In broad daylight, law enforcement officers raid a warehouse on the outskirts of the city of Sukhumi in Abkhazia, a Russia-backed breakaway Georgian region. No one's there; no drugs or weapons either. Only a large cooling cabinet containing dozens of electronic devices. This is a cryptocurrency mine.
A video of the raid was posted in December by the Abkhaz press service, one of many it has posted to YouTube since 2021. Crypto mining is banned in Abkhazia, yet for years this energy-intensive industry has flourished, attracted by the region's cheap hydropower.
For Abkhazia, it comes at a cost. The region typically faces seasonal power shortages as water levels drop in the winter, but they have become more disruptive because of crypto mining, which is sucking up electricity 24 hours a day.
What's happening in Abkhazia is extreme but it's indicative of a global trend. The crypto industry, while always volatile, is booming and is hungry for power. "Electricity is the largest cost input to crypto," said Theresa Sabonis-Helf, an energy security professor at Georgetown University.
To get their hands on it, many miners — both illegal, like those in Abkhazia, as well as legally-operating companies — are looking to places where they can tap into cheap electricity, often those with plentiful renewables. Experts warn it can come at a cost for local people, exacerbating shortages and diverting clean energy.
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The sustainable construction sector has demonstrated measured progress this week, with multiple projects advancing low carbon design principles and reinforcing a global shift toward environmental sustainability in construction. The UK finalist for the Earthshot Prize has attracted international attention with its “upcycled skyscraper” concept. The project exemplifies how sustainable building design can decarbonise cities by reusing existing structures rather than rebuilding, cutting embodied carbon in materials and reducing the overall carbon footprint of construction. It shows that net zero whole life carbon targets are achievable when adaptive reuse is supported by rigorous whole life carbon assessment. This approach represents a pivot away from demolition-led development and towards truly circular construction strategies.
G F Tomlinson’s completion of the Barnsley College University Centre modernisation delivers a tangible demonstration of sustainable building practices rooted in lifecycle assessment. The retrofit has safeguarded the building’s Art Deco heritage while integrating a low carbon building methodology that promotes energy-efficient buildings and greener infrastructure. By retaining the original structural frame, the project has cut the embodied carbon of construction, proving that low carbon construction materials and renewable building materials have comparable performance to conventional options when guided by life cycle thinking in construction. The work also highlights the significance of BREEAM and emerging standards such as BREEAM v7 in defining measurable sustainability benchmarks.
In Cambridgeshire, work is commencing on the £500 million Medworth Energy from Waste facility, a major investment designed to support a functioning circular economy in construction and energy supply. Through combined heat and power systems, the development will assist future net zero carbon buildings by providing renewable energy outputs while applying whole life carbon methodologies to reduce lifecycle emissions. Although energy-from-waste has detractors, its integration with eco-design for buildings reinforces its potential as part of wider carbon neutral construction strategies that prioritize resource efficiency in construction and whole life cost management.
At the global level, the announcement of the Earthshot Prize finalists underscores that sustainable design and green construction principles now define the benchmark for engineering relevance. With emphasis on embodied carbon reduction and net zero carbon pursuits, these initiatives promote sustainable urban development grounded in measurable environmental product declarations (EPDs) and transparent assessment of the environmental impact of construction. The shift signifies a maturing understanding that building lifecycle performance is fundamental to both commercial resilience and global climate commitments.
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