In 2021 -- our 25th year -- we authored or co-authored 18 science-related news releases and 30 opinion articles in Toronto and distributed them for clients in Montreal, Hamilton, Bonn, Brussels, Geneva, Paris, New York, Nairobi, and Kuala Lumpur.
The agency's global environmental focus was reflected in 16 of last year's releases: electronic waste (5 releases), the oceans (4), biodiversity (3), food waste, ageing dams, a synthesis of UN scientific assessments, and a new UN public tool that maps decades of flooding worldwide. The other two related to computing (Moore's Law of chip density revisited), and research documenting Leonardo da Vinci's family tree since 1331, including 14 living male relatives, part of an investigation into his DNA and biological traces in art.
These 18 releases generated over 9,200 news articles, published at online news sites in scores of countries and dozens of languages, ~33 billion potential public impressions in all, according to the Meltwater news search engine, which estimates actual impressions via online news sites at 825 million. Millions of impressions were also generated via print newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and social media.
In addition, we distributed to thousands of media contacts another 14 releases and notices authored by colleagues in Washington D.C., Paris, London, Nairobi and Montreal.
With thanks to the researchers and collaborators behind these stories, and to the many journalists who covered them, the following releases were the most noted last year.
MARCH 4, 2021
UN: 17% of all food available at consumer levels is wasted
If food waste was a country, it would be the third-highest ranked greenhouse gas emitter after the US and China.
Wasted in 2019: 931 million tonnes of food sold to households, retailers, restaurants and other food services; roughly the weight of 23 million fully-loaded 40-tonne trucks -- enough bumper-to-bumper to circle the Earth 7 times. Combined with food loss (from harvest to wholesale), one-third of food produced for human consumption -- about 1.3 billion tonnes -- is lost or wasted globally.
Example coverage:
2,300 online news articles: 7.1 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; media coverage summary here
FEBRUARY 18, 2021
UNEP synthesis of scientific assessments provides blueprint to secure humanity’s future
Launched by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and co-chaired by Sir Robert Watson and Ivar Baste, UNEP's "Making Peace with Nature" report summarizes global scientific assessments of climate, biodiversity and deadly pollution, underscores the level of emergency they document and reveals an intersection of common conclusions that clearly identify core policy change priorities.
The report also offers a prescription of priority actions required of every major segment of society, from governments and the private sector to the general public
Example coverage:
1,861 online news articles: 5.4 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; media coverage summary here
JUNE 10, 2021
IPBES / IPCC: Tackling the biodiversity and climate crises together
Unprecedented changes in climate and biodiversity, driven by human activities, have combined and increasingly threaten nature, human lives, livelihoods and well-being around the world. Biodiversity loss and climate change are both driven by human economic activities and mutually reinforce each other. Neither will be successfully resolved unless both are tackled together.
Example coverage:
1,719 online news articles: 4.4 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; coverage summary here
JULY 6, 2021
Leonardo da Vinci: New family tree spans 21 generations, finds 14 living male descendants
The surprising results of a decade-long investigation by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato provide a strong basis for advancing a project researching Leonardo da Vinci's DNA.
Their extensive study, published by the journal "Human Evolution" (Pontecorboli Editore, Florence), documents with new certainty the continuous male line, from father to son, of the Da Vinci family (later Vinci), from progenitor Michele (born 1331) to grandson Leonardo (6th generation, born 1452) through to today -- 21 generations in all, including five family branches -- and identifies 14 living descendants.
Example coverage
895 online news articles: 4.2 billion potential impressions. Full news release here, coverage summary, here
JULY 12, 2021
UN’s new global framework for managing nature: 1st detailed draft agreement launched
7-17-2020
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat today released the first official draft of a new Global Biodiversity Framework to guide actions worldwide through 2030 to preserve and protect Nature and its essential services to people.
The framework includes 21 targets for 2030 that call for, among other things:
- At least 30% of land and sea areas global (especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people) conserved through effective, equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas (and other effective area-based conservation measures)
- A 50% of greater reduction in the rate of introduction of invasive alien species, and controls or eradication of such species to eliminate or reduce their impacts
- Reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, and pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste
- Nature-based contributions to global climate change mitigation efforts of least 10 GtCO2e per year, and that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity
- Redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity, in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $US 500 billion per year
- An increase in international financial flows from all sources to developing countries
More than two years in development, the Framework will undergo further refinement during online negotiations in late summer before being presented for consideration at CBD's next meeting of its 196 parties at COP15, scheduled for Kunming, China
Example coverage:
759 online news articles, 3.2 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; Coverage summary here
OCTOBER 13, 2021
E-Waste Day: 57.4M tonnes expected in 2021 will outweigh China’s Great Wall
On International E-Waste Day 2021, leading experts and producer responsibility organisations are calling on households, businesses and governments to get behind efforts to get more dead or unused plug-in or battery-operated products to facilities where they can be either repaired or recycled to recover a king’s fortune in valuable materials and reduce the need for new resources.
