When Dean Spatz began his introduction-to-engineering-design class as a sophomore at Dartmouth in 1963, reverse osmosis, the process of filtering water through a semipermeable membrane, was only four years old. Working with a team, Spatz used RO to create a … Continue reading →
From Solid Conference 2015: From “ecosystem” strategies to the war on terror, from the copyright wars to the subprime lending industry, it seems like everyone wants to build an Internet of Treacherous Things whose primary loyalty is to someone other … Continue reading →
How does a single streetscape project turn into a community-wide energy independence effort? Tiny Bloomfield, Iowa, discovered the answer with the help of RMI’s eLab Accelerator. A team from Bloomfield attended the 2015 Accelerator at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, … Continue reading →
The Amazon is home to more species than almost anywhere else on earth. One of them, carried home recently by a group from Yale University, appears to be quite happy eating plastic in airless landfills.The group of students, part of … Continue reading →
Newark, New Jersey is about to get a giant vertical farm that produces millions of pounds of greens for local customers. A vacant steel factory in Newark is turning into the world's largest-producing vertical farm. After it begins running later … Continue reading →
New data released by the Department of Labor shows that raising the minimum wage in some states does not appear to have had a negative impact on job growth, contrary to what critics said would happen.In a report on Friday, … Continue reading →
There’s increasing environmental awareness among some Tea Party members who see conservation as a conservative value. The Texas Observer’s Carl Lindemann reports that some southern Tea Party members label themselves “green conservatives,” advocating that clean energy can work within the … Continue reading →
Helping deliver on sustainable social development outcomes that drive human progress should be the topmost priority for businesses, says David Kiu, vice president of sustainable business and communications, Unilever. In the pursuit of profit, companies often lose sight of environmental or … Continue reading →
When Christine Fisk toured a foreclosed home in Phoenix that had been renovated to be more energy-efficient, she wasn’t sold on its environmental benefits. But the two-bedroom bungalow was just minutes from her office and in good shape, so the … Continue reading →
hina has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s top economy. But in taking a few examples from China, as well as investing in jobs that stay in America and taking steps to insure economic stability for the majority of American … Continue reading →
Want to lower greenhouse gas emissions, get fit, and create new jobs? Ride a bike. That’s the finding of the first comprehensive study on Europe’s cycling industry, which details a cycling economy that employs more than 655,000 people in industries … Continue reading →
Every time fossil fuels get cheaper, people lose interest in solar deployment. That may be about to change. After years of struggling against cheap natural gas prices and variable subsidies, solar electricity is on track to be as cheap or … Continue reading →
Renewable energy development and implemented energy efficiency measures are responsible for 70% of the the drop in US carbon dioxide emissions seen since 2007 (when a slow decline began), according to a new report from Greenpeace. The findings stand in … Continue reading →
It is easy to forget that once upon a time all agriculture was organic, grassfed, and regenerative. Seed saving, composting, fertilizing with manure, polycultures, no-till and raising livestock entirely on grass—all of which we associate today with sustainable food production—was … Continue reading →
As the world’s leading climate scientists finalize the latest and most comprehensive report on climate change and ways to tackle it, a key question is: What is new? What has changed since the release of the UN climate panel’s last … Continue reading →
For over three decades, David Fenton has played an unusual role in the environmental movement: marketing it. The company he founded, Fenton Communications, has worked with everyone from Nelson Mandela to MoveOn.org. It recently managed an anti-fracking campaign for Yoko … Continue reading →
Rooftop solar PV will reach grid parity in 50 US states by 2016 – up from just 10 now – setting the scene for a dramatic increase in the uptake in household and commercial rooftop solar in the world’s biggest … Continue reading →
Sustainability is a bittersweet term in that it embodies one of the most transformative forces in business today and yet at the same time its very familiarity has led to some world-weariness with the topic. Some say that is because … Continue reading →
The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time by Paul Connett (Chelsea Green 2013) is about 100% waste recovery and reuse, the new gold standard in recycling. Connett’s new book summarizes the state of play of … Continue reading →
The push to divert virtually all material from landfills and incinerators is strongest in Europe, but it has also gained a foothold in the U.S. Zero waste goals are increasingly being embraced by progressive communities and companies that see value … Continue reading →
