In the late 1980s, the German-born chemist Michael Grätzel literally tied his name to an invention that is hailed as a  revolution in renewable energy .

“History will remember this day,” said Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, moments after the green-topped gavel, symbol of the Paris talks, was dropped on what is considered the most ambitious deal on climate change that the world has ever seen.

European homeowners remain resistant to undertaking efficiency measures. Widespread incentives, regulations and policies concerning energy efficiency are making modest gains. In the U.K.

Whenever you eat strawberries, does your throat start to swell and itch? Do you also get a burning or prickling sensation in your lips, gums, tongue or inside your cheeks? Or perhaps drinking milk ...

Traditionally our electricity grids were designed to move power from large nuclear and fossil fuel power plants to consumers, but renewable energy will see changes to allow smaller power generation from wind and solar to be hooked up to the grid.

“The building sector is responsible for more than 30% of global energy demand and round about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions”, says Peter Graham from the Global Buildings Performance Network in Paris.

In Europe, households are responsible for 32% of greenhouse gas emissions and 42% of energy. Cement production alone contributes to 5% of manmade CO 2 emissions .

The worldwide energy consumption of buildings is expected to grow by 45% from 2002 to 2025, according to the SMART 2020 study carried out by the international NGO The Climate Group.

Producing food in a sustainable way is one thing. Making sure that it is wrapped in a sustainable packaging is another issue that also needs to be addressed.

Retroffiting older buildings has become an industry in its own right in Europe. To compete, various players need to innovate.

The marine aquaculture sector has grown continuously over the past years, according to the FAO’s world review of fisheries and aquaculture.

Ecosystem services are free, but often hidden. They include pollination and killing of crop pests by beneficial insects. Now, QuESSA , an EU-funded research project, due to be completed in 2017, will try and increase the visibility of such services.

A looming threat overshadows the extraordinary variety of life forms known as biodiversity – plants, animals and microorganisms that contribute to the delicate equilibrium of our planet.

From homeless, anonymous guy to TV star, at least for one day. Alexandre has appeared on French media , sitting on a bridge in Lyon, while inviting passers-by to give him money by scanning a QR Code with their smartphone .

Éric Lenoir  describes himself as a “punk gardener”.  Wherever he is called to work, he first takes the time for observation.

Maxime Lebigot is a nurse. Back in 2016, he and his wife Elodie had their first child . They were very happy, but when they moved to Laval, a town of some 50,000 inhabitants in north-western France, they soon realised that no doctor was available to take charge of him .

Calin lives in the Romanian city of Cluj. He suffers from melanoma and his mother died from colorectal cancer, aged 58. “It took two months just for a colonoscopy,” he recalls.

Batteries are unanimously seen as key drivers of the energy transition .

“Wood may be present in people’s life more than we think”, says Mariana Hassegawa, a researcher at the European Forest Institute . She is one of the authors of a case study on new wood-based products by the BioMonitor EU project.

“ At the end of last year, we were so overwhelmed that we had to start rejecting new membership demands .” Dirk Vansintjan is a board member of EcoPower , a Belgian renewable energy cooperative, founded in 1991.