Research Briefing in 2025

One of the world’s largest longitudinal studies, conducted across India, reveals that global climate change in the twenty-first century has accelerated plant invasions. Climate change and invasive plants are disrupting ecosystems, including tiger habitats, and affecting millions of people. The study maps socioecological risk hotspots to guide restoration and safeguard biodiversity and livelihoods.

Dyes in textile waste streams pose a major barrier to textile-to-textile recycling. Our research has developed an upstream platform that effectively removes dyes from polyester and other textiles using sustainable, biologically derived solvents, and enables the recycling of both fibres and dyes.

Global inequalities leave billions without the services necessary for a decent living standard. Our analysis suggests that even moderate additions to societies’ material stocks in buildings, infrastructure and machinery could secure universal decent living standards, by 2030 at current construction rates.

Emissions data and machine learning are used to compile a global inventory of industrial chlorinated and brominated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emissions from 11 sectors across 184 countries in 2018. Emission hotspots are concentrated in Oceania, East Asia and Latin America, with iron ore sintering identified as the dominant source, accounting for about 86% of total emissions.

Overcoming the trade-off between the aesthetic requirements and cooling efficiency of passive radiative cooling materials is challenging. Now, composites that use the photoluminescence of rare-earth-doped phosphors to achieve efficient sub-ambient cooling and vibrant colours are demonstrated.

Our research shows that the addition of nitrate quickly upcycles sewage sludge, which is rich in ammonium, organic matter and sulfur compounds, into anaerobic ammonium oxidation seeds — inocula that contain anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria — that can be used to initiate or enrich ammonium oxidation processes in wastewater treatment.

A systematic literature review is conducted to explore the promise and limitations of systems-based methods in addressing plastic pollution. The findings suggest that more literature focused on the whole life cycle of plastics is needed to improve understanding of the complex societal challenge and guide science-based policymaking.

Waste-to-nutrition pathways convert organic waste into food for people and livestock. Simulations of nine future scenarios in France reveal that the potential of five such pathways for reducing the environmental impacts of food and waste systems depends on process efficiencies, availability of low-carbon energy and the extent to which novel foods replace meat.

Solar interfacial desalination could enable the sustainable production of freshwater, but scale-up remains challenging. Now, analysis of the efficiency and costs of a large-scale interfacial desalination system operating outdoors over nearly four months suggests that scale-up is associated with high capital investment and a lower water production rate compared with laboratory-scale devices.