🌍 3 March 2026 marks World Wildlife Day, which highlights wild animals and...

EU Environment and Planet 4 months ago

🌍 3 March 2026 marks World Wildlife Day, which highlights wild animals and plants and underlines the important role of medicinal and aromatic plants in human health and ecological balance.⁣ ⁣ The Greater Virunga Landscape, visible in this #CopernicusEU Sentinel-2 image acquired on 30 July 2025, comprises a transboundary network of protected areas in Central and East Africa. ⁣ ⁣ 🦍 It includes the @virunganationalpark in eastern Democratic Republic of The Congo, the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, and the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, as well as the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. ⁣ ⁣ Together, these sites form one of Africa’s most ecologically-rich regions, hosting around 2,000 species. Several of these species have been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. ⁣ ⁣ The landscape spans diverse ecosystems, including forests, savannahs, wetlands, and volcanic areas, which collectively support high levels of biodiversity and provide important ecological services.⁣ ⁣ 🛰️ Copernicus data support the monitoring of habitats and protected areas, enabling the long-term tracking of ecosystems, land-use change, and biodiversity conservation initiatives. #ImageOfTheDay album 🔗 in the bio!

layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 1 hour ago



The past quarter has marked a decisive turn for sustainable construction as regulatory and financial frameworks push towards measurable outcomes. The EU Deforestation Regulation now extends accountability across supply chains, compelling developers to verify the provenance of timber and other renewable building materials aligned with environmental sustainability in construction. The latest Environmental Performance Index exposes how far most nations remain from achieving net zero carbon and fully certifiable net zero Whole Life Carbon buildings, sharpening global focus on embodied carbon and the carbon footprint of construction.

Green finance guidance from the Green Finance Institute and WWF reinforces this transition by embedding biodiversity metrics and Whole Life Carbon Assessment into project reporting. Sustainable building design is now inextricably linked to fiduciary responsibility, with investors demanding verified lifecycle assessment data and credible environmental product declarations (EPDs). The incorporation of Life Cycle Cost appraisal and life cycle thinking in construction establishes a unified model where resource efficiency and circular construction strategies define investor confidence.

Operational resilience remains pivotal. Research on the inefficiencies of legacy financial systems underscores that decarbonising the built environment depends not only on low carbon design and low embodied carbon materials but also on digital workflows that enhance building lifecycle performance. The industry’s embrace of eco-design for buildings, Circular Economy in construction, and sustainable building practices signals a shift from aspiration to implementation.

Across markets, the environmental impact of construction and governance failures continue to test trust in green infrastructure. As scrutiny intensifies, sustainable design and carbon neutral construction are emerging as baselines rather than aspirations. The next phase of sustainable urban development will be defined by Whole Life Carbon transparency, robust BREEAM and BREEAM V7 frameworks, and quantifiable progress toward circular economy models that anchor low carbon building performance in verifiable data.

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