In GlobeScan and SustainAbility’s latest survey of sustainability experts, we notice a worrying trend emerging: the sense of urgency to address critical sustainability issues is in decline across the globe.

In fact, the five most urgent issues on the sustainability agenda – climate change, water scarcity, food security, poverty, and biodiversity loss – are all perceived as less urgent challenges than they were in 2009…

Water surrounds me, both literally and figuratively.

I am in Stockholm – a city of islands – this week to attend World Water Week, an annual conference sponsored by the Stockholm International Water Institute. I am here at the invitation of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and yesterday facilitated a fascinating workshop WBCSD sponsored on water risk and some of the tools being developed to assess and manage it…

This spring, China’s south suffered the worst drought in 50 years, exacerbating the country’s status as one of the most water-scarce in the world. While the severity of the drought has resulted in unprecedented shocks to the energy and agriculture sectors (to name just a couple), China’s not alone in facing a paradigm shift in how it must manage its water. In fact, it’s joining a club of countries that are rethinking and recasting water governance and management.

For more than two decades companies have valued our ability to serve as their early warning system, to interpret what is happening in the world today and how it may impact their business tomorrow.

Our “Radar” services range from the general – monthly cross-industry trending digests – to the bespoke – tailored analysis of the most critical emerging issues to your business, and recommendations on how to tackle them.

This is the third in a series of blogs giving a glimpse of what’s on our radar…

Three Gorges Dam, Photo: Flickr user hughrocks

The choices government and business leaders make to resolve the tightening choke point between rising energy demand and declining freshwater reserves will form the central strategic focus of the next era of China’s unfolding development.

Image: NASA, The Visible Earth

Funny – we have one Earth Day among 365 days total. Yet we have but one, presently poorly stewarded, earth. I know I am not the first to say it, but, c’mon, really, isn’t every day Earth Day?

Reflections, observations and trends (in no way exhaustive) from 2010.

Energy and water are difficult issues in their own right, but they're on a collision course in places like China.

Time has run out for Caroline Chisholm's Channel swim. Here she reflects on what she has learnt from the attempt.

By far the most engaging session I sat in on today was by Jerry Linenger. A former NASA astronaut...