Tokyo 2020’s Recycled-Metal Medals: From Donated Electronics to the Podium
Photos: Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images, Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
Sustainability & Everyday Choices
What happens to an object before we buy it and after we throw it away? Sustainability connects those stages to energy, materials and the systems around us. Explore practical ideas and wider environmental questions, looking for meaningful benefits rather than taking a green label at face value.
Greta Thunberg's For Nature Film: Food, Climate and Pandemics
Originally published 2021-05-25. On 22 May 2021, the International Day for Biological Diversity, Greta Thunberg released a five-minute sh...
How Solar and Energy Savings Paid for Teacher Raises in Batesville
First published March 26, 2021. The Batesville School District in Arkansas paid for teacher raises by cutting its energy bills. After a 20...
LAVO Hydrogen Home Battery: How It Works and the Three-Day Claim
Originally published 2021-03-19. LAVO is an Australian company that, in early 2021, launched a home energy system storing surplus rooftop...
Paris Firm Turns Abandoned Underground Car Parks Into Mushroom Farms
A parking garage is an unlikely place to look for dinner. In Paris, however, the space beneath the street became the setting for La Caverne,...
Crochet Shorts Made From Upcycled Vintage Afghan Blankets
Crochet shorts made from old afghan blankets are exactly what they sound like: a vintage crocheted throw, often a granny-square or zigzag d...
Michael Chaney's Stimulus-Check Garden in East Tampa
When the first COVID-19 stimulus checks arrived in 2020, Michael Chaney of East Tampa, Florida, decided not to spend his on something he wo...
Ingka’s Georgia Forest Purchase: What Conservation Management Means
Swedish furniture firm IKEA is making strides to combat its ecological impact by purchasing almost 11,000 acres of protected forest in t...
United Downs: How the UK's First Geothermal Power Plant Works
Originally published 2021-01-15. In January 2021, the United Downs Deep Geothermal Power project near Redruth in Cornwall signed its first...
California Water Futures Explained: What the NQH2O Contract Does
First published December 11, 2020. On December 7, 2020, CME Group began trading futures contracts linked to the price of water in Californ...
City of Sydney's 100% Renewable Electricity Deal Explained
First published July 29, 2020. In July 2020 the City of Sydney council began buying 100% renewable electricity for everything it runs: tow...
Elsa Tiny House: 323 sq ft on Wheels With a Porch and Greenhouse
First published June 13, 2020. The Elsa is a tiny house on wheels built by Olive Nest Tiny Homes, a small family builder. The house itself...
Paper Bottles From Paboco: What Carlsberg and Coca-Cola Tested
Originally published 2020-05-30. The "paper bottle" backed by Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, The Absolut Company and L'Oréal is real,...
Shipping Container Home Built Debt-Free: Jaimie and Dave's Story
Originally published 2020-05-26. Dave and Jaimie Hinckle built their home in Cowlitz County, Washington, from two shipping containers: a 4...
Aldi Ireland's Switch From Plastic to Compostable and Paper Bags
In late October 2019, Aldi Ireland announced it would stop offering single-use plastic bags in its 139 stores in the Republic of Ireland an...
Himalayas Seen From Punjab During India's 2020 Covid Lockdown
Originally published 2020-05-11. In early April 2020, people in Jalandhar and nearby towns in Punjab, northern India, climbed onto their r...
Are Giraffes Endangered? Red List Status and the 2025 Species Split
First published April 30, 2020. Are giraffes endangered? The answer depends on which giraffes you mean. In 2016 the International Union fo...
SirPlus: Berlin's Rescued-Food Supermarket and What Happened Next
Originally published 2020-04-25. SirPlus was a Berlin start-up that sold "rescued" food: products that farms, wholesalers and sup...
Capsula Mundi: The Burial Pod Concept and Tree Urns Explained
Capsula Mundi is an Italian design project that imagines a cemetery turned into a forest. Its best-known image shows a body curled inside a...
COVID-19 and the European Green Deal: Did the Pandemic Derail It?
In spring 2020, with Europe in lockdown, a real fear spread among environmental groups: that the economic shock of COVID-19 would push clim...
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Cartoonist Pablo Stanley turned John Lennon’s Imagine into a webcomic in which each line of the song is paired with a drawing of people fr... -
Brad Pitt did not write the famous list of twenty marriage tips that circulates under his name. The real author is Gerald Rogers, a Brigham... -
First published January 14, 2017. Many people who describe themselves as empaths say they feel tense, tongue-tied or worn out around someo... -
"Who are you?" is the question at the heart of I Am Nature , an 81-second campaign film made for the conservation group WWF and p... -
First published March 14, 2017. Thyme cannot cure strep throat, herpes, a yeast infection or the flu. That is the honest answer to a claim ...
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Originally published 2017-12-02. "If you love her, don't destroy her" is the title of a widely shared 2017 letter by the Leb... -
If you want a home workout that needs no equipment, five moves cover almost the whole body: the plank, the squat, the bird-dog, the glute b... -
Originally published 2017-02-09. Letting go means deciding to stop carrying something that drains you: an expectation, a grudge, a habit o... -
Originally published 2020-04-27. "Weightless" is an eight-minute ambient track by the Manchester band Marconi Union , written wi... -
In early 2018 a young Thai woman named Atittaya Chumkeaw drew attention online for something simple: she kept posting happy photos with her...