According to estimates in Europe, where the problem is best studied, 11 of 72 electronic items in an average household are no longer in use or are broken. Annually per citizen, another 4 to 5 kg of unused electrical and electronic products are hoarded in Europe prior to being discarded. When it comes to mobile phones, a French study estimates that 54 to 113 million mobile phones alone, weighing 10 to 20 tonnes, are sleeping in drawers and other storage spaces in French homes.
Example coverage:
809 online news articles: 2.3 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; coverage summary here
MAY 10, 2021
Recycling critical metals in e-waste: Make it the law, experts warn EU, citing security issues
End-of-life circuit boards, certain magnets in disc drives and electric vehicles, EV and other special battery types, and fluorescent lamps are among several electrical and electronic products containing critical raw materials (CRMs), the recycling of which should be made law, says a new UN-backed report funded by the EU.
A mandatory, legal requirement to recycle and reuse CRMs in select e-waste categories is needed to safeguard from supply disruptions elements essential to manufacturers of important electrical and electronic and other products, says a European consortium behind the report, led by the Switzerland-based World Resources Forum.
The CEWASTE consortium warns that access to the CRMs in these products is vulnerable to geo-political tides. Recycling and reusing them is "crucial" to secure ongoing supplies for regional manufacturing of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) essential for defence, renewable energy generation, LEDs and other green technologies, and to the competitiveness of European firms.
Example coverage:
319 online news articles: 1.75 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; coverage summary here
JANUARY 22, 2021
Ageing dams pose growing threat: UN
By 2050, most people on Earth will live downstream of tens of thousands of large dams built in the 20th century, many of them already operating at or beyond their design life, according to a UN University analysis.
Example coverage:
238 online news articles: 1.4 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; coverage summary here
APRIL 8, 2021
Emerging listening network will study seas uniquely quieted by COVID
Travel and economic slowdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic combined to put the brakes on shipping, seafloor exploration, and many other human activities in the ocean, creating a unique moment to begin a time-series study of the impacts of sound on marine life.
A community of scientists has identified more than 200 non-military ocean hydrophones worldwide and hopes to make the most of the unprecedented opportunity to pool their recorded data into the 2020 quiet ocean assessment and to help monitor the ocean soundscape long into the future. They aim for a total of 500 hydrophones capturing the signals of whales and other marine life while assessing the racket levels of human activity.
Example coverage:
156 online news articles: 815 million potential impressions. Full news release here; Coverage summary here
JUNE 8, 2021
More harmful algal bloom impacts emerge amid rising seafood demand, coastal development
UNESCO's International Oceanographic Commission delivers 1st global assessment report after 7 years' work by 109 experts in 35 countries, creating a baseline to detect and gauge the changing distribution, frequency, and intensity of harmful -- often poisonous -- algal blooms
Example coverage:
107 online news articles, 509 million potential impressions. News release in full, click here; coverage summary, click here
OCTOBER 1, 2021
New UN mapping tool reveals global floods since 1985 to aid disaster planning
Developed by UN University with Google and other partners, free online World Flood Mapping Tool will help plan urban and agricultural development, effective flood defences, disaster readiness, identify supply chain vulnerabilities.
Popular Science celebrated the tool as one of the "100 greatest innovations of 2021."
Example coverage:
118 online news articles: 370 million potential impressions. Full news release here; coverage summary here
NOVEMBER 24, 2021
E-waste in former Soviet countries jumps ~50% in a decade; just 3.2% collected, treated
Electronic waste generated in the Commonwealth of Independent States + Georgia rose by 50% between 2010 and 2019, roughly the world average, but overall just 3.2% was collected and safely managed, well below the 17.4% average worldwide, according to the UN’s first report dedicated to the e-waste issue in the 12 former Soviet Union countries.
The regional e-waste total jumped from 1.7 Mt to 2.5 Mt (an average 8.7 kg per citizen), with Russia generating the most e-waste in both absolute and per inhabitant terms.
Example coverage
60 online news articles: 306 million potential impressions. Full news release here; coverage summary here
JUNE 2, 2021
Laptops, cell phones, e-games defied slump as COVID-19 dented 2020's electronics sales: UN
In the first three quarters of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a 30% fall in electronic and electrical equipment sales in low- and middle-income countries but only a 5% decline in high-income countries, highlighting and intensifying the digital divide between north and south, according to a new UN report.
