Can the 'Slow Flowers' Movement Make Valentine's Day Sustainable?

Communities in Ecuador are building a “bioeconomy” through ecotourism and sustainable agriculture instead of relying on oil extraction. This can help protect the country’s biodiversity and increase locals’ incomes.

Landscaping businesses in California are trading in the typical tools and chemicals for goat herds. The practice of bringing in goats to munch on unwanted vegetation, called targeted grazing, is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than traditional landscaping.

A collaboration between tree-planting organizations in Washington D.C. helps Catholic church properties to plant and care for trees. The free trees are an effort to combat urban heat and benefit the local environment.

When organic materials like wood chips and manure are heated in the absence of oxygen they create a black powdery substance called biochar. This material prevents the release of carbon into the atmosphere from the natural decaying process. And it has other beneficial uses like improving soil fertility, too.

Companies are beginning to grow offshore seaweed for human consumption as a protein option that’s better for the environment. Growing seaweed on ropes in the ocean is less land-intensive, sequesters carbon, and doesn’t require fertilizer or pesticides.

The 40 Days, 40 Dioceses campaign leaders spent Lent working to convince dioceses in the United Kingdom to give up financial holdings in fossil fuels permanently and publicly. The campaign, led by the Christian climate group Operation Noah, highlighted a different diocese every day.

In North Carolina, planting native grassland plants instead of typical turf for lawns, landscaping, and roadside areas can create a carbon sink as the plants trap carbon underground in their long root systems.

A building material made of hemp fibers, water, and clay or lime is a sustainable alternative to other options like concrete. Dubbed hempcrete, the product has many benefits including a very low carbon footprint, active sequestration of carbon dioxide, and using a sustainable, fast-growing crop as its base.

Urban farms across the United States are bringing affordable, fresh, and healthy foods to communities facing food insecurity and are forming connections with residents along the way.

Natural organic reduction, also called human composting, is growing in popularity across the U.S. as a more environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional burial practices and cremation. During the process bodies are placed in vessels with organic materials like wood chips to be broken down by bacteria. Once the process is over, families are free to do what they want with the composted remains.