Photo: Aaron Coltman/Unsplash (CC0)
From the UK plan to phase out animal testing to a German farmer who rescues “gay sheep”: here’s our recap of the most important constructive news and stories from the past month.
Homeless people will for the first time be able to open accounts with the UK’s five biggest banks, in a pilot scheme marking the launch of the government’s financial inclusion strategy. The programme will also help domestic abuse victims recover their credit score.
Source: The Guardian
The new plans include ending the use of dogs and non-human primates in tests for human medicines by a minimum of 35% by 2030, as well as replacing animal experimentation for major safety tests by the end of this year.
Source: BBC News
Gun violence is trending down in an unprecedented way across the US in both red and blue cities and states, according to data analysed from 2016 to 2025. The trendlines include people both injured and killed by gun violence.
Source: The Trace
In a first for the nation, legislation to officially enshrine a democratically elected body for First Peoples has been passed in Victoria’s parliament. The now-permanent consultative body has already temporarily existed for five years, with data suggesting it’s already led to better relationships between the government and first peoples.
Source: ABC News
In Australia, negative electricity prices – in which more power is produced than is necessarily needed – often happen during the middle of the day. To balance out the grid, a new programme would require electricity providers to offer free electricity to everyone for at least three hours a day.
Source: Electrek
Aiming to curb erosion, combat drought, and improve the climate, Ethiopia plans to plant more than seven billion trees by 2025. Over thirty billion seedlings have already been planted since 2019, with the campaign also expected to create a large number of new employment opportunities.
Source: Deutsche Welle
A plan for an ecological, affordable city to be built east of Cambridge, UK, has the support of a cross-party coalition. The ‘forest city’ could house one million on re-greened former farmland connecting 12,000 acres of forest reserve. Tram lines, green buildings, and preservation of wildlife corridors are part of the plan.
Source: The Guardian
Colombia’s environment ministry announced that the country will stop authorising new oil developments and large-scale mining operations in its Amazon biome, a region that spans roughly 42% of its national territory.
Source: Mongabay
South Korea has announced Monday that it has joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance, pledging to retire 40 coal-fired power plants by 2040. The pledge, unveiled at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, makes Korea the second Asian nation after Singapore to join the coalition.
Source: Korea Times
Under the new provision, individuals born on or after 1 January 2007 – including visitors to the nation – are prohibited from purchasing, using, or being sold tobacco products within the Maldives. The ban applies to all forms of tobacco, and retailers are required to verify age prior to sale.
Source: The Guardian
When Lithuania joined the EU in 2004, the suicide rate was roughly 44 per 100,000 residents: the highest in the region. Thanks to the launch of the Suicide Prevention Bureau, an emphasis on providing more community-based services, and a shift away from an overly-medicalised approach, it’s now at 19.5 per 100,000 people.
Source: Reasons To Be Cheerful
Although research studies have suggested that Earth is currently experiencing another mass extinction, a new study revealed that, over the past 500 years, extinctions in plants, arthropods and land vertebrates peaked about 100 years ago and have declined since.
Source: Phys.org
Seen as a victory in seabird restoration, the first puffins on the Isle of Muck were observed in 2024, but conservationists say that signs the birds are breeding this year give the hope they are back to stay. A programme of rat eradication begun in 2017 was key and has led to increases to other seabird populations.
Source: BBC News
The scheme gives direct mobile app payments to communities and individuals, especially farmers, who adopt sustainable land-use methods. Participants qualify by completing verified activities in six areas: agroforestry, reforestation, deforestation-free agriculture, forest regeneration, sustainable forest management, and conservation.
Source: Mongabay
Beginning in 2019, the town of Ostbelgien, home to roughly 80,000 residents, launched an experimental permanent Citizens’ Council and Assembly, granting policymaking roles to citizens chosen at random. Now, about six years into the experiment, participants say it’s working.
Source: Good Good Good
Based in California, the ‘University Of The People’ reaches 150,000 students in 200 countries and territories, including 20,000 in the U.S. It offers accredited certificates, associate and bachelor’s degree programmes, as well as some master’s degree programmes at zero tuition. But students do have to pay some fees.
Source: Good Good Good
The move by Clarke County School District in Athens, Georgia, hopes to tackle financial illiteracy, with one in five teens US lacking basic personal finance skills. The region has teamed up with Gifted Savings, a nonprofit that gives high school seniors $1,000 in an investment portfolio, coupled with weekly lessons on the essentials of saving and investing.
Source: Good Good Good
A small group of parents in Montclair, New Jersey, formed the ‘bike bus’ of kids and their grownups biking to school. Now the group numbers more than 350 and parents encourage folks in other towns to ‘just do it’. Non-profit Bike Bus World says the bike bus movement includes hundreds of such groups around the globe.
Source: AP News
Some 53 million tonnes of plastic waste and approximately 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded on streets across the globe each year. Japanese runner Kenichi Mamitsuka began scooping up some of them on his morning jogs in 2008, and soon hit on the idea of gamifying his public-spirited act to raise awareness of littering.
Source: Positive News
Greater Besançon, a city in eastern France not far from the border with Switzerland, has created several pop-up drop-off points, available for residents to hand over food waste. Once deposited, the organic waste is gathered by a collector on an electric bike and delivered to a farm nine miles away, where it is turned into compost and eventually used to grow more food.
Source: Reasons To Be Cheerful
Almere is the Netherlands’ newest city, and its 5,000 inhabitants can build their homes however they like, with one catch: half of their land must be devoted to growing food.
Source: Good Good Good
Homosexuality is prevalent in the animal kingdom, with roughly 10% of male sheep expressing same-sex behaviours. However, rams who don’t mate with female sheep are often considered useless and sent to slaughterhouses. Michael Stücke’s farm is a sanctuary for these gay sheep, but with a mission: he shears their wool for yarn products, with all proceeds going to Germany’s largest queer rights organisation.
Source: Good Good Good
Started by professional trainers in Wales, Dogs4Wildlife trains their puppy trackers almost from birth to sniff out rhino horn, elephant ivory, and bushmeat. The dogs join anti-poaching teams in areas with fewer resources, and their success has contributed to the last decade’s reduction in poaching.
Source: CNN
One book, sent to him against the rules, was a life changer for Reginald Dwayne Betts, a teen incarcerated for carjacking. He started writing poetry and, when out, got accepted to Yale, became a lawyer, and founded the nonprofit Freedom Reads, which has built 500 prison libraries so far.
Source: The Washington Post
Nick Hudson and his organisation E2AC are bridging the gap between two worlds: entertainment and non-profits. In our new podcast episode, Nick explains to us, how he came to create a “philanthropic Netflix”, how E2AC inspires movie lovers to take action, and why donating and supporting a cause can be addictive.
Source: Squirrel News
