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@NASA climate scientists travel far and wide to study water in all its forms.
Celebrate #EarthDay by sharing a #GlobalSelfie with us – and bonus points if it’s near water!
Image descriptions:
1: A woman kneels down in the snow, wearing snowshoes and a bright orange jacket. She is looking down at a scientific instrument in her hands.
2: A man wearing a black leather jacket and brown shirt takes a selfie in front of a light blue glacier. Between the man and the glacier is a small area of patchy grass. A second person in the background is walking toward the glacier.
3: A woman sits on a wooden boat with her legs stretched out toward the camera. She is smiling and wearing a bright orange life vest. In the background is a light blue body of water. A blanket of white clouds cover most of the blue sky.
4: A woman sits on a tan-gray rock to the right of the image. She is wearing a deep purple colored shirt and black pants. One of her legs is tucked up while the other hangs off the side of the rock, and her arms are gently crossed. The woman is at a higher elevation than the background, so the landscape behind her can be seen a far distance. The landscape to the left of the image is a nearly flat ground in dark green, brown, and orange colors, and centered in the image is a lake which is reflecting the color of the sky off of it. Above the horizon, the sky is a bright blue color, but is covered slightly by sparse gray clouds.
A £400m UK government loan to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility tightens the link between embodied carbon and real forest outcomes. Bio‑based and renewable building materials will now be judged on credible, deforestation‑free supply chains as much as on glossy lifecycle assessment or whole life carbon assessment outputs, driving wider use of environmental product declarations (EPDs), green building materials and green building products. Expect stronger traceability, circular construction strategies and end‑of‑life reuse in construction when specifying low embodied carbon materials and low carbon construction materials to cut the carbon footprint of construction and support the circular economy in construction.
Updated damp and mould guidance from the Chartered Institute of Building and the Chartered Institute of Housing reframes indoor environmental quality as a health obligation, pressing social landlords towards whole‑house ventilation, insulation upgrades and continuous monitoring. The shift embeds sustainable building design and energy‑efficient buildings as compliance issues, with implications for life cycle cost, building lifecycle performance and net zero whole life carbon pathways recognised by BREEAM and BREEAM v7.
A new retrofit procurement guide uses public spending to expand capacity, create local jobs and tackle skills shortages by baking training and labour targets into contracts. This gives sustainable construction and decarbonising the built environment delivery teeth, promoting life cycle thinking in construction, resource efficiency in construction and eco‑design for buildings, alongside sustainable material specification and low carbon building upgrades that support carbon neutral construction.
Escalating climate risks—from European wildfires to transboundary smoke and cascading Himalayan floods—are accelerating environmental sustainability in construction and sustainable urban development. Design for resilience is becoming core to net zero carbon buildings and green construction, with fire‑hardening, smoke filtration, heat‑safe interiors and green infrastructure specified to reduce the environmental impact of construction, deliver carbon footprint reduction over whole life carbon and strengthen eco‑friendly construction and sustainable architecture.
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