All Posts

The pooch with the longest name in the world discovers the joys of insect protein food...

....and it is in the Netherlands. I recently holidayed there with my wife, Sandy, for a month - enough time to enjoy the Dutch way of life and see what we are missing.

Looking Backward to Move Forward, written by Martin Parkes, Urban Transport Specialist: Martin shares his reflections on a career in the urban transport space. He outlines lessons learned, priorities, and considerations for building a greener, healthier relationship with how we move.

I have really struggled with choosing a floor material that has the right balance of affordability, durability, and sustainability. There are so many options! When I started exploring them online, I quickly recognized the differences in cost, durability, and environmental impact are astonishing. There is a lot to consider.

When undertaking a house build project, there are lots of ways to dress up the exterior of your home. When pursuing rural builds, timber cladding is a clever way to help a home to blend into the landscape. However, when cladding is part of the design, then comes a sometimes overwhelming choice: what sort of cladding should I use? Timber is a renewable resource, but is it the most sustainable? The most practical? The best value for money? 

About 3 and 1/2 years ago. My husband had a very concerning blood test in which we discovered that his cholesterol was surprisingly and frighteningly high. My husband decided to go strictly vegan for 6 weeks.

You've probably seen this statement if you read sustainability news: going fully vegan could reduce the carbon footprint associated with the food you consume by up to 73%. However, many sources misquote this statistic, and state that going vegan could reduce your overall carbon footprint by up to 70 or 80%. This is not true.

Clothing and textiles are responsible for 35% of microplastic pollution. Approximately 50% of our clothing is made from plastic: polyester, acrylic and nylon, primarily. On average, 700,000 fibers can be shed from our synthetic clothes in any typical wash. These fibers are less than 5 mm long and flow, with our waste water, into our rivers, lakes, and oceans. Water treatment facilities cannot capture the majority of these fibers, as they are too small.

Heat pumps are more expensive to install than gas boilers, even with help from the boiler upgrade scheme. But, with gas prices rising, they can offer cost savings on your annual energy bills of roughly 25%, or £350 based on average usage at today's prices.

The scientific community has previously underestimated, or, at a minimum, failed to document the interconnectedness of plant and pollinator systems. Because we have traditionally undervalued these relationships, agricultural interventions have long had unintended consequences on processes we took for granted, like pollination. Pollination is important to the plant lifecycle. Pollination ensures that crops are able to reproduce, providing us with the edible parts of the plant

Porous paving is a method of giving structure to the ground for the purposes of providing vehicle access. Could it be the alternative to tarmac or asphalt-based road surface materials you've been looking for? Porous paving is a method of providing a structural base for a road or path, but leaving space between the structural elements, allowing plants to continue growing across the road surface.

Pasta is quite an important subject in Italy. Italian companies produce on average 3.6 millions of tons of pasta each year, and Italians eat approximately 23 Kg each per year. Given the rise in gas prices and increasing awareness of the impact our food consumption has on the environment, many have rediscovered a way of cooking pasta that was used more than 300 years ago, in the eighteenth century.

With the world chasing meat replacements, and a fair share of that coming from soy protein, a lot of people are scratching their heads wondering about the impact of this excess demand for soy products. After all, soy production is associated with habitat loss and deforestation in Latin America. So, on the whole - is soy sustainable?

As farming methods have evolved in the age of industrialization, we've moved away from community-based farming in which small, diverse farms supported local needs. As yields have increased, our ability to feed a global population has increased. But, ironically, in connecting crops to a broader audience, we've lost our community.

Solar farms have generated quite a bit of controversy in recent elections. They can be hotspots for passionate debate between those supporting the shift to sustainable, renewable energy at scale and those wanting to preserve arable land for agricultural use. In this article, we look specifically at the proposal for a solar farm in West Welwyn, in Hertfordshire's Green Belt, and break down the research that underlies points in favor and points opposed to the installation.

What is Modern Slavery and what does it have to do with Sustainability? In this article we look at the most common forms of Modern Slavery, evaluate the latest research on where Modern Slavery is happening and the scale of those being exploited. We also explain what individual consumers can do to reduce demand for goods produced unethically.

In the wake of the needless death of Tyre Nichols in US police custody, many of us are taking time (again) to think about the role social justice plays in our desire to live more sustainably. How does social justice fit in? And what can we do to help promote equity and inclusion?

Doughnut Economics is the first ever economics “page turner” I’ve ever encountered. Admittedly, I am wicked nerdy, but even I am often lulled into a lovely afternoon nap when reading economic texts. Doughnut economics gripped me from the outset, though, by addressing some of the most pressing questions that have been circulating in my own mind over the last 20 years since achieving my economics degree: how logically can GDP continue to grow indefinitely? Why do we assume that

Does going vegan mean honey is off the menu? Or, if my food choices are made in hopes of driving positive sustainable outcomes, should I eat honey in order to secure the future of honeybees? In this article, we look at the research related to declines in pollinator populations, what it could mean for future food security, and how demand for honey as a food crop impacts pollinator populations as a whole.

In this video, we explore how different farming methods, particularly those that have evolved to increase productivity and reduce the cost of food are impacting the environment, particularly looking at long-term soil health. We review the research on global agricultural practice and provide guidance as to how individual food choice can shape the future.