Sustainable Scotland

Murdo MacAngus, commercial and operations development director at Serimax

Vital role for workforce

Ricky Saez, SSEN Transmission

Pathways to progress

At FMQ's this week Patrick Harvie called Donald Trump a “misogynist, a climate denier, a fraudster, a conspiracy monger, a racist...” (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Readers' Letters: Harvie's comments on Trump are a danger to Scotland

Ad Feature Closing the composting loop

The transition to a greener society – including a switch to renewable electricity and low-carbon home heating and transport – is happening, but people should not be afraid of it, according to outgoing Climate Change Committee chief Chris Stark

Why we should stop listening to the naysayers and embrace a green future

Ad Feature Podcast: The future of Scotch

If a person has only a few days to live, medics can withdraw treatment at the patient's request, says reader (Picture: Robert Kneschke/Adobe)

Readers' Letters: Sometimes people just need to die

The actions we need to see now will impact how we travel, how we build and heat our homes, how we farm and manage land and whether we keep subsidising actions that are undermining life on the planet, according to Mike Robinson, chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland

Manifesting climate action to benefit people and the planet

Youngsters can look forward to all sorts of exciting activities and fun learning experiences in the November event's various exhibition zones. Image: Adobe Stock

Sustainable Scotland: A fun family invitation to Go Green Scotland

Find out how the annual Royal Highland Show - from 22 to 25 June - is committed to engaging people of all ages in sustainability

Ad Feature How Scottish farmers back net zero: podcast

Munro EV, pictured beside a mid-teens Land Rover Defender at Gleneagles Estate

Munro Mk_1: First look at the Scottish-built all-electric 4x4

DeCarbScotland conference told the adoption of green hydrogen is imperative for hitting the country’s 2045 net-zero target

Ad Feature Green hydrogen essential in country’s efforts to be net-zero by 2045

Dr Lesley Sawers OBE on creating places people love to live in the 21st century

Ad Feature How do we create places people love to live in 21st century Scotland?

Sustainable Scotland explored, plus $75,000 academic prize

Ad Feature Podcast: Sustainable Scotland explored, plus $75,000 academic prize

A vibrant place future generations will be proud of

Ad Feature Crosswind Developments’ focus on impactful placemaking in the west of Edinburgh

Future Forest Company founder Jim Mann holds up a sapling, one of 300,000 new native trees due to be planted at Dumyat estate, close to the historic Bannockburn battlefield and the city of Stirling. Picture: Jen Scott

Battlefield: site near famous Bannockburn battlefield

Children in East Lothian are the latest to take delivery of new bird boxes that are going up in primary school playgrounds across Scotland as part of a project by teacher and conservationist Tom Rawson, founder of environmental firm GreenTweed Eco

Home tweet home: How school project is boosting birds

Sustainable Scotland explores the creativity and ingenuity in the Scottish farming community, against all odds

Ad Feature Sustainable Scotland: Scottish farmers fighting against the odds

Highland cows Coco and Ginger are providing conservation grazing services as part of the rewilding project at Kinkell Byre, a former arable and livestock farm on the Fife coast

The wild wedding venue where couples say ‘I do’ to nature

The FCC Environment team man a pop-up shop at the firm's Dix Pit recycling centre in Oxfordshire, offering residents a novel way to pick up a pre-loved bargain while helping avoid waste. Picture: SWNS

Second-hand news: Could your unwanted and broken stuff have a new lease of life?

Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs national manager Sheena Foster, RSABI chief executive Carol McLaren and Biggar Young Farmers Club chair Ross Jackson

How a live-chat app could help young farmers cultivate better mental health

An award-winning project based in Fife has set out plans to create an accessible, attractive and biodiverse public park for local communities around a previously industrialised stretch of the River Leven, including proposals for six themed gardens, an accessible path network and riverside walkway

Turning brownfield land into green spaces for people and nature

Storm Arwen, one of the most severe storms ever to hit the UK, left a trail of destruction across Scotland -- this forest in Aberdeenshire was one of those which suffered extensive damage

Trunk calls: Diverse forests and native trees key to climate change resilience

Three cutting-edge battery storage schemes that will help bring more renewable energy onto the grid are being built in Scotland -- at electricity substations in Moray, East Ayrshire and the Scottish Borders

Battery schemes will cut energy bills, stabilise grid and bolster green energy

Ukrainian Yuliia Buhlak, a former student of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, was forced to flee with her daughter Sofia when Russia invaded her home country -- now she is based in Norway but back working with the Oban-based institution on a new project she hopes will give her family a bright future

The Ukrainian refugee scaling new heights with fish-skin leather

A new study has found that growing industrial hemp crops in Scotland could help farms become carbon neutral and bring in substantial income. Picture: Igor Stevanovic

Cannabis crops could help Scottish farms go green, report finds

Around 50 trees which were damaged when the powerful Storm Arwen ripped through Scolty Forest in Aberdeenshire last year have been secured into the Beltie burn in Deeside as part of a second major phase of restoration work aimed at boosting biodiversity and climate resilience at the site

Storm-damaged trees sunk in Dee to help save wild salmon

Roslin Technologies – a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh and leader in the field of artificially cultivated meat – has made a breakthrough that will bring plans to mass-produce eco-friendly no-slaughter meat a step closer

Scots biotech firm is bringing home the bacon with lab-grown meat breakthrough

The UK's only resident killer whales are based in Scotland - but experts fear they are destined to die off, blaming a build-up of toxic chemicals in their systems for their failure to produce offspring. Picture: Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust

Call for ban on toxic chemicals killing ocean wildlife

Highland Boundary is based on a farm in Alyth, Perthshire, where rewilding work has been going on since 2008 -- more than 600 native trees have already been planted and a wildlife pond created at the site

The craft distillery bottling a taste of the wild and boosting nature recovery

Jim Brown is director of the Energy Skills Partnership

Why a trained and tested workforce is key to Scotland’s green revolution

Fishermen in Shetland are starring in a new television commercial for the Marine Stewardship Council, which runs an ecolabelling scheme to help consumers choose sustainable fish and seafood. Picture: David Loftus

When the boat comes in: Shetland fishermen on the big screen

Ad Feature Book a place at Scotland’s Green Skills conference

The 'new' Caerlaverock Castle (top) was built only a short distance away from the original moated mansion, on ground just 7m above normal sea level -- researchers have revealed that both fortifications were affected by storm surges during a period of climate change between 1200 and 1570. Picture: RCAHMS

Ancient Scottish castles were hit by medieval climate change, researchers find

A new rail freight depot has been set up at Highland Spring's Perthshire water bottling plant which will see much of the firm's deliveries travelling by rail instead of road -- cutting 8,000 trips by lorry and 3,200 tonnes of carbon emissions each year

Net zer-eau: Highland Spring water on track to cut climate emissions

Sales of Black Isle Brewery's Silent Spring, inspired by the famous environmental book of the same name, will help fund tree-planting projects across the globe through a hook-up with not-for-profit green search engine Ecosia

Can do: How a Scottish ale is helping tackle nature and climate crises

Douglas Martin is managing director at MiAlgae, a biotech start-up which is turning waste from whisky distilleries into microalgae that is rich in omega-3 oil - which can be used for human and animal consumption. Photograph: Martin Shields

Funding boost for firm turning whisky waste into sustainable omega-3 oil

Giant panda Tian Tian is one of the most famous residents at Edinburgh Zoo. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which owns zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park, has released a strategy pledging to: reverse the decline of at least 50 species over the next eight years; create deeper connections with nature for more than a million people; and enable more than 100 communities to better protect nature

Nature needs help more than ever but we must act now, says zoo chief David Field

Photo: Chris Watt

Sustainable Scotland: Fair progress in green shift

Rosy starlings, a cousin of the well-known common starling, have been seen feeding at bird tables up and down the nation -- including locations such as Aberdeenshire, Llandudno, Carmarthen, Rathlin, Dorset and Scarborough, and more. Picture: Martin Creasser

