Business

CLG Europe’s Materials & Products Taskforce has released a new report in partnership with the Wuppertal Institute on the urgent need for more circularity in the EU critical raw materials market. The report, “Embracing circularity: A pathway for strengthening the Critical Raw Materials Act,” is a direct response to the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which was published in March 2023.

Consumers in the richer, developed nations will have to accept restrictions on their energy use if international climate change targets are to be met, warn researchers.

Unused solar, wind, and hydroelectric power in the U.S. could support the exponential growth of transactions involving non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Cornell Engineering researchers have found.

Thyssenkrupp’s green hydrogen unit Nucera made a strong debut on the Frankfurt stock exchange Friday, amid growing interest in the technology as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Countries around the world are seeking innovative solutions to reduce carbon emissions while meeting energy security and economic development needs. From rooftop photovoltaics (PVs) to offshore wind, creative energy generation sources have solved challenges associated with typical renewable energy sources such as land use restrictions and geographical constraints.

The UK’s housing stock is old, energy inefficient and heavily reliant on fossil fuel heating systems—mainly gas boilers. With heating responsible for 17% of the UK’s carbon emissions, homes and their central heating must transform if the country is to achieve net zero by 2050.

Countries around the European Union are looking at reforms of energy subsidies, to encourage more sustainable energy use and to accommodate the higher prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These countries should be careful and considerate of the effects these reforms may have on the firms and productivity in these countries, researchers from Radboud University warn. Their study of an energy reform in Iran in 2010, published in Energy Economics, identifies some challenges that can come with such reforms.

We are seeing the biggest changes in our energy and transport systems since industrialization. By 2026, global renewable energy generation is expected to match total fossil fuel and nuclear output. Building the wind and solar farms, batteries and electricity networks we need to run our system on renewables will use a huge array of mined minerals, known as “transition minerals.”

Many companies reduce emissions when manufacturing their products or compensate for emissions. By doing the math, it appears that both strategies might help the environment to the same extent. But do consumers differentiate between these measures when buying products and services? A study by Kühne Logistics University (KLU), Universität Hamburg, and the University of Tennessee shows: Yes. Consumers are willing to pay significantly more for products when companies reduce their own emissions, rather than just offsetting them.

People who work from home and heat more than one room will prompt significantly higher carbon emissions than those who work in an office, new research from the University of Sussex Business School has found. The researchers are calling on home-workers only to heat the rooms they need, and on governments to help people live in more energy efficient homes.