Investing for sustainability, management of mining, reducing flood risk
In its broadest sense, sustainable investing means including environmental and social factors in investment decisions. Doing so, through a variety of styles, can help investors meet their financial goals and bring about a more sustainable economy.
The intent is to develope an economy that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, thant creates far more prosperity with far fewer resources and is far more just than the current system, and that uses less of what we are running out of — resources and living systems — while creating dignified, living wage jobs for the one resource we have more of: human beings who want to add value to the world.
Some sustainable investment opportunities are in exciting young industries such as organic food and alternative energy; others transform “old economy” industries including autos and oil. The desire to \"do well by doing good\" is important to sustainable investing. Today the management of mining includes dealing with environmental issues related to mining, such as acid mine drainage, water and soil contamination, responsible and sustainable mining, and mine closures. Mining is the process of extracting minerals and various materials from the earth. People have been mining for various stones and metals for several millennia. Materials that cannot be produced artificially (think alchemists and gold), are usually mined. These include, but are not limited to precious metals like gold, silver, platinum and palladium, diamonds, base metals like copper and zinc, iron, oil, natural gas and potash.
Mining has changed radically over the human history, and even more so in the last century. Mining processes nowadays entails searching and finding ore bodies, profitability analysis of the future mine, and finally extracting of the resources from the ground. Mining has and will likely always be a controversial subject, because of the enviornmental impact. Reducing flood risk begins by having a flood risk assessment. This is an assessment of the risk of flooding, particularly in relation to residential, commercial and industrial land use. In the United States the Flood Risk Reduction Program, though authorized, was not implemented. The 1996 farm bill (P.L. 104-127) authorized that contract acreage subject to frequent flooding receive up to 95% of transition payments and projected crop insurance payments in lieu of market transition payments. In return, producers would have complied with swampbuster and conservation compliance provisions and forgone future conservation program payments and disaster payments.
In England and Wales, Strategic Flood Risk Assessments (SFRAs) are a required part of the local planning process, as set out in Planning Policy Statement 25, produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government. SFRAs are primarily produced by local planning authorities, in consultation with the Environment Agency.