40 Positive Environmental Success Stories - June 2024
The media has an important role to play in combatting climate doom. Therefore, this monthly news round up of positive environmental and climate change news, is designed to spark joy and show that progress is being made. We select two positive news headlines a day from renewable energy and biodiversity to eco-innovation and more. We organise all the articles by the date of publication and provide some environmental and wildlife dates for your diary.
Environmental and Animal Awareness Days In The Next Month
Plastic Free July (1st — 31st July) encourages people to refuse single-use plastic products and packaging, raising awareness every year.
Big Butterfly Count (12th July — 4th August) Between 12th July and 4th August, try spending 15 minutes looking for butterflies and moths. Watch for 15 minutes. The Butterfly Conservation has a helpful chart to distinguish the common species.
Love Parks Week (26th July — 4th August) A week dedicated to the value green spaces offer. Example includes supporting our health and wellbeing.
National Marine Week (27th July — 11th August) hosted by the Wildlife Trusts, 2024's theme is “Sea the Connection” which will be highlighting how as an island nation we are all closely connected to the sea and why a healthy thriving marine environment matters. Their website offers guides on how to conserve water, conduct a beach clean or litter picking and learn how to use less plastic.
Positive News Round up — Monday, 3rd June
Wyoming (USA), is the nation’s leading coal-producing state, could soon host one of the largest solar farms in the US. The two-year development will develop a 771-megawatt project and include 269 megawatts of battery storage. (Canary Media)
Mexico has elected Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, a former climate scientist, as their president. Early in her career, she was a part of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (iNews)
Positive News Round up — Tuesday, 4th June
A group of Indonesian women are patrolling the environment to slow the rate of deforestation. After years of patrols, there has been a sharp decrease in deforestation in the area, their strategies are being shared with other women-led groups across the country. (AP News)
A study by the UN children’s agency found more than 175,000 deaths in the country by 2030 could be prevented. The study found that developing resilient energy systems to keep the power on in health facilities in Pakistan would help reduce infant and adult mortality and a lower disease burden. (The Guardian)
Positive News Round up — Wednesday, 5th June
Many festival attendees buy tends and use them once; Decathlon’s ‘No Tent Let Behind’ scheme aims to prevent this. Using a buyback scheme, Decathlon customers have until 13 September to bring their eligible tents back to Decathlon stores for trade-in. They will receive a gift card amounting to the full amount they spent on the tent in the first instance, regardless of wear and tear. (Edie)
A 12.37 MW solar carport system will be constructed at an amusement park in Los Angeles. The solar carport system will cover the main guest and employee parking lots, providing shelter and energy which is expected to offset 100% of the park’s electricity usage. (PV Magazine)
Positive News Round up — Thursday, 6th June
Nepal is utilising an abundance of hydroelectric power to charge a growing demand of electric vehicles. With the majority of the electricity produced in Nepal coming from river-fed hydroelectricity, the country is quickly expanding charging networks, and imports of EVs have doubled in each of the past two years. (AP News)
The world's largest solar plant has gone online in China. Located in the Urumqi, China's Xinjiang region, the solar plant will generate 3.5 GW (PV Magazine)
Positive News Round up — Friday, 7th June
Solar modules installed in France, 1992 still provide 75.9% of original output power. French association Hespul explained “This result exceeds the performance promised by the manufacturers who said the panels would have maintained 80% of their output after 25 years.” (PV Magazine)
America has set a record with $71B in clean energy investment. Based on Q1 2023 data, private investors poured 40% more money into clean energy and electric vehicles in Q1 2024. (Canary Media)
Positive News Round up — Monday, 10th June
Switzerland has approved a law helping to accelerate the development of renewable energy. The plan passed on Sunday is part of the country's bid to attain carbon neutrality by 2050. The law comes less than 2 months after they were condemned by an international court for not doing enough to combat climate change, in a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. (Techxplore)
