COP17 provides business leaders in the country with a great platform to learn from global stakeholders as well as provide lessons from Armenia. We spoke with Ralph Yirikian, General Director of Ucom, about sustainability leadership and how the time has come for real action.

A short drive outside the capital of Armenia, the Armenia Tree Project (ATP) has spent three decades doing in practice what many will be discussing within the Blue and Green Zones of COP17. We spoke to the team at this organization and asked them directly how it connects to the COP17 agenda.

Hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Armenia marks a historic milestone in international cooperation and environmental diplomacy. Professional interpretation plays a crucial role in enabling delegations, scientists, decision-makers, and other stakeholders to communicate effectively across borders. Finding shared solutions to protect biodiversity takes more than just exchanging knowledge – it requires clear, dependable communication across languages. 

Ahead of CBD COP17 in Yerevan, we spoke to Gevorg Machanyan, Chairman of the Management Board and Executive Director at ArmSwissBank, about their two decades of sustainable finance and the growing role of banks in protecting Armenia’s natural capital.

In this op-ed written for Regional Post’s COP17 issue, Dr. Tiffany Grabski, Head of the SSE Academy at the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative, explains why stock exchanges hold the key to mobilising private capital for nature.

We see the public face of COP17, featuring meetings, events, workshops, and discussions. But a lot of work takes place in the background, where experts work diligently to develop the right strategies, produce accurate reports, and help inform policymakers on key topics. We learned more about this from Alla Aleksanyan, a biodiversity and environmental policy professional with two decades of experience in science, policy and practice.

Ahead of COP17, Hambardzum Matevosyan discusses preparations for the conference, Armenia’s environmental reforms and the outcomes he hopes will endure after international delegations leave Yerevan.

TrustConf2026 by imID, an annual conference dedicated to digital trust, was held in Yerevan for the first time, bringing together representatives of the public and private sectors, financial and telecommunications industries, the technology community, businesses, and international experts.

An invitation to the Mestia International Short & Mountain Film Festival took our film critic away from the familiar circuit of European premieres and into Georgia's high Svaneti, a region of medieval towers, legendary climbers and tables that dissolve into song. What she found was less a festival than a place that refuses to be consumed quickly.