Climate change is probably the most urgent problem facing our species and the planet today. It even threatens the existence of our favourite species: homo sapiens. In September we went to the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS 2018) in San Francisco to create a series of videos on a global investor movement that’s accelerating the

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What a week. (Does anyone know what day it is?) This week saw the digital landscape flooded with action: Earth Day turned 50 and went digital for the first time – and Fashion Revolution, the world’s largest fashion activism movement, named (and shamed) the transparency of the world’s biggest brands. As fashion, culture and climate

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This week, the Global Climate Strike will go down in history. On Friday 20 September 2019, the world witnessed the biggest environmental protest the world has ever seen.  In 185 countries, from Kabul, Afghanistan to New Delhi, India, millions of children didn’t turn up to school. Instead they took to the streets to support young climate strikers

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“If you want to do something about climate change, change the politics. Use the system to fight the system.” Imagine being able to say that the Earth is your client. Self-proclaimed ‘climate geekess’ Kirsty Schneeberger is in that humbling position. Honoured at just 25-years-old for services to environmental conservation by the Queen of England, the

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Welcome to Groundhog May. In most parts of the world May is a time of joy, when everything seems possible; spring has sprung, swifts and swallows swoop, trees blossom and buds open (in my case, chilli plants). And the birds and bees go for it.  While this spring will be remembered as the one where everything

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As a women-led team, you don’t need to get us started on the concept of Women’s Day. Every day we celebrate the collective efforts of those who care about human rights. However, 8 March 2020 gives us an excuse to introduce you to 20 of our favourite female FutureHeroes – starting with a jazz-loving Brooklynite who’s “super-nerdy”

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Do you want to help prevent a mass extinction? Then read on, because nature is crying out for help and it’s essential to all the things we need to survive – and to thrive.  ‘Biodiversity’ simply means the variety of life on earth. It’s not just about the polar bears and koalas, but the whole ecosystem.

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Join us as we journey around Catalonia exploring six projects with social impact – from the city of Barcelona to the forests and wine country in Bages. We visit an old mill that uses new tech to create superfoods, wine castles in the forest, an aspiring energy self-sufficient village and the STEM ‘TecnoGirls’. Videos produced with Diputació

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Atlas of the Future is growing. Join the team! We have an exciting new job opportunity for a Barcelona-based digital media content creator/editorial assistant – fluent in Catalan, Spanish and English.    About us ► Atlas of the Future is a joyous resource of hope – an online map of inspirational stories about the people dedicated to solving our

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Celebrated ocean conservationist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson knows that caring about the ocean doesn’t just mean thinking about marine ecosystems, but people too. That’s why the invertebrate-loving Brooklynite has made her focus the intersection between ocean conservation, coastal communities and social justice. “There is a home for everyone in this movement – in conservation, climate

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Cows are often the scape-goats (or scape-cows) for climate change; the methane-burping livestock animals have become confused with our management of them. By giving the animals a more holistic hook, carbon-canny cattle rancher Tony Lovell, co-founder of SLM Australia Livestock Fund, has raised a whopping $100 million to help to regenerate the billions of hectares of damaged

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“If you want to be Che Guevara, stop walking around pointing to what’s bad. Want to be a true revolutionary? Rip up the paving slabs, plant a garden and cover your roof in solar panels.” In South London a Uruguayan-born, New York-raised community entrepreneur and artist is tackling fuel poverty with renewables – while catalysing

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Biodiversity is a hot topic at the moment, but what is it? Put simply, biodiversity helps regulate climate, air, soil and pretty much all of the good things we need for life. But a drop in global biodiversity is putting our ability to produce food at risk. Insects are dying off at record rates — an

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Have you been naughty or nice this year? Good news: you can redeem yourselves! As the bumpy, transformative, but never-boring 2018 comes to a close, we’re spinning ‘The 12 days of Christmas’ into 12 sparkly, positive ways to take action and spread holiday cheer. No ode to conspicuous consumption here. Join a flavour mutiny, put plastic

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Hip Hop Caucus are using the power of hip hop culture to activate people across America and around the world to be an active part of the civic process and make change happen in their own communities. Hip hop, the Caucus don’t stop – not until everyone feels able to take action and have their voice

