For the first time, a transatlantic flight operated by a commercial airline will be powered by 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) — a type of plane fuel that bears the promise of a much lower climate impact than traditional ones.
Traveling from London Heathrow to New York’s JFK, the flight, which is meant purely as a demonstration and will not carry any paying passengers (although it will carry scientists and media), is operated by Virgin Atlantic using a Boeing 787, with both its engines running on the fuel.
However, while Virgin Atlantic says that using SAF will reduce the aircraft’s emissions by 70%, critics say the flight is little more than a gimmick, and that the kind of SAF used by the plane will do little to clean up aviation’s climate impact.
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📸: Markus Mainka/imageBROKER/Shutterstock
Severe Himalayan flooding exposed systemic infrastructure risk, cutting Nepal’s hydropower output by more than a tenth and confirming that resilience is fundamental to sustainable construction and environmental sustainability in construction.
Catchment-scale planning, diversified energy portfolios and redundancy in critical systems must sit alongside siting, access and social equity to keep projects viable. Policy momentum is shifting toward integrating adaptation into core planning, with procurement and finance required to price climate risk across whole asset lives through whole life carbon assessment, lifecycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis.
Targets for whole life carbon and embodied carbon should be locked into briefs and contracts, with BREEAM and BREEAM v7 used to embed building lifecycle performance, life cycle thinking in construction and sustainable building design.
Reconstruction that embraces green infrastructure, nature-based buffers and community-led recovery can avoid the “build–break–rebuild” loop. Circular economy in construction, circular construction strategies and end-of-life reuse in construction should guide material choices, supported by environmental product declarations (EPDs), sustainable material specification and low embodied carbon materials to cut the carbon footprint of construction. Eco-design for buildings, low carbon design and resource efficiency in construction are now baseline for energy-efficient buildings, green construction and eco-friendly construction.
US safety clearance for a mile‑deep nuclear reactor design signals decentralised, climate-resilient, low‑carbon power for energy‑intensive cement and steel, hardening supply for data‑rich construction workflows. Reliable clean baseload can accelerate decarbonising the built environment, enable net zero carbon buildings and net zero whole life carbon pathways, support carbon neutral construction and deliver measurable carbon footprint reduction with renewable building materials and green building materials in low carbon building programmes.
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