By Ian Randall

The University of Cincinnati responds to food shortages with solar-powered cold storage for farms.

Food shortages in India are compounded by a lack of cold-chain storage facilities, but a new solar-powered cold storage device, developed by the University of Cincinnati in...

By Jonathon Porritt

The reach of solar will spread, the scale will increase, and the impact on people's lives will be massive. But the crucial question is, when?

Around the world, dozens of universities and research institutes are hard at work trying to mimic the phenomenon of...

Healthy soil could be our best hope in the face of climate change, food crisis and biodiversity loss Katherine Rowland reports.

Soil is the most diverse ecosystem on the planet. Just one teaspoon contains as many as one billion bacteria, which provide vital services to support the growth of plant...

Google, Apple, Nike and McKinsey are on the growing list of companies to recognise the rewards of mindfulness. Carl Frankel charts their journey towards the inner mountaintop.

Corporate managers usually excel at producing real-world results. Not always, though.

As the deputy general counsel for packaged-food giant General...

More investors are coming forward with 'socially responsible' funds, but their impact is equivocal. Could a new form of investment make a difference? Heather Connon reports.

There can rarely have been a better time for proponents of sustainable investment to make their case. This year started with the scandal of...

Anthony Kleanthous explains why picking sides on genetic modification isn't as easy as it used to be.

What is a person with a conscience to think about the fraught and complex issue of genetic modification (GM)? Picking sides used to be easy: if you were green, you were against GM...

Safe, separate and exclusive is one model for sustainable living, but is it scalable? Oliver Balch reports from Chennai.

Rush hour is hellish in downtown Chennai. Famed for its auto industry, India's Detroit has a population of five million - and rising. Economic reforms two decades ago have seen...

Solar power could be bringing brighter prospects for the people of the Sundarbans, and for its wildlife, too. Martin Wright reports from West Bengal.

A solar-powered rickshaw might sound like a quirky indulgence. But for the people living on the fringes of the vast Sundarbans Forest in West Bengal, it...

You can't have biological diversity in the food system without social and cultural diversity, too, finds Sarah Lewis-Hammond.

Judith Harry says that women are not supposed to be leaders, or at least that's what people think. She is a groundnut farmer in Mchinji, Malawi, and a single mother raising her...

Are mergers and acquisitions a route to scale for innovative companies that want to reach the mainstream without losing their edge? Anna Simpson meets Philip Malmberg, CEO of Ecover and its new acquisition, Method.

When the board of Ecover asked its former Finance...

Women control nearly two-thirds of consumer spending, causing one marketing agency to identify mums as "the most powerful audience on the planet", explores Laura Hall and Isabel Sloman.

Figures from Unilever show that women globally control nearly $12 trillion of an overall $18.4 trillion in consumer spending - more than...

More women in science and technology could lead to better solutions, finds Katherine Rowland.

Educational bias, workplace policies and lack of encouragement may go a long way to explaining why only 27% of scientific researchers worldwide are women. But while equity is reason enough to tackle the issue, the...

Companies in India increasingly identify efficiency as an opportunity, and not just a duty - leading to some rather bold ambitions, says Martin Wright.

If innovation's the sexy face of sustainability, then efficiency is the boring flip side. But it often drives the shinier stuff. When all...

From Rwanda to Shanghai, women are setting up new businesses with social and environmental change at their heart. Charlotte Sankey asks what's driving them.

An entrepreneur walks around the slums of Kigali, Rwanda, calling on her neighbours. She is a 'Solar Sister', selling small, affordable solar-powered lamps to light...

Oliver Balch explains why women will be a fundamental part of getting the global economy back on track - and setting it on the road to sustainability.

"Gender equality in business is smart economics." This isn't the verdict of a rights campaigner. The words belong to Robert Zoellick, former...

From castor oil to carpet tiles, Martin Wright explores an innovative approach that promises new markets for one of India's most resilient crops.

Castor oil may not be to everyone's taste, but there's no reason to grind it under foot.

Or is there? Because that's what Interface...

'Green' products could also contribute towards good health writes Virginia Marsh

In 2003, Glenn Albrecht, an Australian academic, coined the phrase 'solastalgia' to describe the personal distress caused by negative environmental change. A pioneer in studying the relationship between ecosystems and human health, his research in drought-blighted communities identified...

From start-ups to large corporations, businesses are crowdsourcing their future. But is such a strategy wise, asks Tess Riley?

Before the dawn of digital conversation, it made sense for a business to decide on its strategy first, and then go public with it. The thinking went on behind closed...

Innovation and technology can help make what we eat tastier and more sustainable, says Andrew Kuyk of the Food and Drink Federation.

Heston Blumenthal apart, putting science and food in the same sentence makes many people feel a bit uncomfortable. But we see nothing scary about the innovation...

The world shoulders a heavy burden when it comes to shifting our stuff. Could new approaches lighten the load? Michael Ashcroft investigates.

Despite growing enthusiasm for local products, most of the items that end up in your shopping basket or in your wardrobe will have journeyed through a global cargo...