With the UK currently set to crash out of the European Union on 31 October, Britons are particularly worried about their food supplies .

Surfing has a dirty secret: surfboard production techniques are often at odds with the sport’s eco-conscious image. Most modern surfboards are a sandwich-like construction: a polyurethane foam core – known as a blank – coated in a fibre-reinforced composite.

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is a major part of the fourth industrial revolution and it will transform the construction sector, according to Zoubeir Lafhaj , an expert in the future of construction, from the graduate engineering school École Centrale de Lille, in France.

The 43-story Strata tower in London was one of the first buildings in the world to incorporate wind turbines into its structure. It has three small turbines – each with a rated capacity of 19 kilowatt hours – built into its roof.

Part of the issue with small-scale, home-based renewable energy systems is that initial setup costs can be high. This puts such installations out of reach for some sectors of society, even if they could benefit financial in the long run with lower household bills.