How to Do a Sustainable Home Remodel

Transition to Zero Pollution is one of the first initiatives of Imperial’s Academic Strategy. The initiative will foster systems-thinking, discovery science, transformational cross-disciplinary research, technology and innovation to create and translate holistic socio-technical solutions to pollution in all its forms, including carbon dioxide. We will build on work being done to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and deliver net-zero carbon, and go beyond that to build a sustainable zero pollution future.
Find out more: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/zero-pollution/

Virgin Orbit is one step closer to getting approval to launch satellites from Guam, a US island territory in the Western Pacific.
The Federal Aviation Administration on August 27 released its final environmental assessment that found “no significant impact” for Virgin Orbit to conduct launches using its Boeing 747-400 carrier aircraft and LauncherOne rocket from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.
William Pomerantz, Vice President of special projects at Virgin Orbit, was quoted saying that the favorable environmental review marks a “significant step towards achieving our launch license for orbital spaceflight from Guam. We’re very grateful to the team at the FAA for the constant dialogue as we have moved through the process.”

The shift to Industry 5.0 could lead to job losses if workers are not retooled and reskilled, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has warned. In a special supplement titled, “Capturing the Digital Economy: A proposed measurement framework and its applications,” experts also said shifting to Industry 5.0 from Industry 4.0, however, would still lead to increased consumption and job opportunities if workers are able to adapt. “Data suggest that, while effects of technology improvements observably reduce labor demand as a result of substitution, positive job impacts coming from consumption and new labor requirements may compensate,” the ADB said.

We need to find a way to reduce waste, and the answer could be moving to a circular economy, which seeks to design out wastage by making use of byproducts and reusing materials. “The circular economy is an excellent way to deal with many of the major crises that we are facing,” says Anne Velenturf, a circular economy researcher at the University of Leeds. “Producing stuff takes a lot of energy, and if we make better use of our products then we also save much of the carbon embodied in them.” Half of the world’s insulin comes from this factory in Kalundborg, Denmark, and its production relies on vast fermentation tanks full of yeast broth. Manufacturer Novo Nordisk passes its spent yeast slurry to Kalundborg Bioenergi to make biogas. “Any leftovers, you can put on the fields as fertilizer,” says Kalundborg Bioenergi CEO Erik Lundsgaard.