sustainability

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Can health-related food taxes green our diets?

In a world increasingly concerned with both health and environmental sustainability, the way we eat plays a critical role. However, in our search for solutions for better health and a sustainable planet, we often find ourselves at a crossroads where the decisions we make can have significant trade-offs. This delicate balance between promoting human health and minimizing environmental impact is a central challenge of our time, one that requires careful consideration and informed choices. In our research we investigated whether policies such as food taxes can help the consumer make more healthy and sustainable food choices.

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100 years, 10 themes, 1 BirdLife

The BCI Centenary Collections 2022 marks 100 years since the founding of the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP) – now BirdLife International, the largest international partnership for nature conservation.…

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Making gratis greener

In 2020 Cambridge reviewed our policy of providing print copies to Editorial Board members of Cambridge-owned journals. In our Q&A with Ella Colvin , Director of Publishing – Journals, reflects on this project and our plans for a greener future.

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What’s the beef with beef?

It’s fair to say that beef is getting a bad press at the moment. Hundreds of column inches have been dedicated to the argument that – whichever way you slice it – beef is bad for the planet.…

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Large-scale battery storage: Challenges and opportunities for technology and policy

Could a large-enough battery cushion the swings in wind and solar power? And can renewable energy be trusted, or are we just seeing technical challenges to implementation? In a recent review article published in MRS Energy & Sustainability, energy experts weigh in on these questions and consider the challenges and opportunities for technology and policy in relation to large-scale battery storage. The article also addresses a fascinating case study from South Australia, which currently houses the world's biggest battery.

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Greening the Dark Side of Chocolate

A Qualitative Assessment to Inform Sustainable Supply Chains Fundamental changes are visible around the globe; part of Mozambique was recently flooded, large Californian forest areas have burned, and glaciers are shrinking.…

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Making city infrastructure more resilient

The systems that help us heat and cool our homes, provide drinking water, take away our garbage, let us communicate instantly with one another and enable travel — collectively known as infrastructure — will need to be designed differently in the future to become more sustainable and resilient.

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Engineering nature to make materials

New research published within MRS Bulletin explores how materials engineers are 'hacking life' using synthetic biology. This exciting new research could lead to sustainable solutions that benefit the health and technology industries.

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Hydrogen: fuel of the future?

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. And as the race to find energy sources to replace our dwindling fossil fuel supplies continues, hydrogen is likely to play a crucial role.

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The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability

How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability

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Waste not, want not: A Chicago sustainability story

The story of Chicago’s development is inextricably linked to its relationship with the natural environment, beginning 16,000 years ago when an enormous glacier sat on (and flattened) the land. Ever since, urban planners and policymakers have grappled with how to manage a city built on flat, swampy land, and what to do with the animal and human waste that accumulates in urban environments.

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Hedging in the Anthropocene: the risks and rewards of a fossil fuel versus a photovoltaic energy supply

The climate is changing. We have left the Holocene and entered the Anthropocene, the era in which human enterprise is pushing the planetary functioning of essential cycles (e.g. of CO2) into a potentially unstable regime. Human enterprise, by burning fossil fuels for electrical, heat and motive power is the central cause of climate change, and is driven by an economic system that promotes insatiable consumption.

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