We spent thirty years cleaning up the air over Europe. It worked, and new analysis says it has made the warming faster. That is the fact I could not stop thinking about this week, and it is waiting for you at the end of this video.
I founded Green Element in 2004 and spent twenty years helping organisations measure what they had never measured before. I have now recorded more than 220 episodes of the Sustainability Solved podcast. In all that time I am not sure I have seen a single week reshape as many assumptions as this one.
Here is what we cover. Data centres are now the biggest story in energy, with Google putting 13 billion euros into Finland behind a 22-year nuclear contract, Massachusetts forcing new sites to bring their own clean power, Scotland mandating environmental impact assessments, and the US House passing the Ratepayer Protection Act by 417 votes to 3. The EPA has repealed greenhouse gas limits on coal and gas power plants, with its own projection of 123 million additional tonnes of carbon. The EU rewrote its sustainable finance and CBAM rulebooks in a single week. And research from the LSE put one week of British heat at £1.15 billion of lost output.
If you run net zero strategy, carbon accounting or Scope 3 emissions at a large organisation, this is the twenty minute version of the week that would otherwise cost you a day of reading.
Chapters follow the countdown from 10 to 1, then the three facts at the end.
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I'm Will Richardson, Head of Ecosystems at 51toCarbonZero and a sustainability advisor with 25 years in the field. I founded Green Element in 2004 and spent two decades building it into one of Europe's most respected sustainability consultancies before it merged with 51toCarbonZero in November 2025.
Climate action is both an obligation and an opportunity, and that's the thread running through everything I write here. I co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software recognised as a key player in the Global Carbon Accounting Software Market, and I'm a Fellow of IEMA and a Chartered Environmentalist.
Each week, I break down what's actually happening in sustainability: the data, the regulation, the greenwash worth calling out, and the practical steps businesses can take right now. No jargon, no doom-mongering, just clear thinking for people who need to make real decisions.
I also host the Sustainability Solved podcast with Charlie Luxton, 200+ episodes and counting, where we talk to the people building the solutions.
Based in Scotland. Writing for business leaders who want sustainability to make commercial sense, not just moral sense.
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