Analysis by insurer Aviva reveals that 11% of the 396,602 new homes in England built between 2022 and 2024 were built in areas of medium or high risk of flooding, while more than a quarter (26%) have some flood risk. While comparable statistics have not been published since 2022, Aviva said its assessment showed the number of homes built in flood risk areas has accelerated as housebuilding increases. The problem is particularly acute in and around the capital, the analysis reveals.
As Big Tech faces criticism for the environmental impact of artificial intelligence, companies have said the technology will actually help solve climate change. But those claims often lack scientific evidence, a new report finds. And when touting the climate benefits of AI, tech companies conflate "traditional AI" with the more environmentally harmful generative AI, a form of "bait-and-switch" that amounts to greenwashing.
A few years ago, Ketan Joshi read a statistic about artificial intelligence and climate change that caught his eye. In late 2023, Google began claiming that AI could help cut global greenhouse gas emissions by between five and 10 percent by 2030. This claim was spread in an op-ed coauthored by its chief sustainability officer, and subsequently quoted across the press and in some academic papers.
Parties on both sides of a long-running debate over the California Public Utilities Commission's controversial overhaul of rooftop solar regulations are anxiously awaiting a ruling from the state's court of appeals. Depending on what conclusion the justices reach, the decision may alter the rate of compensation that at least some of the roughly 2 million Californians with solar installations on their homes and businesses receive when their systems generate excess electricity.
Data published by the insurer Aviva reveals that of the 396,602 new homes recorded by the Ordnance Survey in England between 2022 and 2024, 43,937 are in areas of medium or high risk of flooding, while 26% of new homes have some risk of flooding.
Citizen Zoo Volunteers across London are being enlisted to grow a threatened wildflower vital for bees, butterflies and rare moths, in an effort to stop one of the capital's rarest plants from disappearing. Conservation group Citizen Zoo launched the project to restore tower mustard, which is thought to survive at only two sites in the capital and about 30 in England. Volunteers will cultivate the herb at home before it is replanted at locations across Greater London.
Goiânia has launched a fleet of electric bi-articulated buses in regular passenger service, deploying 21 high-capacity Volvo BZRT vehicles supported by a new dedicated charging hub. The Brazilian city has introduced 16 articulated and 5 bi-articulated battery-electric buses built on the Volvo Buses BZRT chassis and bodied by Marcopolo (Attivi model). The vehicles operate within the RMTC metropolitan public transport network, alongside the inauguration of the Eletroposto Oeste charging facility located at the METROBUS S.A. depot.
And what we're seeing here today is a project that gives us a glimpse of a kind of new economy that we want to build, a fairer economy where people can have ownership over their own community energy assets like this here. Now, here we've got solar panels and in other places that might be batteries and other projects are looking at different technologies. But this is all about giving people, not just in London, but across the country, real ownership over these energy assets.
waste stream works differently: used cooking oil. Restaurants, hotels, and food manufacturers produce oil that can be collected through structured channels and handled responsibly, yet many businesses still follow traditional disposal methods. Over the past decade, demand for biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has increased as renewable energy targets have tightened. Used vegetable oil has become an established feedstock. Some businesses are still operating under older assumptions, not fully aware that professional collection provides an efficient and compliant solution for this type of waste.
The recent announcement that the Peninsula Open Space Trust has purchased the final 2,284 acres of Sargent Ranch marks a historic turning point for Santa Clara County. This acquisition officially ends the decade-long threat of the Sargent Ranch Quarry, an industrial project that would have irreversibly damaged one of our region's most sensitive landscapes. This victory is not just a win for land conservation, but a monumental achievement for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, which has long fought to protect Juristac, a sacred ceremonial site.
As a high school student, motivated by the desire to keep useful items out of landfills, William Chui built an online store where users could shop for free, pre-used clothes and household wares. When he arrived at UC Berkeley as a freshman last fall, he learned about the piles of waste generated when students moved out of their dorms which the city then has to contend with.
Mexico's construction sector faces significant environmental and social challenges. The widespread use of carbon-intensive materials has positioned the industry as a major contributor to national CO₂ emissions. At the same time, construction labor conditions remain unstable, with limited access to technical training and high occupational risk. CORNCRETL, developed by MANUFACTURA, proposes a circular material strategy that addresses both environmental impact and production models within the building industry.
Button cell batteries are the small, flat, round batteries found in watches, hearing aids, car key fobs, calculators, and medical devices. Although they are tiny, these batteries contain valuable materials that can be recovered and can harm the environment if not handled or disposed of correctly. The main challenge in recycling button cells is their small size and the difficulty of sorting them.
I'd been on the island for less than a week when I opened my glove box looking for sunglasses, only to find the wrapper of my emergency granola bar torn open and the corner nibbled, right next to a neat little pile of mouse droppings. As I inspected the rest of the car, I was mortified to realize it was likely more than a single mouse. I texted the friend I was housesitting for in disbelief. "Ugh, I'm sorry! That's so island," she wrote back.
Since the pandemic, offices around the world have quietly shrunk. Many organisations don't need as much floor space or as many desks, given many staff now do a mix of hybrid work from home and the office. But on days when more staff are required to be in, office spaces can feel noticeably busier and noisier. Despite so much focus on getting workers back into offices, there has been far less focus on the impacts of returning to open-plan workspaces.
Authorities in Cyprus have urged residents to reduce their water intake by 10% the equivalent of two minutes' use of running water each day as Europe's most south-easterly nation grapples with a once-in-a century drought. The appeal, announced alongside a 31m (27m) package of emergency measures, comes as reservoirs hit record lows with little prospect of replenishment before the tourist season starts.
The wolves arrived in May of last year, just days after Paul Roen had driven his cattle back up to their summer pasture in Northern California's Sierra Valley. He started finding the bleeding bodies of calves-some still alive, so badly paralyzed that they'd need to be shot. After weeks of this, Roen finally saw a kill himself. "One wolf grabbed a cow and spun her around, while another grabbed a calf," he told me. "He tore it into three pieces in 30 seconds."
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"I think it's really important to think about this as just another way that we are dealing with death," said Green-Wood President Meera Joshi. "If you look throughout history, there's been so many different ways between cultures and over time on how people memorialize death. In some senses, this is the original way. It just has the benefit of technology so it can happen faster."
