The Heat Pump: Exploring the Environmental Advantages
The greatest advantages of heat pumps are that they save consumers money while also creating a safer, more comfortable home and protecting the environment.
Stories on Sustainability
Sustainability sits at the heart of Unsustainable Magazine. This section brings together stories that explore how people, communities, and ecosystems adapt to a world in rapid transition. Here you’ll find reporting and reflections on climate change, ecological resilience, waste systems, energy futures, and the everyday choices that shape our collective impact.
Our aim isn’t just to document environmental challenges, but to examine how they intersect with justice, inequality, and lived experience. From new research on carbon emissions to local efforts to restore biodiversity, these articles connect the global and the personal, the structural and the immediate.
Whether you’re looking for clear explanations, in-depth analysis, or grounded ideas for creating change, the Sustainability category offers a wide-ranging view of the forces reshaping our planet — and the possibilities that still remain.
How To Approach The Topic Of Sustainability With Children
It’s important to discuss sustainability with children. Let’s take a look at some tips on how best to approach the topic and the benefits of doing so.
The Environmental Cost of Death: an Eco-Friendly End-Of-Life
This article explores some insights into the environmental cost of death, and presents a guide to creating an ethical and eco-friendly end-of-life plan.
Community Urban Gardens in Santiago, Chile
Recently, the value of community gardens has become multifaceted and unique, from providing fresh food for neighbors to rejuvenating and sustaining the environment.
What Are Natural Fibers? The Complete Beginner’s Guide
The way we produce and use materials affects the world’s biggest challenges: climate change, waste pollution, biodiversity loss, and social inequality.
Rethinking Medical Packaging for an Aging Population: Innovative Designs With Less Waste
Rethinking medical packaging for easier access and a healthier planet. Discover innovations that are transforming how we get our medicine.
What Vinyl Window Manufacturers Are Doing About the 40-Million-Pound Waste Problem
As North American landfills absorb 40 million pounds of vinyl windows yearly, manufacturers face growing pressure to close the recycling gap.
Industrial Heat Management: The Problem Manufacturing Forgets to Measure
By Jack Shaw, senior writer and editor at Modded Manufacturing systems generate significant heat, yet this energy is often left unmeasured or managed at the process level. This energy loss degrades everything from equipment performance to final product quality, thereby hurting operational efficiency. Recognizing heat as a measurable factor is essential for improving both overall efficiency and … Read more
The Air Quality Impact of Restaurant Exhaust Systems
When you choose a restaurant, you probably look at the menu, the atmosphere and the prices. What you might not consider is the invisible plume of pollutants drifting from the kitchen into your neighborhood. Restaurant air quality affects whole communities. It shapes the health of workers breathing contaminated air for entire shifts and neighbors living … Read more
The Health of Bee Populations in Tennessee and Strategies for Their Restoration
Throughout Tennessee, bees perform essential ecological functions, but their populations are under stress, and the resulting consequences are becoming evident.
The Sahara Solar Dream: Why It Remains Impractical
The Sahara has immense solar potential, but climate effects, transmission, storage, ecology, and politics make the dream far more complex.
Breaking the Copper Mining Cycle: Why Fiber-Based Networks Matter
The mounting environmental cost of digital connectivity underscores the urgent ecological need to transition from copper to fiber infrastructure.
Balancing Safety and Sustainability in Equipment Manufacturing
In equipment manufacturing, a common misconception is that operational safety and environmental sustainability were often treated as separate priorities.
Setting Up a Small Farm for Healthier Livestock
Healthier livestock starts with better setup. Here’s how pasture, water, shelter, airflow and daily systems shape small farm animal care.
Disposing of Green Energy Tech in the Circular Economy
Solar panels, EV batteries and wind turbines cut emissions—but they also create waste. Here’s how circular design, take-back and recycling can keep it out of landfill.
Rethinking Our Farming Approaches: The Sustainable Way
In an era where the impact of climate change can no longer be ignored, there’s no place for unsustainable agricultural practices.
