7 Technologies Powering Renewable Growth in 2023
It’s a wonder humanity isn’t powered 100% by alternative energy technologies with just how many innovations there are. The green energy sector is booming, driven by demand and falling prices. It’s causing companies to think even bigger and more imaginatively to find creative solutions to power the world through a green...
3 Things a Climate Scientist Wants World Leaders to Know Ahead of COP27
Andrew King, The University of Melbourne World leaders and climate experts are gathering for pivotal United Nations climate change talks in Egypt. Known as COP27, the conference will aim to put Earth on a path to net-zero emissions and keep global warming well below 2℃ this century. The world must rapidly decarbonize to avoid...
Benefits of Debt-for-Climate Swaps
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley spoke passionately to the United Nations General Assembly in September about the mounting debt many developing countries are shouldering and its increasing impact on their ability to thrive. The average debt for low- and middle-income countries, excluding China, reached 42% of their gross...
3 Amazing Technologies That Help Make Drinking Water Safer
Clean drinking water is essential to maintaining your general health. Going without clean drinking water for too long can cause lasting health problems and make you extremely sick. Fortunately, new technologies make it easier to drink water anywhere you go without worrying. Please continue reading to learn about three amazing...
AgTech Steps in to Meet Carbon Credit Demand, Expected to Hit $50B by 2030
Environmental efforts that have been a major part of every major government and organization around the world for the past years. Of these efforts, carbon credits have proven to be one of the most popular and effective means of countering climate change by allowing groups and individuals to offset their emissions. Now, carbon credits...
U.S. Grants $2.8 Billion to Boost EV Battery, Mineral Production
Today the Biden administration is expected to announce about $2.8 billion in grants to spur the domestic manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries and needed mineral production. A White House official confirmed the plan to a Reuters reporter and elaborated on the administration's plans. Also on the slate is the official launch of...
OAC is Creating the Model for the Future of Construction Intelligence
Technology in the construction industry has been evolving for over 6,000 years. As one of our most basic necessities, construction and architecture chart back to the earliest days of civilization during the neolithic age. While leaps in knowledge and application eventually led to the creation of mysterious pyramids, towering castles,...
Net Zero Water Challenge Innovations Spring Forward
Emission-cutting innovations from three global technology leaders are being accelerated through the UK water sector, thanks to new collaborative platform Spring. Technologies from Siemens, Xylem and Cobalt Water Global are being mobilized through a collaboration of 10 water companies as part of the first Spring Accelerator...
Virtual Reality Platform ecosphere Releases New 360° Doc 'Sea of Islands' with the United Nations
ecosphere, the award-winning documentary title from immersive technology studio PHORIA, and Meta Quest, will today release brand new 360° content in partnership with the United Nations. Since its initial launch in 2020, ecosphere has wowed Meta Quest users with intimate natural history films, produced with the World Wide Fund for...
Ice World: Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier is Under Assault from Below and Losing its Grip
Ted Scambos, University of Colorado Boulder Flying over Antarctica, it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about. Like a gigantic wedding cake, the frosting of snow on top of the world’s largest ice sheet looks smooth and unblemished, beautiful and perfectly white. Little swirls of snow dunes cover the surface. But as you...
50 Years of UN Environmental Diplomacy: What’s Worked and the Trends Ahead
Mihaela Papa, Tufts University In 1972, acid rain was destroying trees. Birds were dying from DDT poisoning, and countries were contending with oil spills, contamination from nuclear weapons testing and the environmental harm of the Vietnam War. Air pollution was crossing borders and harming neighboring countries. At Sweden’s...
While Many Solar Roofing Options Make Big Promises, GAF Energy’s Timberline Solar™ Delivers
Modern solar roofing options are getting a lot of attention lately. In addition to rack-mounted, bolted-on solar panels, sleeker designs have emerged, like edge-to-edge glass solar tiles. These new products are making bold promises, but so far, many have failed to deliver. Enter Timberline Solar™: a new solar roofing product from...
How Is AI Changing the Environment for the Better?
Significant investments and research developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have made the technology a powerful asset in many industries — including environmental studies. AI isn’t a new technology, but businesses and consumers feel its impact and witness it seep into everyday life. It’s turning into a ubiquitous...
Who is Leading the Way to Sustainability in Travel Tech?
Sustainability is at the forefront of peoples’ minds more than ever before, and with the 2021 COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Scotland still fresh in our collective psyche, travelers are looking for ways to enjoy a much-deserved vacation that doesn’t put unnecessary stress on the environment. These leaders in sustainability are...
Converting CO2 to Sugar: Air Company’s Winning Plan
The Air Company in New York has won first place in NASA's CO2 Conversion Challenge. The competition was for competitors to come up with a way that CO2 conversion could allow future inhabitants of the planet to manufacture products using Mars’ atmospheric carbon dioxide and water as resources. In hopes that someday we can sustain life...
