effect. …

The amount of food lost or wasted every year presents countless problems for society, such as threatening food insecurity, and recent events have highlighted how serious this can get. But what do we mean by ‘lost’ and ‘wasted’, how exactly can it increase the risk of food insecurity, and how can plant science help reduce food loss and waste? Here, we explore the…