In 2019, Dr. Ankur Patwardhan, Head of the Biodiversity Department at Maharashtra Education Society’s Abasaheb Garware College, Pune, India, was awarded the second prize in the Elsevier Foundation Green and Sustainable Chemistry Challenge. Contributing to SDGs 13 and 15, his project, “Butterfly attractant for pollination and ecosystem health”, focused on the plant-pollinator interactions that play a vital role in maintaining ecosystem balance and aimed at enhancing floral visits by butterflies through the development of natural attractant formulations. One year later, we interviewed Dr. Patwardhan about his experience at the Challenge, as well as the upcoming steps for his project.
Over the past five years, we have used data and analytics to help the research and healthcare communities navigate the sea of research and to put collaboration, both interdisciplinary and international, at the heart of scientific progress on the SDGs. View findings for SDG 15.
In 2018, Dr. Prajwal Rajbhandari was awarded the first prize of the Elsevier Foundation Green and Sustainable Chemistry Challenge for his project, “Guava leaves as natural preservatives for farmers of Nepal.” Due to a lack of viable non-toxic preservatives, or cold chain technologies, one-third of Nepal’s produce is spoiled before it reaches market each year. Dr. Rajbhandari’s project taps the antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of guava leaves to make a water-based, sprayable natural preservative, contributing to SDGs 2, 12 and 15. Two years later, we interviewed Dr. Rajbhandari about his experience as a winner, as well as the upcoming steps for his project.
Advancing SDG 15, this article aimed to isolate, characterize (biochemically and molecularly) and assess the potential of cowpea nodulating/maize associated rhizobia for plant growth promotion.
In 2017, Dr. Dênis Pires de Lima from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, was awarded the first prize of € 50,000 for his project “From Cashews to castor oil, combating mosquito-borne diseases.” Contributing to SDGs 3 and 15, Dr. Pires de Lima and his team’s project promoted the use of natural waste from locally sourced cashew nuts and castor oil, to produce environmentally friendly insecticides against mosquitoes carrying Zika and Dengue fever — a sustainable alternative to conventional, substantially toxic insecticides. Three years later, we interviewed Dr. about his experience as a winner of the Green Sustainable Chemistry Challenge, as well as the upcoming steps for his winning project.
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World Bank
The Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals 2020 presents interactive storytelling and data visualizations about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
The SDG Impact of COVID-19 podcast series gathers expert opinion exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the Sustainable Development Goals. In advance of World Environment Day on June 5th, we get the view of Dr Sam Scheiner, Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Biodiversity.
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Global CitizenGlobal Citizen, 22nd April 2020
To mark Earth Day 2020, Global Citizen spoke with seven youth climate activists who shared their hopes for a future in which we take bold climate action. This article contributes to SDGs 1, 7, 13, 14 and 15.
This articles highlights one of the winning proposals of the Elsevier Foundation Green & Sustainable Chemistry Challenge, “Butterfly attractant for pollination and ecosystem health.” The project, which combines ecology and chemistry, involved field observations and lab-based experiments to protect biodiversity in the Western Ghats of India by increasing butterfly pollination, contributing to SDGs 13, 15 and 17.
In 2017, Chioma Blaise Chikere was awarded the second prize of the Green and Sustainable Chemistry Challenge. Her project “Eco-restoration of crude oil-polluted land in Nigeria” demonstrated how organic nutrients such as garden fertilizers and animal excreta can be used to degrade hydrocarbons, cleaning up the soils heavily contaminated by decades of oil spills and advancing SDGs 6, 13 and 15. Three years later, we caught up with Dr. Chikere to learn about her research journey.
