Handbook for SDG-Aligned Food Companies: Four Pillar Framework Standards

The world food system is in crisis. Outright hunger, unhealthy diets and malnutrition occur parallel to food losses and waste. Farming families in poor countries suffer from extreme poverty. And food production is environmentally unsustainable and increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events caused by climate change. A historic change of direction is needed to bring about a new era of food system sustainability. Our work aims to help companies, investors and other stakeholders move towards a more sustainable food system that is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. Transforming the world food system to achieve sustainability in all its dimensions is a major challenge. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will require managing major changes to the global food system responsibly, involving hundreds of millions of farmers and their families, global supply chains, thousands of food producing companies, diverse food production systems and local ecologies, food processing and a great diversity of food traditions and cultures. Food companies are engaged in food production, trade, processing, and consumer sales around the world. While they have distinct roles “from farm to fork,” they all share the same responsibility: to be part of the global transformation towards food system sustainability. For more on CCSI and SDSN’s work on corporate alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals, see our framework defining SDG-aligned business practices in the energy sector

Handbook for SDG-Aligned Food Companies: Four Pillar Framework Standards

The world food system is in crisis. Outright hunger, unhealthy diets and malnutrition occur parallel to food losses and waste. Farming families in poor countries suffer from extreme poverty. And food production is environmentally unsustainable and increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events caused by climate change. A historic change of direction is needed to bring about a new era of food system sustainability. Our work aims to help companies, investors and other stakeholders move towards a more sustainable food system that is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. Transforming the world food system to achieve sustainability in all its dimensions is a major challenge. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will require managing major changes to the global food system responsibly, involving hundreds of millions of farmers and their families, global supply chains, thousands of food producing companies, diverse food production systems and local ecologies, food processing and a great diversity of food traditions and cultures. Food companies are engaged in food production, trade, processing, and consumer sales around the world. While they have distinct roles “from farm to fork,” they all share the same responsibility: to be part of the global transformation towards food system sustainability. For more on CCSI and SDSN’s work on corporate alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals, see our framework defining SDG-aligned business practices in the energy sector

Effect of Organic and Inorganic Passivation in Quantum-Dot-Sensitized Solar Cells

The effect of semiconductor passivation on quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSCs) has been systematically characterized for CdS and CdS/ZnS. We have found that passivation strongly depends on the passivation agent, obtaining an enhancement of the solar cell efficiency for compounds containing amine and thiol groups and, in contrast, a decrease in performance for passivating agents with acid groups. Passivation can induce a change in the position of TiO₂ conduction band and also in the recombination rate and nature, reflected in a change in the β parameter. Especially interesting is the finding that β, and consequently the fill factor can be increased with the passivation treatment. Applying this strategy, record cells of 4.65% efficiency for PbS-based QDSCs have been produced

Electrochemical Deprotection of <i>para</i>-Methoxybenzyl Ethers in a Flow Electrolysis Cell

Electrochemical deprotection of <i>p</i>-methoxybenzyl (PMB) ethers was performed in an undivided electrochemical flow reactor in MeOH solution, leading to the unmasked alcohol and <i>p</i>-methoxybenzaldehyde dimethyl acetal as a byproduct. The electrochemical method removes the need for chemical oxidants, and added electrolyte (BF₄NEt₄) can be recovered and reused. The method was applied to 17 substrates with high conversions in a single pass, yields up to 92%, and up to 7.5 g h^–1 productivity. The PMB protecting group was also selectively removed in the presence of some other common alcohol protecting groups