The British Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, announced last week that it has created a new unit, under the oddball name of the “Sustainability Accelerator.” As described, the unit’s task is “to increase the speed and scale of the transition to a sustainable resource future” which they intend to impose upon the world within a decade.
The idea is for Chatham House to use its royal clout to pull together international political actors, investors, civil society, and youth movements, etc., in order to churn out schemes of all kinds on how to “enable radical shifts in the way we use the Earth’s resources.” Land use and “the built environment” are to be the first targets of the Accelerator’s efforts. The goal is to speed up the time it has been taking to put decarbonization schemes into action. No surprise, then, that finance is named as a major lever for change, along with “innovation” (whatever that means).
