Arla builds sustainable future on one of the world’s largest sets of climate data

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, arrived in New York last week on a solar-powered and emissions-free yacht after a 15-day voyage across the Atlantic. Along with her urgent message on climate change, Thunberg brings something that not many Americans are thinking about right now: flight shame. Thunberg is a non-flyer. She quit flying because of the greenhouse gases that are emitted during flights. Airplanes burn fossil-fuel based jet fuel and air travel is responsible for some 2 percent to 5 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, depending on whose numbers you use. 

It is always difficult to encapsulate a 12-month period, let alone the 365 turbocharged 24-hour news cycles that seem to have become the new normal. So much happens in the course of a year — from governments, companies, activists and many others — that it all becomes a blur. That certainly is true in the world of sustainability. From the launch of Loop, the circular economy wunderkind, in January to the colossal failure of COP25 in December, from the burning Arctic and Amazon to the dizzyingly weird weather, it’s another year of ups and downs, reasons for both optimism and despair.