Michael Kraten

150 private citizens of the coastal Massachusetts town of Salisbury completed a replenishment project for their local beach. Instead of relying on the government to replace 15,000 tons of sand that storms carried out to sea, the citizens decided to spend $600,000 of their own funds to do so.

Sustainability accountants, sharpen your pencils! The deadline for submitting comments about the new Climate Change exposure draft of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is this Thursday, February 29, 2024.

A few days ago, baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani signed the richest contract in the history of professional sports by agreeing to play ten years for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team will pay him $700 million for his services. Ohtani’s value far exceeded that of any other baseball professional because of his ability to serve as a “two way player.”…

Recently, the Norwegian government legalized large-scale commercial sea mining. Many expected environmentalists to applaud the sea floor production of natural elements like lithium and cobalt, elements that are used to create large batteries for the storage of renewable energy. After all, one major complaint about solar and wind power is that energy production dwindles on cloudy days and evenings when…

Last month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) produced a study entitled “Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control.” It’s known colloquially as the IPBES Invasive Alien Species Report.

A mere four months ago, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S1 and S2 were issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). For the first time, a major global entity with the authority to mandate corporate disclosures issued a wide array of sustainability reporting standards.

By Michael Kraten, PhD, CPA Data analysts who develop flood risk models for property insurers, land developers, and government zoning officers have a new variable to plug into their data sets. Climate Tipping Points (CTPs) are now becoming important factors in risk forecasts. The two most famous CTPs, of course, were introduced to the general public during the 2015 United…