How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Bryant Jones, Boise State University and Michael McKibben, University of California, Riverside Geothermal energy has long been the forgotten member of the clean energy family, overshadowed by relatively cheap solar and wind power, despite its proven potential. But that may soon change – for an unexpected reason. Geothermal...
What Do 10,000 Companies’ Climate Plans Reveal?
A group of researchers seeking data have assisted 10,000 different companies, which are backed by some of the world’s largest investment firms. What are they assisting with? Navigating and understanding businesses’ climate change plans. TPI's Goals The Transition Pathway Initiative and London School of Economics are teaming up...
Robotic Food Delivery? It’s Coming
Imagine ordering out from your favorite short-order restaurant half-asleep, pining for that first cup of coffee. The delivery arrives, you look up — and find a robot with your order. And these robotics don’t have arms … “Make that five cups of coffee,” you probably want to say — just to drive this surreal dream out of your...
Green-Powered Musicians: The Ultimate Unplugged Music
Longtime traveling musician-storyteller Jason Walsmith and his wife, Emma, got around the pandemic shutdown by playing shows anywhere they could set up — which is to say, everywhere. The secret? A van power system unlike any other. Sidelined Like many touring and recording musicians, Jason Walsmith found himself suddenly...
Going Green at the Tokyo Summer Olympics
First published in the Winter 2021 issue of Sustianability Today. When it finally arrived a year late, the Tokyo Summer Olympics proved to be an amazing two weeks of world and Olympic record-setting performances, a number of huge surprises, one great feat after another. As Olympics should be. But these Games also featured something...
An Infrastructure Bill with a Sustainable Twist
When Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, they also ushered in something new — a major commitment to a clean energy future. For the past decade, we’ve experienced quite a few unsettling things, including crumbling roads and bridges, highways that badly need expansion to alleviate city traffic, and the terrible ways...
How Brad Pitt’s Green Housing Dream for Katrina Survivors Turned Into a Nightmare
Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation built 109 eye-catching and affordable homes in New Orleans for a community where many people were displaced by damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now this housing development is in disarray. The vast majority of the recently constructed homes are riddled with construction-related problems...
Manchester Powers Global Innovation — Making New Thinking A Reality
Manchester, the city that drove the original Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century, is powering innovation across global markets and our journey toward a Net Zero future. With a metropolitan economy worth £62.8 billion (GVA) ($85.6 billion USD), it’s one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities and home to thriving business...
4 New Year’s resolutions for a healthier environment in 2022
Viniece Jennings, Agnes Scott College When many people think of New Year’s resolutions, they brainstorm ways to improve themselves for the year ahead. What if we expanded those aspirations to include resolutions that benefit our communities, society, and the planet, too? It might not be a typical approach, but it can broaden...
Tornadoes and Climate Change: What a Warming World Means for Deadly Twisters
John Allen, Central Michigan University The deadly tornado outbreak that tore through communities from Arkansas to Illinois on the night of Dec. 10-11, 2021, was so unusual in its duration and strength, particularly for December, that a lot of people including the U.S. president are asking what role climate change might have played...
3 Overlooked Industries Helping to Push Renewable Energy and Sustainable Resources Forward
There’s no doubt we have reached a point of climate crisis. The decisions we make and actions we take as a society now could have grave consequences for our planet. As a technologically and scientifically advanced society, you might think we have the tools we need to counter issues and thrive in the decades beyond. But it’s not...
In the fight against climate change, China is doing more than you think — but still not enough
Phillip Stalley, DePaul University When it comes to climate change, no nation is more important than China. It consumes more coal than the rest of the world combined, and it is the leading emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for nearly 30% of global emissions. Unless China takes rapid steps to control its greenhouse gas...
Bringing Paper and Fiber Products Full Circle with Sustainable Innovation
Today’s consumers are eco-conscious in their expectations of brands. The long-used manufacturing model of producing, using, and discarding packaging and products is now unacceptable. In fact, the majority of Millennials (71%) and Gen Zs (67%) say addressing climate change should be a top issue, however, 60% of Millennials and Gen Zs...
How Manchester is making material gains for cities of the future
Manchester’s international reputation for innovation is entering new realms — with an ambitious community of experts, next-generation materials, new investment, and big plans for the future. Recognized as one of the most innovative cities in the world, the city that was at the center of the Industrial Revolution, is delivering...
Anthony Cross’ Love of Sustainable Innovation Gives a Fresh New Look at Electric Motorcycles
When the pandemic hit, Anthony Cross faced a daunting choice: do I keep publishing Salt magazine, or venture into something equally or more beneficial for the community? The Colorado-based publisher leaned into his lifelong love of cars and desire for a more sustainable world and hit upon an idea — a new way forward in electric...