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© 2025 Island Innovation. All rights reserved.

    News

    Curated stories and analysis from islands and sustainability leaders worldwide.

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    All ThemesCircular EconomyClimate ActionConnectivity & DigitizationCulture & CommunityEnergy & TransportGreen Finance & EconomyOcean & BiodiversityPolicy & GovernanceTourism & Remote WorkWater & Food
    Showing 9 of 105 news items in Circular Economy
    Can the circular economy help the Caribbean win its war against waste?
    Circular EconomyJune 10, 2024

    Can the circular economy help the Caribbean win its war against waste?

    Image by Sandra Weiss. Retrieved from news.mongabay.com The best place to party on the Caribbean island of Curaçao is Mambo Beach, near the island’s capital, Willemstad. On weekends, DJs outperform each other, spinning the hottest music at shoreside hotels and beach clubs. Tourists and locals dance the night long, consuming beer, cocktails, rum, soft drinks, and maybe water. Then, at 4 a.m., when the last partyers have fallen asleep on the beach’s sunbeds, the [Green Phenix](https://greenphenix.com/about/) team arrives and starts collecting the garbage strewn by guests. Green Phenix is a local environmental startup that has set itself a big goal: To clean up Curaçao. This is more than a civic duty — it may also be a national imperative: Waste disposal has become a serious problem on the island, which is the size of Manhattan, and it’s getting worse. The same is true on islands across the Caribbean. “In 2020, each [Curaçao] islander produced an [average of 1,200 kilograms](https://cuatro.sim-cdn.nl/cbscuracao/uploads/curacao-environmental-statistics-compendium-2020-a_0.pdf?cb=QD13A2_h.html) [about 2,650 pounds] of waste per year,” says Ciaretta Profas, a government adviser on environmental policy. “That’s three times as much as usual in Latin America,” she adds. Of course, this isn’t because the inhabitants of Curaçao are particularly wasteful, but because all the garbage left behind by tourists is statistically attributed to the 150,000 inhabitants.

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    Inside Vanuatu’s Resilience Revolution: A Blueprint for Small Island States
    Circular EconomyMay 31, 2024

    Inside Vanuatu’s Resilience Revolution: A Blueprint for Small Island States

    Photo: Hamish Wyatt/World Bank. Retrieved from worldbank.org Over the course of 10 years of partnership, the World Bank has supported efforts by the government of Vanuatu to build the skills and institutions it needs to deal with the many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes it is prone to as well as the increasingly frequent and severe cyclones. This collaboration and institutional strengthening with one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries could serve as a model for other small island states as climate impacts worsen around the world. The World Bank has been working in Vanuatu since the 1980s. Over the past decade, much of its work there has focused on disaster risk management, including building on the geohazard monitoring work that Dr. Esline Garaebiti began back in 1997. Dr. Garaebiti, one of the first female geoscientists in the Pacific and a recipient of a Women’s International Network for Disaster Risk Reduction Leadership Award, is the Director General of Vanuatu’s Ministry of Climate Change. Born on a volcanic island, Esline discovered her passion for earth science as an undergraduate. In 1997, she joined a French organization implementing Vanuatu’s first geohazard monitoring. She then become the geohazards manager for the government of Vanuatu before assuming her current post, in 2020.

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    Antiguan appointed Executive Director of the Centre for Excellence for Oceanography and Blue Economy
    Circular EconomyMay 29, 2024

    Antiguan appointed Executive Director of the Centre for Excellence for Oceanography and Blue Economy

    Photo courtesy UWI FIC. Retrieved from antiguaobserver.com The University of the West Indies (The UWI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Branson D Belle as the Executive Director of the Centre for Excellence for Oceanography and the Blue Economy at The UWI Five Islands Campus in Antigua and Barbuda. The Centre aims to advance research and training in oceanography and sustainable maritime industries, contributing to the development of the blue economy in the Caribbean region. According to a press release, Dr Belle, an Antiguan national, brings over 20 years of experience in cutting-edge technology development from renowned universities and research institutes. He obtained his PhD in Magnetic Materials from the University of Manchester (UoM), where he also earned a Master’s degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering with First Class Honours, and spent a year at ENSEEIHT in Toulouse, France. He was awarded the FC Williams (2000), IEEE (2001) and the Sir William Siemen (2003) awards for most outstanding academic achievements in his years at UoM. Belle then obtained an Overseas Research Scholarship award to pursue his PhD in Magnetic Materials at UoM. After his PhD, Dr Belle worked as a Research Associate with Nobel Prize winners Professor Sir Andre Geim and Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov. He co-founded 2-DTech Ltd, a materials and technology company later acquired by Versarien PLC. For the past nine years, Dr Belle has been a senior scientist at SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest research institutes, working in the departments of Smart Sensor Systems and Sustainable Energy Technology. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals and secured over $7 million in grant funding.

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    Small islands must wake up to chemical and pollution ‘time bomb’
    Circular EconomyMay 28, 2024

    Small islands must wake up to chemical and pollution ‘time bomb’

    Small island developing States (SIDS) gathered in Antigua and Barbuda this week for the SIDS4 conference should not be afraid to stand up to companies seeking short-term profit at the long-term expense of human health and the environment – especially in the tourism sector. That’s the message from the Seychelles-born Executive Secretary of the UN-administered Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Rolph Payet. He told UN News in Antigua that pollution – from chemical waste or cruise ships – is a “time bomb” for vulnerable countries unless they band together and take more action. He told Matt Wells that while fighting climate change is a complex challenge for small islands, they can collaborate better to reduce pollution and promote sustainability through achievable and tangible goals such as water harvesting.

