Sustainability

In an effort to demonstrate the use of a construction material that is more sustainable than common alternatives, Dutch students have constructed a 14-m (46-ft) long footbridge out of hemp and flax fibers. The so-called "biobridge" is to be located in Eindhoven and will open this week.

The International Living Futures Institute has awarded the first full certifications for its Living Product Challenge standard to a desk chair and a sit/stand desk. The scheme recognizes products that are sustainably produced, improve our quality of life, are beautifully designed and functional.

New research focusing on a coastal rainforest in Canada has found that human occupation over thousands of years is causing the region to flourish, with a penchant for shellfish and need for warmth a big part the reasons why.

There’s nothing like a good shit show to bring in the tourists. The Shit Museum, or Museo della Merda, is a research and data-collection institute set in a medieval castle in Northern Italy that houses documents and information on excrement in culture, technology, science and history.

The team behind the Green Village has been bending bamboo into spectacular luxury villas in the Balinese jungle for years, so New Atlas ventured into the island's heartland to see how the pioneering architects at Ibuku are changing perceptions of this wildly abundant material.

Earlier this year, Ford unveiled its brand new EcoBlue diesel engine with fanfare of efficiency facts and savings stats. The engine isn't just efficient to run, but to produce too, with the new production line at its Dagenham Diesel Centre said to cut energy and water use by 50 per cent.

On the way to buildings that act like “large-scale living organisms”, scientists at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) are developing smart bricks which make use of microbes to recycle wastewater, generate electricity and produce oxygen.

After three years of construction work, Siemens has moved into its new headquarters in Munich, Germany. It has apparently cut its annual CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 5.6 million km of air travel, consumes 90 percent less electricity than Siemen's previous HQ and uses 75 percent less water.​

Researchers have developed a process that uses pig manure as a low-cost replacement for petroleum in the production of road asphalt. In searching for bio alternatives, the group discovered that swine waste is especially rich in oils very similar to petroleum suited for asphalt production.

In it's simplest form, cradle-to-cradle design sees products created with the recognition that, at the end of their life, they can be disassembled and their constituent parts reused to create other products. The non-profit Cradle to Cradle Products Institute has recognized six such products.

​Nike's newly-expanded European Logistics Campus covers 150,000 sq m (1.6 million sq ft) and allows the sportswear behemoth to serve its online, retail and wholesale customers across 38 countries from a single location. It also makes the firm more efficient, more responsive and more sustainable.

If humanity is to tackle the problems of a growing global population, increased urbanization, scarcity of resources and climate change, we have to rethink the way we live. The ReGen Village is aimed at doing this, by being built to be self-sustaining from the ground up.