Take in the northern Great Barrier Reef 🪸 Located in Australia, the Great...

NASA Climate Change 2 years ago

Take in the northern Great Barrier Reef 🪸 Located in Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest reef system in the world. Coral reefs are one of the most important ecosystems in the world. Together they support over a quarter of all known marine species, protect coastlines during storms, and help local economies through fisheries and tourism. However, decades of data, collected in part from @NASA’s airborne and satellite missions, show that corals are declining rapidly. Human actions, like burning fossil fuels, are shifting our global climate by warming the air and ocean. But that isn’t the only way: Pollution and physical damage from ships and divers also play a role. Satellites provide scientists with important information on the environment around coral reefs, including ocean temperatures and water quality. This helps them understand changes to corals over time. Image Descriptions: A satellite image of the northern Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The water is a dark blue with the reefs are turquoise in color. In the second image, the reefs are labels top to bottom Undine Reef, St Crispin Reef, Rudder Roof, Opal Reef, Tongue Teef, and Batt Reef. #CoralReef #EarthFromSpace #NASA #ClimateChange #GreatBarrierReef

layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 2 hours ago



Water scarcity, risk and resource viability are now defining sustainable building design as much as appearance. A growing sense of environmental sustainability in construction is visible in projects from the US Mountain West to the Indian Himalayas, where planners integrate hydrology and slope stability into site plans to reduce disaster exposure and asset loss. The shift signifies a broader acceptance that low carbon design and whole life carbon assessment are as fundamental to feasibility as cost and aesthetics.

Corporations are scaling sustainability at pace. The Redmond tech campus redevelopment demonstrates how net zero carbon buildings and eco-design for buildings can underpin business resilience through intelligent water reuse, energy-efficient buildings and circular construction strategies. In housing, mixed-income models in cities such as San Diego and New York are proving that sustainable construction can deliver both affordability and compliance with stricter embodied carbon and lifecycle assessment standards when capital and permitting align.

Policy inconsistency threatens this momentum. Fragmented energy-transition frameworks and material certification regimes make it difficult to benchmark building lifecycle performance or achieve consistent carbon footprint reduction across markets. Unified regulation and robust environmental product declarations (EPDs) would enable supply chains to invest confidently in low embodied carbon materials and renewable building materials, reinforcing the circular economy in construction.

The industry’s leading edge is now characterised by whole life carbon accountability, life cycle cost optimisation and sustainable material specification. Designing for risk, climate and local ecology while embedding BREEAM and BREEAM v7 principles ensures that green construction moves beyond aspiration into measurable performance. The emerging model of low carbon building and carbon neutral construction signals genuine progress toward decarbonising the built environment and achieving net zero whole life carbon across sectors.

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