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    Opinion ǀ American Samoa deserves to thrive as fishing shifts
    Circular EconomyMay 17, 2024

    Opinion ǀ American Samoa deserves to thrive as fishing shifts

    Excerpt and Photo from mvariety.com THE perilous state of American Samoa’s last tuna cannery is an outcome that experts have long warned about. An international shift in the fishing industry, largely driven by countries with lower workforce standards and pay and subsidized infrastructure, makes U.S. competition in the cannery industry unavailing. In desperate attempts to cling to the last of what was once four canneries in American Samoa, some industrial fishers and cannery operators are trying to blame Pacific conservation efforts as the culprits. Despite the anticipated demise, it is disingenuous to pit the vitality of the ocean against American Samoa’s livelihood. This divisive approach offers false hope that the territory’s cannery can somehow survive if we don’t protect the health of the Pacific Remote Islands. Located in the middle of the Pacific ocean, Howland, Baker, Jarvis and Wake Islands; Johnston and Palmyra Atolls; and Kingman Reef are home to some of our planet’s last wild and healthy ocean ecosystems. The islands, atolls and reefs also hold rich voyaging and cultural history among indigenous Pacific Islanders.

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    Notes from a development practitioner in Solomon Islands
    Circular EconomyMay 10, 2024

    Notes from a development practitioner in Solomon Islands

    Excerpt and Photo from UNDP (undp.org) UN Women have held its Project Working Committee Meeting for the Market for Change Project in Honiara. Across the next two days, the project is undertaking a review of activities implemented, and outlining the way forward for the project. To introduce myself my name is Jilgina Kimisi, and I am so proud to work as project associate for this project for the women of my country because in just this short time, I have been able to see the change that the project is bringing about to the women and the development of my country. During the first session of the meeting, I had the opportunity to do a little presentation about the component implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Solomon Islands. It´s the first time I participated in this important governance meeting since I started to work for the project just two months ago. As the Project Associate in Solomon Islands, I spearhead Outcome Two, a component implemented by UNDP which focuses on empowering women entrepreneurs with financial literacy.  With the activities implemented under this component, every day is a new opportunity to witness the positive transformation the initiative brings to the women at the markets around the country.

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    Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
    Circular EconomyMay 3, 2024

    Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution

    Photo courtesy of Carbonwave. Retrieved from news.mongabay.com In 2015, smelly mats of a brown macroalgae called sargassum piled as high as 1.2 meter (4 feet) on the beaches of Barbados, recalls Joshua Forte. It was the fourth year in what has become an annual nightmare, with an estimated 18,100 kilograms (20 tons) of seaweed inundating Caribbean shorelines each year and wrecking the region’s tourism-centered economies. The onslaught of seaweed reeked of rotten eggs, but Forte smelled something else: opportunity. A year earlier, Forte founded an organic fertilizer company called [Red Diamond Compost](https://www.reddiamondcompost.com/en/). He was already selling a soil additive from sunflower seeds called Liquid Sunshine. But the sargassum seemed too big to ignore.

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    The Great Nicobar Misadventure: Yet Another ‘Development’ Disaster
    Circular EconomyApril 25, 2024

    The Great Nicobar Misadventure: Yet Another ‘Development’ Disaster

    Can the world’s most unique, diverse and endangered regions be saved from turning into a jungle of concrete? Is our current model of development bereft of a policy to preserve the natural habitat, lifestyle, and dialects of the aboriginals? [Andaman and Nicobar](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/environment/the-great-nicobar-misadventure-yet-another-development-disaster#), a group of 572 islands located in the south-eastern part of the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean, away from the mainland, is passing through such a dilemma these days. These islands are located near Indonesia and Thailand. In 2013, they were included in UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme. The place is home to rich biodiversity and an extraordinary variety of wildlife. According to the government, it is one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world. The so-called ‘holistic development’ of [Great Nicobar](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/environment/the-great-nicobar-misadventure-yet-another-development-disaster#) is under question also because the project was initiated towards the end of 2020 when the world had come to a standstill due to the pandemic. On the one hand, there was an orgy of death and instability—the country was in a grave economic crisis—and on the other hand, machinations were on for expediting approvals to such a huge project. In terms of investment and size, this project is much bigger than any scheme proposed earlier.

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    These Bell Island students are turning trash into art — and learning about sustainability
    Circular EconomyApril 17, 2024

    These Bell Island students are turning trash into art — and learning about sustainability

    **Photo: Ife Alaba/CBC. Retrieved from cbc.ca. Excerpt from cbc.ca** How many bottle caps do you think it takes to make a mural the size of three plywood sheets? That is exactly what students at St. Augustine’s Elementary recently decided to find out, with the help of environmental artist Brian Burke. The only elementary school on Bell Island, in Newfoundland’s Conception Bay, St Augustine’s is celebrating its 40th anniversary and to commemorate the milestone, students are building a mural made out of bottle caps. Through funding from ArtsSmarts — a government program that incorporates art and artists in school curricula — the school began working on the mural in December, with the students sorting and ironing thousands and thousands of bottle caps. Before embarking on the larger mural, students started small, practising by using the bottle caps to make their initials, and once they mastered that, they started on the harder stuff.

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