5 Stunning Low or Zero Energy Buildings
The built environment contributes to nearly half of all global CO2 emissions each year. The lion’s share of this environmental impact belongs to the day-to-day running and energy needs of our buildings such as homes, offices, schools, or hospitals: The building operations, including their energy consumption, accounts for approximately 27 percent of the world’s annual CO2 emissions. […]
6 Sustainability Lessons from the World’s Happiest City
“[T]he role of the city is to make the lives of the people as easy and pleasant as possible,” said former Helsinki mayor, Jan Vapaavuori. For many of the 1.3 million residents of the Helsinki metropolitan area, daily life unfolds like a symphony of Nordic beauty and urban grace. In this city, serenity marries sophistication, as vast green parks […]
Exploration With Ethics: Top 5 Trends in Ecological Hotels
As one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the world, tourism accounts for 10 percent of the global economy and provides one in every 10 jobs. In addition to economic growth, international travel promotes cultural exchange, infrastructure development, social inclusion, and even environmental and wildlife conservation. Nevertheless, all these come with an ecological price: […]
Bamboo Boom: 5 Brilliant Architecture Projects Made of Bamboo
There’s only one material in the world that can be used in cooking, making musical instruments, cosmetic products or textiles, and making wind turbines: Bamboo. It’s described by the iconic Japanese architect Kengo Kuma as “the material of the future”. Bamboo is booming as a construction material, and for a good reason: By far the fastest-growing plant in […]
Urban Rewilding: How These 5 Cities Brought Nature Back to the City
Due to the skyrocketing urbanization, industrialization, and population growth globally, our planet is losing its biodiversity at an alarming rate, faster than at any time in human history. Since the beginning of the 20th century, as the cities kept booming, the average population of indigenous species in the majority of significant ecosystems has declined by […]
What Modern Cities Can Learn From London’s Deadly Smog of 1952
“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river where it flows among green airs and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city … Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog […]
