Sustainable Islamic Finance

This chapter proposes an Islamic blended finance structure for water and sanitation in Nigeria. The rising shortage of water, sanitation, and basic hygiene facilities pose a threat to the development of Nigeria and its people. A large segment of the Nigerian population in both the urban and rural communities lacks access to improved water and sanitation facilities. Open defecation is widespread in many parts of the country.

Currently, our consumption-driven society contributes to the production of a large quantity of waste every day in urban environments. Low recycling rates pressurize city authorities to handle waste more sustainably. Despite this pressure, waste management systems have paid little attention to the urban planning processes, compared to other sectors like energy or water.

Since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, it has been a 5-year journey of trial-and-error experimentations all over the world to come up with innovative solutions beyond business-as-usual and get the job done. In this paper, we assess blockchain-backed solutions beyond the hype.

The production and consumption of electrical devices are rapidly growing and generating social, economic, cultural, and scientific benefits globally. In addition, this rapid growth leads to an increase in the amounts of disposal, obsolete, defected, or broken devices, which calls for strategic action in e-waste management. On this regard, nine out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are with targets relatively linked to e-waste management.

The world is facing unprecedented ecological, social, and economic imbalances and insecurities. Over the last few years, a circular economic system is emerging and introducing means and processes to learn from nature and minimize all types of wastes. It espouses a zero-waste economic system that calls for moderation in consumption and better treatment of natural resources, which mirrors Islamic finance and economy principles.

The United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development provides a blueprint for peace and prosperity for the people and planet through 17 goals. The fundamentals of the teachings of

Crises and disasters, man-made or natural, prove to be an opportunity from which mankind can benefit and take lesson to learn to be conscious of Allah’s blessings and care for its rights. One of the lessons learnt is that capitalism is naturally driven by profit maximization actions that have adverse effects to our surroundings. This economic hegemony has led to environmental problems, which pose threats to humankind livelihood.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region are highly vulnerable to climate change. With ongoing rapid and competing development in diverse economic sectors, such as infrastructure, healthcare, sports, and education, amongst others, innovative financing approaches are needed to secure the necessary financing required to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the region. Climate finance is critical to achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives.

The relationship between financial development and energy intensity is yet to be firmly established as the literature develops, and the few empirical studies conducted provide conflicting results. While some conclude that there is a U-shaped relationship between financial development and energy intensity, others show a linear relationship between the two variables.