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Business & Management: GOTO: Climate Action

Subjects: Business, Management

Purpose of this guide

This guide was originally designed to support the Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford (GOTO) MBA assignment on Climate Action (2019-2020 Hilary Term). However, students and researchers from any field may find it useful.

Use this guide to find online resources about climate action, including books, articles and databases.

Climate Action

The Sustainable Development Goals comprise the United Nations agenda for a better world until 2030, with targets reaching into 2050 and beyond.

SDG #13 is "Climate Action" - "Take urgent action to combat climate change and it's impacts". Throughout 2019 this SDG gained a significant and increasing share of the UN's focus. The message to member-states has changed from finding solutions to rapid implementation.

GOTO also made "Climate Action" its focus in 2020.

This section of the libguide provides introductory background and a timeline of the current political and economic situation around this SDG.

Specific topics are expanded on further down the page, while links to useful resources can be found in the right column. Current updates from the UNFCCC can also be found in the right column.

Graph showing the ambition mechanism for the Paris agreement showing Secretary General's Climate Summit in 2019, leading to Net-zero emissions and climate resilience in 2050

@ Saïd Business School

Natural Capital

 

Corporate Purpose and Responsible Business

The Renewable Energy Transition

Suggested Databases and Searches

When searching databases who work in partnership with The University of Oxford, look out for and remember to use our dedicated links: 

Passport features a section on "Sustainability" that can be found from their homepage via "Economies" in the top bar.

Articles to Search for:

• "Engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals: A Business Opportunity"

• "How To Become a Sustainable Brand"

• "Environmental Sustainability Index"

  The above article introduces Euromonitor's Environmental Sustainability Index.

Both ABI/INFORM Global and Business Source Complete give access to business and management journals and trade publications. Business Source Complete also includes the full-text of Harvard Business Review.

For both databases it is possible to set the type of resources being searched and the dates covered in the search, as well as set the order of search results as newest/oldest/"most relevant".

Recommended basic search terms:

• "Climate Action" works well in basic searches, but has a relatively low yield as a term has only recently entered the discourse since 2015. The term yields more results with ABI/INFORM Global.

• "Sustainability" and "Climate Change" have a longer history, but also operate as very broad search terms.

• "Sustainability Development Goals" is not a useful search term in basic search. If "Search Field" in Business Source Complete is set to "SU Subject Terms", the yield does increase slightly.

• "Natural Capital" and "Responsible Business" have a much higher yield with ABI/INFORM Global, and primarily fucntion as academic terms.

Useful Links

Glossary of Acronyms

  • CAT - Cap and Trade
  • COP - Conference of the Parties ("the parties" refers to the countries who are member-states of the UNFCCC)
  • CDM - Clean Development Mechanism
  • CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility
  • ESG - Environmental, Social, and Governance
  • GDP - Gross Domestic Product
  • GCF - Green Climate Fund
  • GHG - Green House Gases
  • GOTO - Global Opportunities and Threats, Oxford
  • ILO - International Labour Organisation
  • IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  • IPSF - International Platform for Sustainable Finance
  • IRENA - International Renewable Energy Agency
  • LULUCF - Land-use, land-use change, and forestry
  • NCC - Natural Capital Committee
  • NDC - Nationally Determined Contributions
  • PPPs - Public-Private Partnerships
  • SEEA - System of Environmental Economic Accounting
  • SIF - Sustainable Innovation Forum
  • SDG - Sustainable Development Goals
  • UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
  • UNEP - United Nation Environmental Programme 
  • UNFCCC - United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change

Further Reading

UNFCCC Twitter Timeline

Created by

Tom Vickers. Graduate Trainee at the Sainsbury Library, 2019 - 2020.

Created by

Last updated