Imagine living in a building that once leaked heat in the winter and baked in the summer, now retrofitted to be a haven of comfort and efficiency.

With its engagement in an energy community and its environmental commitment, Lars von Trier’s production company Zentropa is just the tip of the iceberg.

It began with Angela Merkel. When the former German chancellor opened the borders to refugees in 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrians and others entered. Many are now settled all over the country.

It’s all about connection. This is the key to making a city “smart”, say the smart people working on the subject. And by “connection”, they mean not only the technological kind but especially the human one.

Put forty people in a room, all with a smartphone in their hand. Ask them to scan a QR code, redirecting to a set of questions like: “How much meat and eggs do you eat?” and “How often do you fly?” They will first start giggling, and speaking to each other to find their answers.

"Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on the eve of the recent COP15 in Montreal . "It's time to forge a peace pact with nature and stop this orgy of destruction".

When Hans was a kid, he used to spend his afternoons in his grandmother’s shop, watching the fish swimming in the big tanks where she kept them, waiting for the clients to choose the best ones for dinner.

17 th November 2022 - The city of Dresden – the second most populated city in Germany – has an important historical significance in the country.

“Wood may be present in people’s life more than we think”, says Mariana Hassegawa, a researcher at the European Forest Institute . She is one of the authors of a case study on new wood-based products by the BioMonitor EU project.

The artistic partnership of Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand started in 1996 in New York when they were in their early twenties. They were both born in the Soviet Union, Belarus and Russia respectively, and their paths crossed in the US city.

Where’s the best place to set up a factory in Europe? Athens , of course! As unexpected as it may seem, the Greek capital ranks first in a special list of 40 regions across the EU , for conditions ideal for the integration of renewable energy, notably solar, in manufacturing activities .

Renewable energy crowdfunding involves three different parties: the fundraising platform, the investors  who generally expect a return, and project developers needing money. They may come from different nations .

Fittingly, for an author who argues that connectivity is the key driver of growth in the modern age, Parag Khanna seems to have ties all over the world, and roots in many of the largest urban centres. ...

Across Europe, town and city councils are becoming increasingly interested in energy decentralisation , i.e. in producing power closer to where it is consumed.

If aliens were to examine a human, they would think we were just slavish organisms designed to feed microbes and carry them around. Our bodies contain ten times more bacteria than cells , and there are an estimated 3.

Investors look for a number of things before betting on a company or product in the bioeconomy sector: prestigious and experienced team, economic sustainability, competitive advantage, and potential users.

For innovation managers and startup advisors it is clear: scientists and researchers are not business people . "Much is dependent on the personality of the founder. A pure scientist will not be able to proceed.

The energy landscape in Europe is changing rapidly and the percentage of renewables is steadily increasing. For example, in Germany solar and wind power provided an average of 33% of the total electricity production in 2015.

South Africa is experiencing its severest drought in more than a century. Savannahs – grasslands scattered with trees and scrubs, which cover about half of Africa – are some of the most productive environments of the continent, supporting livestock and rural livelihoods.

There are three ways a crowdfunding project can be financed. Lending: the entrepreneurs borrow money and pay interest; equity: investors in the project become its shareholders; donations: no reward is to be expected (there is a fourth way, a mix of equity and lending called “hybrid”).