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Turbulent headlines on the morning of 14 November (in the form of a domino run of Brexit-toppled MPs) provided a poignant backdrop for the gathering of 500 future-conscious minds at the Brighton Dome, who had come to hear about strategies for making sense of – and creating sense in – an often precarious world. Meaning,

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Imagine if you could get a ‘city’ to agree to making the world more self-sufficient. A creative team of pioneers and makers is doing exactly that. They’ve created a set of ten principles as a sort of instruction manual to build a more sustainable and inhabitable new world. And they’re getting cities to agree to it. In fact, 28

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Blockchain isn’t just about finance and Bitcoin, but when Jessi Baker started Provenance that wasn’t the case. That’s why her idea was considered crazy at first. The software company uses technologies like the blockchain to help businesses share truths about the people, places and materials involved in their products. Labelled as one of the UK’s ‘coolest female startup

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How do we tackle climate change whilst maintaining a healthy economy? Just ask carbon. In the third of our three-part video series for the United Nations Global Compact with the ‘Godfather of modern sustainability’ – John Elkington – we explore the wonderful world of C with some of the world’s leading innovators and thinkers. Considered a dirty

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“We either build the future we want, or become the victims of it.” As Director of Fab Lab Barcelona at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Tomás Diez constantly breaks the rules when it comes to education, business, science, urbanism, farming, environmentalism, design, and housing… you name it. In this AtlasChart, the Venezuelan digital fabrication urbanist opens up about projects in

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This year it will be ten years since environmental journalist and broadcaster Gaia Vince began her 900-day journey around the world to take stock of humanity’s impact on the planet. Back then she never expected to see the important changes now happening globally – the explosion of renewable energy production, the rise of electric vehicles, tariffs

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In today’s world we are addicted to growth. That’s why renegade economist Kate Raworth wants to radically reframe the way we look at economics: “The goal of the 21st century economy should be to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet.” It’s an exciting challenge to ensure that no one falls short on

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When you find yourselves somewhere between Gotham City Police HQ and Blade Runner’s Leon’s Hotel chatting to a Westworld sexbot you know that it’s been an interesting – and surprising – year. OK, it’s been relentless too, but there are so many reasons to feel hopeful. From Cameroon to Patagonia, 2017 has seen your projects make the

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Today carbon is considered a dirty word; consigned to dirt, dust, something that’s in the air, something that is dark. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Taking many forms, from diamonds to exhalation of CO2 as a gas, carbon can be used for good. And that’s the idea behind Carbon Productivity. As we struggle with climate catastrophe, this remarkable

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Want to know what a green energy guru has in common with Ozzy Osbourne? This podcast. Sailing close to the winds of change, the ‘Atlas Futurenauts’ are top selling author and futurist Mark Stevenson and leading sustainability expert Ed Gillespie. In this FutureHero podcast they interview the extraordinary Juliet Davenport, founder and CEO of leading renewable and ethical

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In episode 3 of their podcast, the Atlas Futurenauts (AKA top selling author and futurist Mark Stevenson and leading sustainability expert Ed Gillespie) interview the extraordinary Juliet Davenport, founder and CEO of leading renewable and ethical energy provider Good Energy. A true renewable pioneer, Juliet built Good Energy from scratch in 1999 to tackle climate change. Learn about her

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As the world turns upside down and unhinged becomes the new normal, we want to provide some positivity from within the deep divisions of 2016. Take comfort. The world is better than you think. From Silicon Valley to Bulambuli Valley, social entrepreneurs are tackling the world’s most difficult problems. Technology is being democratised, access to education is causing global

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Climate change is real. Musk knows it, the Pope knows it and Obama knows it. With their new film, ‘Before the Flood’, Scorsese and DiCaprio want us all to acknowledge it. Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases raises the planet’s temperature. Fact. These projects all help, because (as Leo puts it): “The science is clear, the

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Have you spotted cyborg vultures catching illegal fly tippers; heard of a cool way tech is bringing clean water to the billions without it; or discovered a robot that teaches kids to code? At Atlas of the Future we love projects that find new, original or creative solutions to a problem. But to help us truly democratise the future,