Worldwide, sales of heavy electric appliances like refrigerators, washing machines and ovens fell the hardest -- 6-8% -- while small IT and telecommunications equipment decreased by only 1.4%. Within the latter category, sales of laptops, cell phones and gaming equipment rose in high-income countries and on a global basis, but fell in low- and middle-income countries.
The new report, by UN e-waste researchers, predicts an overall 4.9 million metric tonne (Mt) fall in future 2020 sales-related e-waste, about 6.4% less than a "business as usual" scenario.
Example coverage
110 online news articles: 285 million potential impressions. Full news release here, coverage summary here
APRIL 20, 2021
As plant/animal diversity wanes, is microbial life changing too? A perilously ‘profound ignorance’
With alarms sounding about the declining diversity of plants and animals, a related concern with equally profound implications is posed: is the variety of microbial life, including viruses, changing too -- and if so, in which direction and how fast?
In a paper published today, David S. Thaler of the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Guest Investigator at The Rockefeller University's Programme for the Human Environment (PHE), notes the well-documented, "clearly downwards" trajectory of plant and animal diversity, constituting "a key issue of the Anthropocene."
Whether change is underway also in the world of microbes -- the tiniest cogs in planetary functioning -- is "a complete unknown. We have no idea whether global microbial diversity is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same," says Dr. Thaler.
Example coverage
75 online news articles: 171 million potential impressions. Full news release, click here, coverage summary, click here
NOVEMBER 17, 2021
A Clean Ocean by 2030: United Nations Panel of Experts Charts the Most Direct Course
Interim goals for 2025 and an integrated ocean debris observing system exemplify demands of experts’ “Clean Ocean Manifesto”
Reducing marine debris by 50-90% and a globe circling, high-tech system of monitors are two essential aims among several championed today by nine distinguished international experts appointed to help the UN reach the goal of a clean ocean by 2030.
The Clean Ocean International Expert Group of the UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development will formally present its short list of activities and goals, and a strategy to reach them, in a “manifesto” at the outset of a three-day online conference on achieving a clean ocean, 17-19 Nov.
Example coverage
76 online news articles: 7.1 billion potential impressions. Full news release here; media coverage summary here
MARCH 18, 2021
Top electronics brands, global organizations launch alliance for circular electronics
Top electronics companies, together with a group of pioneering global organizations, today set a vision and roadmap committing to a circular economy for electronics by 2030. These companies include some of the world's largest consumer brands and represent nearly $6 trillion total market cap.
The global Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP) marks the first time experts, business leaders and global organizations will co-design solutions around this topic. This pre-competitive industry platform will establish a network of networks to elevate the action and ambition of the industry in a coordinated way.
Example coverage
75 online news articles: 136 million potential impressions. Full news release here; media coverage summary here
AUGUST 18, 2021
Scientists offer new insights on computer power growth, past and future
Researchers at The Rockefeller University have shed new light on “Moore’s Law” -- perhaps the world’s most famous technological prediction -- that chip density, or the number of components on an integrated circuit, would double every two years.
In fact, since 1959, there have been six waves of such improvements, each lasting about six years, during each of which transistor density per chip increased at least 10-fold, according to the paper, “Moore’s Law Revisited through Intel Chip Density.”
Example coverage
27 online news articles: 125 million potential impressions. Full news release here; media coverage summary here
JUNE 4, 2021
Global youth draft 'Blue New Deal' to protect oceans: 'Time to end generational injustice'
Concerned youths worldwide today delivered a policy vision for policy-makers to address the declining state of the world's ocean.
A carbon neutral economy, preserving biodiversity, achieving sustainable seafood production, and reforming ocean governance are the four fundamental pillars supporting policy recommendations debuted in the Global Blue New Deal, an ocean policy framework built around crowd-sourced youth priorities.
Example coverage
Distributed on behalf of UNEP colleagues
Emissions Gap Report
Adaptation Gap Report
International Methane Emissions Observatory report
Sustainable Urban Planning Handbook
Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction
#GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem Restoration for People, Nature and Climate report
Protected Planet Report
Terry Collins & Assoc. is a Toronto-based consultancy with affiliates in the US, UK, Africa and Asia specialized in global publicity of science-related research. Operating since 1996, Terry established the firm after nine years of news reporting (Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa) and 10 years of public service (Ottawa; UN).
To subscribe to releases: tc@tca.tc