Publications
WRI is committed to producing high-quality research, including reports, working papers, issue briefs, and fact sheets. Our publications are subject to peer review, and are held to traditional "academic" standards of excellence, such as objectivity and rigor.
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Featured Research
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Shining a Light on Electricity Governance
Since the 1990’s, international financial institutions have urged developing countries to liberalize the electricity sector in their countries to bring financial solvency to the sector.
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Robust, Recognizable, and Legitimate
A significant proportion of global energy use takes place within our homes. The appliances we rely on to wash our dishes, refrigerate our food, clean our clothes, and cool and heat our homes account for nearly 14 percent of global energy consumption.
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Scaling Success
As climate change threatens India’s food security, adaptation in the agriculture sector is becoming increasingly important. However, for too long, adaptation has been characterized by individual efforts and by small, time-bound pilot projects.
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Rolling out Electric Buses
by , , and -The Guidebook is a ready reckoner for transit agencies to help them adopt a calibrated approach to induct electric buses in their services. This is to ensure that the technology shift neither disrupts the quality of the bus service nor becomes burdensome for the transit agencies. Such a phased...
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Roadmap for Scaling Trees Outside Forests in India: Learnings from the Select States on Policy Incentives, Enabling Conditions, and Barriers
by , and -Growing trees outside forests (ToF) presents a significant environmental and economic opportunity in India. Nearly 80 million hectares can sequester 3.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Gt CO2e) by 2040 to help India achieve its international climate commitments. Expansion of ToF systems...
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Food Loss and Waste in India: The Knowns and The Unknowns
by , , , and -The estimated economic value of post-harvest losses in India was INR 926.51 billion (USD 15.19 billion) in 2014. While this is an underestimation of overall food loss and waste in India, India ranks only 94th out of 107 countries on the 2020 Global Hunger Index. Any amount of food loss and waste...
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Accelerating Innovation in Urban Service Delivery in Indian Cities: Lessons from TheCityFix labs India
by , and -Amidst a rapidly expanding population, Indian cities are unable to keep pace with the growing demand for efficient and adequate urban services especially in the sectors of water, waste and energy. This practice note looks at the WRI India approach of developing a powerful value accelerator...
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Synergizing Land Value Capture and Transit-Oriented Development: A Study of Bengaluru Metro
by , , , and -The Government of Karnataka and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation are exploring ways to offset the heavy economic burden of expanding the metro rail transit network in Bengaluru. Land value capture (LVC) is a public financing strategy that can recover a portion of the real estate value that...
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Potential Impact of Corporate Climate Action in India
by , , and -As climate commitments and initiatives by non-state and subnational actors increase globally, a better understanding of their potential impacts can help draw better projections to support better climate policy planning and implementation. Many large Indian businesses have committed to ambitious...
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Restoring Landscapes in India for Climate and Communities
by , , , and -Restoring landscapes can bring economic, environmental, and social prosperity to people and the planet. In the Sidhi District of India’s Madhya Pradesh state, the opportunity is massive. By adapting the popular...
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How Electricity Distribution Companies In India Can Work With Commercial And Industrial Consumers For Renewable Energy Procurement
by , , and -As a result of a multitude of factors, such as national and international commitments to Renewable Energy (RE), falling RE prices, government regulation promoting RE, and the advent of sustainability targets, Commercial and Industrial (C&I) consumers all over the world have begun to actively...
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Understanding the Impact of Bus Aggregators on Urban Mobility in India’s National Capital Region
by , and -Demand-responsive bus services provided by technology-led companies are a recent entry into the transportation ecosystem in cities across the world. Known as bus aggregators in India, these companies are capitalizing on limited mobility options in India’s expanding cities. Bus aggregators...
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Implementing Demand Aggregation for Rooftop Solar Systems in Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprise Clusters
by , , and -India has 63.3 million Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs). 31% of these are manufacturing units, which account for 25 percent of the industrial sector’s energy consumption. Advancing the implementation of clean energy measures in the MSME sector can play a key role in India’s...
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Assessing Clean Energy Opportunities Through Demand Aggregation in Bengaluru’s Apartment Buildings
by , , , , and -India has ambitious renewable energy targets, a portion of which must be met through rooftop solar in residential buildings. Major Indian cities are seeing a trend towards gated apartment buildings (or apartment complexes). In these buildings, apartment residents share common areas that provide...
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Towards Smarter Service Provision for Smart Cities
by , , , , , , , , and -India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world and urbanisation is both a challenge and an opportunity for India with huge implications for the rest of the world. One critical concern for India’s urbanising future is the provision of basic urban services for all its citizens. Using a...
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Here Comes the Sun
by , and -This working paper documents residential consumers’ experiences with solar rooftop PV systems. The data is captured through household surveys conducted across five Indian cities. The study is an attempt to understand the challenges faced by residential consumers at various stages of their...
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Prepared Communities
by , , , and -Climate change affects poor and marginalized communities first and hardest. Particularly in cities, a lack of access to basic services, a long history of unsustainable urban development, and political exclusion render the urban poor one of the most vulnerable groups to climate induced natural...
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From Planning to Action
by , , , , and -As extreme weather events become more frequent and stronger, it is critical that policymakers and development practitioners incorporate climate change adaptation objectives into their sectoral policies and plans. This process, called mainstreaming, has the potential to improve the resilience of...
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Ahmedabad: Town Planning Schemes for Equitable Development — Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
by , and -This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” examines transformative urban change in Ahmedabad, India, by analyzing the land pooling and readjustment mechanism called Town Planning Scheme (TPS). This paper reviews the evidence on whether the TPS mechanism has...
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Pune: Civil Society Coalitions, Policy Contradictions, and Unsteady Transformation
by , , and -This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” examines the processes of transformative change and the conditions both enabling and inhibiting it in Pune, the second largest city in Maharashtra state, India. Many initiatives across diverse sectors have had a positive...
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State-led Alternative Mechanisms to Acquire, Plan, and Service Land For Urbanisation in India
by , , and -- Rapidly urbanizing Indian cities need mechanisms to ensure that land is acquired, planned, and serviced with adequate infrastructure and social amenities, to prevent the occurrence of haphazard urban expansion and under-provisioned inner-city areas.
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MAPTenure: Enabling Tenurial Clarity for Orange Areas of Central India
by , and -More than half the villages of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are affected by a peculiar issue of tenurial ambiguity called “orange areas.” This issue impacts nearly 1.2 million hectares and 1.5 million, largely poor, landless and tribal families, that depend on these lands for food, fuel,...
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Reducing Risk, Addressing Climate Change Through Internal Carbon Pricing
by and -A growing number of businesses around the world are turning to internal carbon pricing as a tool to manage climate-related risks and transition to a low-carbon economy. There are early signs that internal carbon pricing is making inroads into progressive Indian businesses as well. But the early...
