With many nations making efforts to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, SciLine interviewed Erin Baker, a professor of industrial engineering and operations at UMass Amherst. Baker discussed the technological, political and regulatory efforts needed for this transition, as well as ways that our fossil fuel-dependent system disproportionately ... read more

After a weekend marathon “vote-a-rama,” the U.S. Senate gaveled through a 50 to 51 party-line vote to approve a monumental piece of legislation: the Inflation Reduction Act—the IRA. While the bill is not yet law, it’s likely that it will be approved by the House and signed by the President ... read more

As Ikea aims to become “climate positive,”  the retailer is considering every aspect of its business, from whether it can rent furniture in a circular model to how the cargo ships that deliver its products can eliminate emissions.  The company’s long list of emissions sources also includes how customers get ... read more

If all living organisms on Earth evolved from a single cell 3.5 billion years ago, it stands to reason that they’re a lot alike. And, scientists have noted that fungi are characteristically even closer to animals than plants—which helps Eben Bayer, cofounder and CEO of MyForestFoods, argue that fungi are the ... read more

After his daughter was born, Alon Cohen couldn’t stop thinking about the number of diapers the family was sending to landfill. In the past, he and his wife had taken out the trash once a week; now it was every other day. “I started digging into the numbers, and it ... read more

By Tristan McKenzie, Camilo Mora, and Hannah von Hammerstein Climate change can exacerbate a full 58% of the infectious diseases that humans come in contact with worldwide, from common waterborne viruses to deadly diseases like plague, our new research shows. Our team of environment and health scientists reviewed decades of ... read more

During a trip to Thailand on his honeymoon, while swimming above a coral reef, Wil Srubar was thinking about the beauty of nature—but he was also thinking about cement. In the reef, microalgae were growing calcium carbonate, a key material used to make cement, the glue that holds together concrete. ... read more

Out of the more than 80 million single-family homes in the U.S., roughly 1,000 have geothermal heat pumps from Dandelion Energy, a startup that spun out of Google. (Another 1,200 have the heat pumps on order.) But it’s likely that number will grow quickly—and that the company will expand out ... read more

This story is part of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2022. Explore the full list of innovators who broke through this year—and had an impact on the world around us. In 2019, Maxine Bédat went rummaging through a mountainous, burning landfill site outside of Accra, Ghana, as it belched ... read more

This story is part of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2022. Explore the full list of innovators who broke through this year—and had an impact on the world around us. As employees at Starbucks cafés around the country ramped up their efforts to unionize this past winter—on the ... read more

In what seems like excellent news, coral cover in parts of the Great Barrier Reef is at a record high, according to new data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. But this doesn’t necessarily mean our beloved reef is in good health. In the north of the reef, coral ... read more

Navigating the investment landscape is increasingly complex. Supply chain issues, soaring inflation, rising energy prices, spiraling cost of raw materials—the list goes on. Increasingly, “alarming” levels of global biodiversity loss—or, in investment-speak, the permanent destruction of natural capital—must also be taken into account. In fact, the situation has reached a ... read more

If you live in an apartment, you probably don’t have solar power. You obviously don’t own your building’s roof, and since tenants typically pay their own electric bills, property owners wouldn’t get the cost-saving incentive that comes with installing solar panels. Karolina Attspodina [Photo: We Do Solar]While it’s possible for ... read more

Climate change is already affecting much of the world’s population, with startlingly high temperatures from the Arctic to Australia. Air pollution from wildfires, vehicles, and industries threatens human health. Bees and pollinators are dying in unprecedented numbers that may force changes in crop production and food availability. What do these ... read more

Texas is known for fiercely promoting its oil and gas industries, but it’s also the No. 2 renewable energy producer in the country after California. In fact, more than a quarter of all the wind power produced in the United States in 2021 was generated in Texas. These projects benefit ... read more