Italian citizens burned their energy bills, huge crowds took the streets of several French cities and Spanish workers rallied for higher salaries.

Bulgaria has not had the most auspicious of years in terms of its commitment to a green transition. In January 2023, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to backtrack on plans for an early phase-out of coal-fired power plants.

Batteries are unanimously seen as key drivers of the energy transition .

Each year over 3.5 million tourists from all over the world visit Pompeii to admire the ruins left by the eruption of the Vesuvius that, in 79 AD, engulfed it together with the nearby city of Herculaneum.

A strong increase in coal-fired electricity generation and the biggest ever year-on-year increase in global electricity demand caused the global power sector's CO2 emissions to reach an all-time high in 2021 .

In architecture, there are two kinds of sustainability: one simpler, smaller, and ethical in its relationship with the environment and with people; and another which is “fashionable”, used as a label in a speculative way, without an understanding of what it really means.

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.

The global transition from an economy underpinned by fossil fuels to an economy powered by renewable energy is well underway. The pace of that transition, however, has come under scrutiny – especially at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Francesco is an Italian lawyer. He lives in Rome and is now about to move into a new apartment. “It’s a way to get closer to my office,” he says. “I don’t have a car, I just ride bicycle.

Carlos Bárcena, head of R&D Projects at the Spanish construction Company  DRAGADOS .

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 .

A new Directive, dubbed the energy performance of buildings Directive (EPBD), brings the new concept of net -zero energy buildings (NZEB) meaning buildings with a zero energy balance that have a better level of energy performance than the standard energy efficiency requirements in current building codes.

The biomass found in forests represents an abundant, renewable, and low cost resource that does not compete with food production. It can play an alternative role to petroleum derived-resources and thus reduce oil dependence.

Going from modern energy efficient houses to historic buildings must have been a big leap for you.

Window refurbishments stand out as a viable approach to dramatically reduce energy loss. As their first case of study, the project’s researchers chose to upgrade the windows of the ‘Waaghaus’ (Public Weighing House), a building located in Bolzano, Italy, that is over seven-century-old.