Sustainable Urban Development
With cities expected to host about 70 percent of the world's population, sustainable urban development is key to making communities worldwide more resilient against the growing threat of climate change. Find out about the latest urban practices from across the world aiming to make our cities more sustainable and inclusive in these good-news stories from The Optimist Daily.
Community and the environment get a boost with NY freeway transformation
Many urban highways from the 1950s and 1960s were deliberately built through neighborhoods primarily occupied by people of color, effectively walling these families off from economic opportunity and disrupting their sense of community. These same roads also increase the risks of air pollution for Read More...
All new homes in England will be fitted with EV charging points
Electric vehicles are a greener alternative to traditional petrol- or diesel-powered vehicles, however, a major deterrent for drivers who are considering switching to electric is the lack of EV-charging points, meaning that drivers are plagued with “range anxiety,” or are, in other words, Read More...
Popcorn may be the next sustainable building material
Popcorn is more than just a tasty snack to munch on while at the movies—it may soon be widely used as a natural and eco-friendly alternative to man made home insulation. Scientists at Göttingen University in Germany have discovered that popcorn insulation boards had “excellent thermal Read More...
The EU proposes law that bans major products linked to deforestation
Last week, the European Commission proposed new legislation to ban the import of many key commodities if companies cannot definitively prove that their products aren’t linked to deforestation. Otherwise, these companies can expect to receive a hefty fine. The commodities under investigation Read More...
Could you build a net-zero city? This game lets you find out
More and more cities and countries are pledging to achieve net-zero emissions, but this task isn’t as easy as it seems. Some strategies, like installing renewable energy sources and electrifying public transport, are intuitive, but what about private households and emissions from landfills? To Read More...
How these 3 apps are tackling food waste in Canada
Anyone who works in the restaurant, catering, or supermarket industry will know that food waste is a gigantic problem. Too often, day-old baked goods and food items that have sat on the shelves beyond their expiry date are disposed of and end up in the trash. According to this 2019 report by the Read More...
AI has helped design the chickpea of all chickpeas
AI has helped humans achieve a lot of things; from predicting seizures, to completing Beethoven’s unfinished 10th Symphony. Its latest endeavor: designing the ultimate chickpea. Although these pulses are a thoroughly understood crop, the genome of most varieties is not well sequenced. An Read More...
Planners reimagine former coal power plant into a 15-minute neighborhood
As countries around the world make net-zero pledges in a bid to tackle climate change, many are phasing out coal as part of their green energy transition. This means that there’s an increasing need to find new uses for former or soon-to-retire coal plants. With that said, there are already a few Read More...
Winners of international James Dyson Award 2021 announced
Every year the international James Dyson Awards take place, where designers have to come up with new-problem solving ideas. Previous winners have included an at-home breast cancer detection box, a plastic alternative made from fish waste, and an urban wind turbine. The bar is set high for Read More...
7 takeaways from COP26
The 26th annual United Nations climate change summit has officially come to a close. We shared a few updates along the way about coal pledges, carbon-neutral countries, and Indigenous forest protection, but now that COP26 is wrapped up, let’s take a broader look at what the summit Read More...