Sustainability | Free Full-Text | How Much Agroforestry Is Needed to Achieve Multifunctional Landscapes at the Forest Frontier?—Coupling Expert Opinion with Robust Goal Programming

The Covid-19 pandemic has placed a severe strain on the health system in the world and many healthcare workers have been stretched far beyond their capacity. For most African countries, balancing a response to the pandemic with the challenges of providing universal health care has highlighted the need for resilient health systems that will address the imperatives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and prompt novel, custom-made solutions for the continent and its people. While the collection and analysis of data across the region has enabled some of the continent’s success stories to be showcased, experts agree that the health system challenges faced by the region span over the financial, political and socio-economic spheres and that addressing them will take a multi-faceted and African approach.

Finnish startup Betolar is a new materials startup specialised in new geopolymer based carbon neutral construction materials for the construction industry and circular economy.The company has just announced closing a €2 million funding round, led by Voima Ventures, and joined by Taaleri Sijoitus …

Much of the work and focus in the circular economy is based around disrupting standard linear economy business models of “take-make-waste” to ones where higher proportions of resources can be recycled with minimal disposal. Through using waste as a resource to be recycled rather than disposed of, and by prioritising regenerative resources, we can stretch the lifetime of our planet’s finite resources. Otherwise, in a world where success is largely measured by profits, most company directors are tied to legal requirements to maximise shareholder value. Stock markets reward relentless growth, and everyone chasing growth in a race that will exhaust those finite resources is not sustainable. How hard will it be to make the switch?