The idea that nature can offer solutions to our problems isn’t exactly new. Today, we call them “nature-based solutions” or refer to “ecosystem services”, but for centuries — even millennia — many communities have lived, farmed, and built in ways that reflect this logic.

Each year, one third of the food produced in the world is wasted. Meanwhile, alarming figures keep piling up: biodiversity loss, emissions from the agri-food system, and an ever so slightly earlier “Overshoot Day” —the calendar day when humanity officially starts living beyond the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate for that year.

Les villes sont souvent représentées en vue aérienne — à vol d’oiseau — sur les cartes, mais à quoi ressemblerait en fait l'urbanisme vu par les oiseaux ? La façon dont nous concevons les villes en dit long sur ce (et ceux) que nous valorisons, et les oiseaux sont largement négligés dans l'urbanisme traditionnel: imaginez-vous être un pigeon au milieu de déserts de béton, remplis de verre (trompeur) et de bruit.

As a child, I was often in charge of preparing the mayonnaise. I remember pouring with care (and faith) olive oil, raw egg, and lemon juice, hoping to have come up with the right amount of each so that the sauce would set - it did most of the time! In a bit more complex way, the energy transition seems to require some sort of cosmic alignment as well — every ingredient needs to fall into place: governance, technology, policy.

While some say they “wouldn’t hurt a fly”, others - in Kenya for example - put them to work! Meet the Black Soldier Fly (BSF), a tiny insect with a big mission. Its larvae are nature’s little recyclers, devouring organic waste and turning it into valuable byproducts supporting sustainable food and agricultural cycles.