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Parag Khanna loves maps. Born in India, his parents took him everywhere on their travels while growing up in the United Arab Emirates, New York and Germany: “Whether finding maps in the glove compartment or flipping through the maps in airline seat pockets, maps always kept me busy,” the bestselling geopolitical author tells us. “They gave me a

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From a Noah’s Ark of seeds and American Idol for rural farmers to 3D printing prosthetics in conflict zones and igloo orphanages on skis, this year has seen hundreds of projects mapped on the Atlas from Syria to the North Pole. We’re celebrating the end of 2015 and looking to the future by ranking our favourite 16.  So get your

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Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if we could end extreme poverty, hunger, disease, climate change and fight inequality and injustice by 2030? But fixing our world is an epic task. The need for a shared vision has led to a move by world leaders described as “bold” and “lofty”. On 25 September 2015 the UN committed to

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“To change the world, we need to change the people who will change it.” Social analyst and world scout guru Eduard Vallory wants us to take advantage of the current health crisis to rethink the education system – although he is convinced that before the pandemic, the system was already weakening. President of the UNESCO Centre

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For those working to battle climate breakdown, the complexity, uncertainty and scale of its challenges can make any single solution feel insignificant. That’s why the aptly-named Clean + Cool is on a mission to bring together and celebrate a community of cleantech FutureHeroes who share the same vision: relentlessly pursuing the reduction of negative environmental impacts.  “Those working in

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“You’ve got to give back more than you take.” Jock Zonfrillo is going above and beyond in taking Down Under on a journey of Aboriginal food discovery. He’s the Italian-Scottish ‘Mad Max of foraging’ who happily swapped three Michelin-starred kitchens in London for starting a nonprofit in Australia – and then won the prestigious Basque Culinary World Prize

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If we had asked former chief architect of Barcelona City Council Vicente Guallart what his favourite city in the world was in the 1990s, he would have said Barcelona. In the 2000s he preferred Colombia’s Medellín. Vicente uses the principles of global connectivity and local self-sufficiency to invent the city of the future and build it in the

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“As we struggle with climate catastrophe, what needs to be addressed is what we do down here.”  – Paul Hawken We must, we can and we will solve the climate crisis. It ain’t looking good. Even half a degree of extra will affect hundreds of millions, decimate corals and intensify heat extremes. But there is hope. Even the darkest

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An egg has become Instagram’s most-liked post ever. Yep, a regular egg. In its shell, without avocado. The world’s most famous egg now has 54 million likes on Instagram (and counting). Welcome to 2019… Despite its rising profile, the industrial egg is starting to crack as people look for plant-based solutions. Is the egg toast? As Veganuary convinces people to ditch meat

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To read The Third Plate is not only to take an extraordinary journey in the company of chef and writer Dan Barber. It is to be a guest at the birth of a brilliant and important idea. His travels, investigations, reading and thinking go beyond an exploration of what ails our food systems – and

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Fresh from editing videos for the Carbon Productivity event at London’s RSA, last week we returned to UBS‘s London HQ to shoot Volans’ Breakthrough Money – focusing on the confluence of money, data and trust. (We’re into venues that can be reduced to 3-letter acronyms.) Organised by sustainability think tank and advisory firm Volans as part of Project Breakthrough, it is part of

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As more and more sensors, electronics and data radically transform the way we understand cities, Carlo Ratti makes dazzling interactive environments from the information we create – like our phone calls and the garbage we throw out – to create surprising visualisations of city life. Known as ‘The Choral Architect’, he senses the future of architecture as collaborative; with design intervening at the

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We’re proud to invite you to the first Atlas of the Future event. On Tuesday 10 May, FutureHero Mark Stevenson will take us on an optimistic tour of the future and the challenges humankind faces – at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in Barcelona. (Sceptics and pessimists, you’re invited too.) The pragmatic optimist

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Last week, Arpa-E Director Dr Ellen Williams announced that her department had developed an energy storage device to rival Elon Musk’s Tesla battery. The research arm of the US Department of Energy (DoE) claims the discovery of game-changing energy storage technologies could open the uptake of clean energy to everyone. In an interview with the Guardian,

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