Each season the fashion industry surprises with new fabrics in a myriad of colours. Producing multi-coloured textile, however, has an environmental cost. Indeed, heavy polluting dyes find their way to the textile industry’s waste water .

Compared with modern hybrids, traditional crop varieties are not only cheaper and easier to access but also more genetically diverse and therefore more resilient to environmental stress such as lack of water or nutrients.

“ Water and Sanitation Services in Europe.

From 13th to 16th September 13 to 16 Barcelona hosted the 2011 ISEE (International Society for Environmental Epidemiology) congress.

Nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are  a double-edged sword . As key components of fertilizers, they are  essential for life on Earth, but become a threat to human health and the environment when they are in excess and run off into water courses and wastewater.

When we throw a plastic bottle in the right waste container, we feel virtuous because we have done our part for the environment. However, we cannot imagine the huge effort that will be needed to ensure that our bottle is effectively recycled.

“If I just look at my courtyard , three of my neighbors have an electric car" , says Christian Patermann, long-time program director at the European Commission and now internationally known as the “father of the bioeconomy”.

In his song ‘ Concrete Jungle ’, the reggae legend Bob Marley sang wistfully about being trapped in a dense and oppressive urban environment ‘where the living is hardest’, all the while longing for the ‘sweet life’.

What do cucumber, almonds, onions and avocados have in common? Besides being potential ingredients for your next salad, all those plants need pollinators to reproduce : animals that move pollen from the male part of the flower to the female one.

As part of the Green Deal presented by the EU Commission last year, the bloc now proposes raising emissions-reduction targets to 55% of 1990 levels, with a 40% cut in greenhouse gases over the same period.

Would you enjoy a city full of parks, where streets were tree-lined, where cycling and walking were pleasant, a city with grass-insulated roofs on houses and public buildings to keep you warm in winter? According to a Eurobarometer study , there is an 84 per cent chance that your answer is yes.

Urban green spaces provide several benefits beyond aesthetics. They offer shade, help to reduce pollution, offer habitat for birds and insects, a space to meet and socialise or for kids to play.

In January 2005, a severe storm swept across Northern Europe, from Ireland to Russia. More than 500,000 homes were left without power, with Denmark and Southern Sweden being particularly hard-hit.