The Sustainability of Bamboo: 2026 Facts vs. Greenwashing
Is bamboo truly sustainable? Explore the 2026 reality of bamboo viscose, FTC “bamboozling” regulations, and the biodiversity impact of monocultures.
Why Greeting Cards Deserve a Better Second Life
Many greeting cards are designed for a very short life. Why materials, waste, and plantable alternatives deserve more attention.
The Hidden Waste Systems of Laboratories
Labs consume large amounts of energy and generate waste streams that cannot simply be dropped into ordinary recycling systems.
Rethinking Healthcare Waste: From Treatment to Technology
Rethinking healthcare waste means looking beyond bins and disposal, toward fragmented care, medical devices, facility design, and more efficient long-term systems.
Why Walkable Cities Are a Public Health Necessity
The car-centric design takes a toll on your well-being, so cities are starting to realize the benefits of neighborhood walkability.
Why Floating Solar Is Gaining Momentum
As land grows more contested and water stress deepens, floating solar is emerging as one of the energy transition’s most practical experiments — and one of its most revealing.
Sustainable Aquaculture in Tribal-Corporate Collaboration
Pacific Seafood and the Colville Confederated Tribes have developed a steelhead farming operation that bridges environmental responsibility with economics.
Sustainability Education in Schools
Sustainability Education, the exploration of sustainability issues as an essential component of school curricula, is well overdue for global recognition.
Living Buildings: The Practical Barriers to Biophilic Design in Urban Environments
Biophilic design integrates nature into urban buildings, boosting well-being. Overcome practical barriers with evidence-based strategies.
Right-Sizing Packaging: Why Oversized E-Commerce Boxes Waste More Than We Realize
You order a single lipstick or a USB drive and a few days later, something the size of a shoebox lands on your doorstep, stuffed with air cushions. Opening it feels like an unboxing gone wrong, equal parts absurd and frustrating. Somewhere along the way, as online shopping became the norm, the importance of right-sized … Read more
Precision Earthmoving: How GPS Excavation Systems in Equipment Is Revolutionizing Watershed Protection on Construction Sites
Earthmoving machines have always been necessary for land clearing, but they have not prioritized the environment well. Construction teams interested in advancing green technologies can get GPS excavation systems to improve that shortfall. This technology may chart a more sustainable future for the industry.
Waste and Landfills: A Guide for Environmental Protection
Waste and Landfills are examined in detail, including how organizations can manage garbage, and how recycling and other solutions can help with the issue.
Land Reclamation: A Destructive Force on Malaysia’s Coastlines
Malaysia’s coastal land reclamation is reshaping shorelines and livelihoods. Here’s how dredging affects seagrass, mangroves, fisheries, and flood risk.
Climate Change is Boosting Global Inequality
Climate change and anthropogenic warming have devastated the economies of warmer, poorer countries; while financially boosting colder, wealthier countries.
Your Dinner Plate May Contain Microplastics
Microplastics are turning up in food, water, and even our bodies. Here’s what the evidence says, which foods show contamination, and how to reduce exposure.
Climate Change Pushes Malawian Farmers to Irrigate
As droughts and floods disrupt rain-fed agriculture in Malawi, more farmers are turning to irrigation to protect harvests, incomes, and food security.
Climate Change and Dehydration: How Rising Temperatures Are Reshaping Our Hydration Needs
Discover how rising temperatures and climate change are impacting your hydration needs. Learn to recognize dehydration signs and adapt your fluid intake for climate-resilient self-care.
Carbon-Conscious Corporations: Real Pathways to Net Zero
How carbon-conscious corporations pursue net zero in practice — emissions scopes, credible targets, risks, and real-world progress.
Turning Waste into Gold, Actualising the Circular Economy
In Malawi, artisans and youth groups are transforming discarded plastics, paper and tyres into baskets, briquettes and bricks—turning waste into livelihoods.
Beyond ‘Made in USA’: Understanding Consumer Priorities in Wood Sourcing
Wood sourcing goes beyond origin. Discover how sustainability, transparency, and certifications build trust, benefit the environment, and boost the economy.