Clear Robotics is expanding its fleet of autonomous marine rubbish collectors to tackle invasive weeds. The new designed allows the autonomous craft to collect up to 200 kg (440.92 lb) of floating rubbish per hour, and has an onboard storage capacity for 500 kg (1,102.31 lb) but can be equipped with a towing barge to extend its per-trip payload to 1.5 tonnes. (New Atlas)
Positive News Round up — Tuesday, 11th June
A 71% increase has been witnessed in the number of second hand pure electric cars sold, year-on-year. (Edie)
American households electricity will be supported by more renewables. The current forecast is a 3% rise in 2024, with 60% of this growth served by utility-scale solar. Among other renewable sources, wind contributes 19% of 2024 electricity generation growth, and hydropower contributes 13%. (PV Magazine)
Positive News Round up — Wednesday, 12th June
Supermarket Sainsbury’s is to cut 694 tonnes of plastic by transitioning to new packaging by the end of the summer. The retailer is going to use sugarcane pulp trays, lined with a plastic film, for more than 40 of its fish and chicken trays. (Edie)
Brit's may get paid to cut power usage once again. The scheme has been previously run in the UK, and Britain's electricity system operator hopes to use it in winter to help prevent electricity shortages. (Reuters)
Positive News Round up — Thursday, 13th June
Category 5 hurricanes can reach 180 miles per hour (289.68 km/h), but can solar panels be designed to withstand these storms? Yes, developers experienced first hand in 2022 (Hurricane Ian) that their solar array of nearly 700,000 panels was able to withstand the harsh conditions. (Inside Climate News)
Conservationists are working hard to help save then Muñoa’s Pampas cat, which could be the most endangered of its kind in the world. With fewer than 100 individuals left in the wild, conservationists are exploring the possibility of captive breeding of the cats until their numbers can recover. (Mongabay)
Positive News Round up — Friday, 14th June
Large fruit-eating birds in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest can contribute to a 38% increase in carbon storage by regenerating tropical forest. The greatest potential are larger birds which can eat larger fruits whose seeds will grow into trees with a greater biomass. (Mongabay)
A British study estimates that potential energy gained from floating solar potential is 1,302 TWh. The energy produced would be equivalent to around four times the total annual electricity demand of the UK, based on 68,000 lakes and reservoirs around the world. (PV Magazine)
Positive News Round up — Monday, 17th June
At least 20 per cent of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all degraded ecosystems by 2050 will be restored. The law sets binding targets and obligations for member states to rehabilitate their natural habitats (Euronews)
Portugal is to start building a new wind farm able to support the annual consumption of 128,000 homes next year. Renewable energy company Iberdrola says they will implement a range of measures to support ecosystems in the wind farm location, such as planting fruit trees, restoring ponds and installing nest boxes for bats. (Euronews)
Positive News Round up — Tuesday, 18th June
Authorities in two Brazilian states (Para and Amapá) are making efforts to ban the cutting of giant angelims. The trees, which can reach 60 meters (196.85 ft) in height, should be protected for their symbolic and ecological value, experts, and state environmental agencies in Brazil have advised. (Mongabay)
Mississippi officially marked the opening of its first utility-scale wind farm, which began producing clean electricity last month. AES Corp. who owns and operates the 184-megawatt Delta wind project in Tunica County, has allowed Amazon to purchase power from the 41-turbine facility to support its growing data centre operations and logistics hubs in the region. (Canary Media)
Positive News Round up — Wednesday, 19th June
A company called Kilimo is supporting farmers to cut their water use. Killimo charges a fee for their satellite tools, however, farmers who can successfully cut their water use are paid money. This works by Kilimo selling the surplus water to a company that needs it in the same watershed. If farmers reduce their water use, they will profit 20% to 40% more than they paid Kilimo. (TechCrunch)
On the corner of Hudson and Charlton streets in Lower Manhattan, a 17-story Art Deco office building, built in 1931, is ditching its fossil-gas boiler. The change to an electric heat pump, that are both heaters and air conditioners, is part of a grant modelling how to decarbonise more than 6,000 high-rises that punctuate New York City’s skyline. (Canary Media)
Positive News Round up — Thursday, 20th June
