The architecture firm Polysmiths was responsible for the design and construction of a three-bedroom residence located on a residual plot in East London.
Sustainable materials, such as cork, which were readily available during the pandemic period, were used in the building.
A small locality in southern Finland has adopted the world's largest commercial sand battery, aiming to mitigate one of the biggest challenges of the energy transition: the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources. This installation is located in Pornainen, a municipality with a population of five thousand, and was conceived by Polar Night Energy in collaboration with the local district heating distributor, Loviisan Lämpö.
The structure measures 13 meters high by 15 meters wide. Inside, two thousand metric tons of crushed soapstone are stored, which retains clean energy in the form of heat. This capacity totals 100 megawatt-hours of thermal energy, enough to cover almost a month of the city's heating needs during the summer and about a week during the winter period.
The system operates in three distinct phases. Initially, the facility absorbs electricity from the grid when there is a high availability of energy generated by solar or wind sources. Subsequently, this electricity is used to raise the temperature of the soapstone to very high levels. Finally, the highly insulated silo maintains this heat for several days or weeks, releasing it through heat exchangers to warm the water destined for the local district heating network.
Annette Höglund-Dönnes, Commercial Director of Polar Night Energy, explained the mechanism to CNBC, comparing it to a large silo. She emphasized that the difference lies in the time interval the sand provides between electricity consumption and steam usage. According to her, this interval represents a significant commercial advantage because it allows heating the sand when electricity is cheaper and using the steam when production from the grid would typically be costly, such as during the day when overall consumption is high. She drew an analogy to charging a mobile phone at night, when costs may be lower than during the day.
Before the implementation of the sand battery, Pornainen relied on burning oil and wood chips for heating. Tommi Eronen, CEO of Polar Night Energy, reported that thanks to the new installation, the city receives heating without the need for combustion most of the year. The company stated that the project resulted in a reduction of nearly 70% in greenhouse gas emissions from the heating network and about 60% in the use of wood chips. A pre-existing wood chip power plant continues to operate as a contingency system and to cover peak demand.
Mikko Paajanen, CEO of Loviisan Lämpö, commented to CNBC that the battery allows the decoupling of electricity purchasing from the district heating generation process, thus enabling efficient utilization of low spot market prices. The company set a goal to produce between 55% and 60% of the municipality's district heating using the sand battery in the first months of this year, compared to approximately 30% planned for 2025. The venture started last year and is ten times larger than a previous version inaugurated in the country in 2022.
Eronen stressed that the transition from large power plants to sources like solar and wind requires a considerable amount of energy storage. He expressed hope that much of this storage could be achieved through the sand battery method, as it does not require rare earth materials, unlike many chemical batteries, such as lithium-ion batteries. Jan Rosenow, Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the University of Oxford (UK), corroborated that electrothermal storage technologies, such as sand batteries, have the potential to be replicated globally.
Rosenow added that these technologies dispense with rare earths or critical raw materials, allowing the battery to be charged when electricity is accessible and discharged when heat is needed. Furthermore, he pointed out that storage can occur over long periods—days or even weeks—surpassing the limitations of a few hours observed in lithium-ion batteries. Despite the great potential, the technology faces significant criticism, including the difficulty of reconverting stored heat into electricity with high efficiency and its relatively low energy density compared to conventional batteries.
Höglund-Dönnes reported that Polar Night Energy has received inquiries from teams from 'all continents', notably from communities that rely on fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Sari Multala, the Finnish Minister for the Environment, described the Pornainen project as a 'very inspiring' example of a solution to the energy storage challenge. She mentioned that during her visit to the installation's inauguration, she understood that the company is also developing solutions for direct electricity use in the future, something she said 'would be revolutionary and that many people would value.'
The first official report assessing the global plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss showed that collective efforts to save nature are insufficient. The Global Review is the first attempt to measure how close governments have come to achieving goals agreed upon almost four years ago under the Global Biodiversity Framework.
None of the set targets show fully positive dynamics. National commitments require designating protected lands and water resources equivalent to about 23% of the global total by 2030, which is less than the planned 30% of land and sea. Furthermore, biodiversity financing, which amounted to $186 billion between 2020 and 2023, significantly lags behind the annual goal of $200 billion by 2030.
Christina Egghenter, a global governance policy expert at WWF, noted that while progress has been made, the goals are not being met. She identified insufficient implementation capacity and low national ambition as the main problems.
These findings emerge at a critical moment as negotiators will gather in Yerevan, Armenia, in October for the UN Biodiversity Summit COP17. This summit aims to transform this diagnosis into a course correction plan. Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, stated that COP17 should be viewed as an implementation conference.
Armenia has already defined the focus of the event by choosing the slogan 'Taking Action for Nature.'
The Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted at COP15 in 2022 and is the successor to the Aichi Targets, which expired in 2020 and were almost entirely ignored. The Framework includes 23 targets to be achieved by 2030, as well as four less specific goals for 2050. It expands responsibility beyond just governments, including the private sector, civil society, and indigenous peoples in achieving the goals.
