“If I just look at my courtyard , three of my neighbors have an electric car" , says Christian Patermann, long-time program director at the European Commission and now internationally known as the “father of the bioeconomy”.

Maguy Soldevila is a former art teacher. Some years ago, she quit the frenzy and the pollution of the French city of Lyon to move into a typical house of the 1960s, in the small village of Sail-sous-Couzan.

As the COP26 United Nations climate change conference prepares to meet in Glasgow in November, there is an urgency to build on the aims of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global warming.

What if the house of the future could be built, dissasembled and rebuilt, as if it were made of LEGO? This is one of the solutions that experts in the building sector have imagined in order to fight climate change.

When dealing with bioplastics, definitions like “biobased”, “biodegradable” and “compostable” can generate confusion among consumers : this affects the way these materials are dealt with after use, resulting in a problematic waste management process.

What if we could turn the waste from the world’s crops into a biomaterial suitable for packaging? This is not science fiction. Today plastics can be made with the waste from tomato production , for example.

Low-cost interventions, big data analysis and new regulations on landfills are key factors for the smart management of waste in cities.

Bioenergy represents two-thirds of the energy produced from renewable sources in Europe, though biomass sustainability is not taken for granted.

Plastic products made of PVC, Polystyrene and other prominent plastics are flooding the market. They are a growing threat to the environment, as they are found in the sea or dumped in land fills .

Clean freshwater faces various threats such as increasing demand by population growth, pollution and changes in the hydrological cycle due to climate change.

Food processing of cereal and fruits creates a rather voluminous amount of by-products . The London, UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently estimated that anywhere between 35% and 50%--or 1.

Europe's tyre waste production is 3 million tonnes per year. Currently 65% to 70% of used tyres end up in landfills. Not only are they causing environmental damage, but a loss of added value in the form of new products that recycling can generate .

Recycling is now an important part of our economy. Today not only is recycling an important source of material for the production of consumer goods, but it also protects the environment and can save energy.

In Europe more than 12 million tonnes of mixed plastic waste are dumped on landfills every year, according to a report from NUMIX scientists. The recycling of plastic into usable products has proven difficult .