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) has announced the Iberian lynx no longer endangered because of their two-decade-long effort. The population has risen from 94 in 2002 to 2,021 last year. Which was made possible with support from a coalition of partners, including the EU and regional and national governments in Spain and Portugal, as well as wildlife NGOs and local people. (The Guardian)
Conservationists and farmers have restored large parts of a forest reserve in Zambia in just four years through natural regeneration. Spurred on by the impact of The Katanino Forest Reserve loosing more than 58% of its forest cover by 2019, conservationists launched a group. WeForest and local partners have used assisted natural regeneration, a light-touch forest restoration method, to grow back more than 500 hectares (1,240 acres) of the reserve’s tree cover. (Mongabay)
Positive News Round up — Friday, 21st June
Millions of mosquitoes are being released from helicopters in Hawaii in a last-ditch attempt to save rare birds slipping into extinction. Conservationists have been working hard to help the 33 brightly coloured honeycreeper birds, with over half at risk of extinction within a year, without any action. So far, 10 million mosquitoes have been released, with 250,000 male mosquitoes released weekly. (The Guardian)
Restoring the Great Salt Lake would support environmental justice as well as have ecological benefits. Researchers have written that restoration of the lake would benefit everyone in the vicinity by reducing dust exposure, and it would also decrease the disparities in exposure among different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. (Phys)
Positive News Round up — Monday, 24th June
Rising energy costs and climate change are encouraging companies to adapt their manufacturing techniques. One company since 2021 has reduced their total energy usage by 48% and energy-related carbon emissions by 53%. However, newer technology is helping heat pumps turn wasted energy into low-carbon whisky. (Canary Media)
A recent birth of wildcat kittens in the Cairngorms national park has been hailed as a “major milestone”. This is because there is a strong possibility that they are the first wildcats to be born outside captivity in Scotland for more than five years after 19 wildcats, which had been bred at the Highland wildlife park. (The Guardian)
Positive News Round up — Tuesday, 25th June
Protecting just 1.2% of the Earth’s surface for nature would be enough to prevent the extinction of the world’s most threatened species, according to a new study. The study identified 16,825 sites around the world where prioritising conservation would prevent extinction of thousands of unique species. (The Guardian)
The UK in on course to reach a record amount of heat pump instillations this year, based on the data from the first five months. The data by MCS shows that May 2024 was the second-highest month on record for installations, with MCS recording 4,849 air-sourced heat pump installations. (PV Magazine)
Positive News Round up — Wednesday, 26th June
A law passed in Florida penalises people for intentionally releasing a single balloon (except for children under 7 years old). The law which was drafted on the 8th May (which we covered in our last edition of positive news) replaced the previous law of releasing ten or more balloons within 24 hours. The new law removes an exemption for biodegradable balloons. (AP News)
Gardens have the potential to support various animals. Here are 33 ways to welcome more wildlife into your garden. The list by The Guardian lists an array of methods to support creatures great and small to boost biodiversity regardless of how much space you have. (The Guardian)
Positive News Round up — Thursday, 27th June
Utilising fungi and indigenous plants, Danielle Stevenson, has been leading the way in developing a natural method to rehabilitate polluted land. So far, she has used plants and fungi to transform pollutants such as petroleum, plastics, and pesticides into less harmful substances. (Yale Environment)
A new paper from University of Texas at Austin has found customer-owned solar and batteries can bring savings of about 40%. (Inside Climate News)
Positive News Round up — Friday, 28th June
Beavers have not been seen for nearly a century, until this month. Nine of the furry rodents have been released this month, with the hopes they could aid California’s fragile ecosystem. The department conducted the releases in the foothills of the southern Sierra. (LA Times)
Lidl has revealed a five-year strategic collaboration with WWF. The partnership is part of Lidl's pledge to reduce the environmental footprint of its food products by half. Over the next five years, the partnership will enhance conservation and biodiversity across 31 countries. (Edie)