The scale of the problem is enormous: the last comprehensive assessment in 2019 showed that a quarter of assessed species are threatened with extinction, and the rate of species decline is tens and hundreds of times higher than the historical average. Subsequent smaller assessments have found no signs of slowing this decline.
Alejandra Duarte, a policy partner at Women4Biodiversity, an advocacy organization, emphasized that a 'transformation—a change in management, conservation, and economy systems' is required, which is not happening fast enough to meet the ambitions of the 2030 and 2050 goals.
The Global Review was based on national reports from 129 countries, over 3,700 national targets, as well as materials submitted by businesses, NGOs, and other non-state actors. It describes an 'unprecedented' momentum and engagement around this framework, but concludes that progress 'is not yet happening at the required speed or scale.'
A similar pattern is observed across all 23 targets. The most attention and the most positive self-assessments are drawn to traditional, more easily quantifiable targets—such as protected areas, species conservation, and ecosystem restoration. Meanwhile, targets related to governance, subsidies, biodiversity integration into other sectors, and financing lag the most.
Egghenter noted that some targets are being implemented more actively—in particular, traditional ones like '30 by 30,' which have attracted much attention. However, others, such as driver targets and targets that facilitate effective implementation, are still insufficiently highlighted by stakeholders.
Financial figures follow the same pattern. Of the $186 billion mobilized between 2020 and 2023, $136 billion came from domestic government budgets, $33 billion from private sources, and only $18 billion from international public funding. This amount is only a small fraction of the planned annual benchmark of $20 billion that developed countries were supposed to reach by 2025. The report indicates that private financing, conversely, peaked in 2021 and has since declined, making it 'particularly underdeveloped' compared to what the framework suggests.
The main problem is monitoring. Reliable quantitative data exists only for a small number of targets. Information remains scarce regarding how, or if at all, indigenous peoples, women, youth, and the private sector are involved in implementing these targets.
Ana Di Pangrazio, deputy director of the Argentine environmental NGO Farn, reported that the review reflects a pattern she had previously observed. Countries that promised to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies often began mapping them but rarely enacted the necessary regulations for the actual redirection of funds. She added that 'we are repeating past mistakes,' and increasing biodiversity financing while continuing to support its destruction elsewhere will not lead to results.
This diagnosis now passes to the negotiators. At COP17, governments will have to agree on how to interpret the findings of the Global Review. Juliette Landry, senior research fellow on international biodiversity governance at the Parisian think tank IDDRI, said that countries are reluctant to present too negative a picture due to the 'fragile state of multilateralism.'
Countries want the review to show that the framework is still working, even if they acknowledge gaps. Landry also noted that developing countries tend to insist that wealthy nations have not provided promised funding, while others focus on weak sectoral coordination or insufficient technical capacity.
It remains an open question whether the final text of the COP decision will achieve a level of detail, such as identifying the sectors most responsible for biodiversity loss, similar to how the UN Climate Review Council pointed to fossil fuels. Linking responsibility to specific industries or countries is politically complex in a consensus-based process.
Finance will be the main issue determining everything else in Yerevan. Schomaker linked the trust in the summit to whether it can bring business and financial institutions in as full participants. She wrote that 'private financing should not be present merely to make promises on the side'; it must become part of the main discussion on how biodiversity is integrated into economic and financial decision-making.
However, Alejandra Duarte believes the problem is not just about volume. Even with increased pledges, most of the funds do not reach groups engaged in real conservation work on the ground. This is because access to them usually requires formal institutional structures and reporting systems that are lacking in both grassroots and indigenous-led organizations.
The Cali Fund was adopted at COP16 to channel benefits from the commercial use of genetic data back to indigenous peoples and local communities. Nevertheless, it remains voluntary, and Duarte believes the same access problem applies to it: 'The architecture of financing itself needs to directly reach these groups.' She cited a project of her organization that directed funds directly to women-led restoration work in six countries in Africa and Latin America.
For Egghenter, hope lies in COP17 becoming the moment when governments stop merely cataloging shortcomings and start setting deadlines for their elimination. She concluded: 'Commitments have been made, and now we have the Global Review telling us what needs to be done. The final COP text must make decisions on next steps, set deadlines, and provide an idea of how countries are uniting to address these gaps.'
One girl's decision to drop out of engineering school led to an application created by Prachi Shevgaonkar that has helped over 130,000 people in 150 countries participate in climate change action. This prevented more than 9 million kilograms of carbon emissions.
However, the true significance of this impact is not limited only to the carbon footprint. The application helps people realize that caring for the planet does not always require large-scale actions; it starts with everyday choices, whether it is cycling to work or saving leftover food from being thrown away.
The simple idea behind the application inspires thousands of people to believe in the ability of small actions to truly change the world. This project is part of the #ForceForGoodHeroes series, dedicated to unsung heroes of India, aimed at motivating people to believe in the power of change.