Watch: Pink starlings swap Asia for summer in the UK

The three-year PLANTS (Plant Listing at the National Trust for Scotland) project will involve a team of experts working to catalogue all the plant species in the charity’s gardens -- thought to be more than 100,000. Picture: John Linton

One potato, two potato: Count starts in project to log plants in iconic gardens

Pine weevils feed on young saplings and can wipe out entire plantations if left to run amok. They cost the UK forestry industry at least £5 million of damage each year. Picture: George Gate/Forestry Commission

See no weevil: How foresters are battling tree-eating bug infestations
Scottish scientists are working on a nationwide project that will use hi-tech remote sensing to root out a destructive bug that is destroying forestry plantatio...

Loch Lomond Fisheries Trust is one of five groups sharing £120,000 of funding for projects aimed at boosting declining wild salmon and sea trout populations across Scotland -- it will use a grant of £22,190, from the Scottish fish farming industry, to address tree canopy, in-stream cover and bank erosion issues at 15 sites in five burns across the catchment area

Fish farmers send cash for work to save wild salmon and sea trout

Tech start-up GoCodeGreen was set up during lockdown and is on a mission to remove one million tonnes of actionable greenhouse gases from digital operations each year. Picture: GoCodeGreen

How a green tech firm aims to help solve climate crisis – virtually

More than 500 native oysters have been put into the sea around Oban as part of a reintroduction trial that will investigate how the once plentiful species can benefit the local environment -- with primary pupils from the area lending a hand as citizen scientists

Native Scottish oysters return to west coast seas in new reintroduction scheme

Look and sea: Museum reveals its hidden depths

Dundee's compact nature is working in its favour in the drive to cut greenhouse gases, benefitting communities and the environment. Picture: John Devlin

How Dundee is using tech to accelerate green action

The world relies on a healthy, biodiverse environment for everything from production of food and timber to air purification, soil formation and pollination, but these crucial ecosystem services are at risk if dramatic losses of species are not urgently halted. Picture: Scott Newey/James Hutton Institute

Why it’s important – and urgent – that we halt loss of biodiversity

Logan Botanic Garden, near Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway, is a regional outpost of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and home to a huge variety of exotic plants

Budding artists encouraged to get creative in Scotland's 'most exotic' garden

Ad Feature Sustainable Scotland: UK on verge of "something big" in offshore wind

Science centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen have joined forces to help climate change education reach children and adults across Scotland. Picture: Andrew Cawley

City science centres spread climate change education across Scotland

In 1975, London firefighters add finishing touches to a seductive female Nessie, intended to lure the Loch Ness Monster from his Scottish depths. All part of an English plot? (Picture: Ian Tyas/Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Readers' Letters: Real thing is madder than April 1 joke news

Construction is well under way on the new Phoenix bird-watching hide at Loch Leven national nature reserve. Picture: Simon Ritchie/NatureScot

Loch Leven's new Phoenix bird hide ‘rising from the ashes’ after arson attack

Scottish energy development firm Intelligent Land Investments is working on large-scale pumped hydro storage projects, including Red John at Loch Ness and two other proposed schemes at Loch Ericht and Loch Awe

Storage wars: Why the UK must solve the biggest energy problem

Cairngorms Connect has set out a 200-year vision to restore wild landscapes across an area three times the size of Glasgow that includes mountain, peatland, wetland and river habitats

How a 200-year vision is shaping wild landscapes in the Cairngorms

Celtic Renewables is carrying out final trails of technology which will turn waste from whisky distilleries and farms into biochemicals and green motor fuel before full-scale production can begin at its new state-of-the-art biorefinery -- Scotland's first -- at Grangemouth

A Scots firm creating biofuel from whisky waste plans world domination

The Scotsman Top Stories

Scotland has failed to meet its latest target for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the latest official figures show. Picture: John Giles/PA Wire

Fail: Scotland misses climate target

Pro-independence protesters with Scottish Saltire flags (top) march for Scottish independence. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images

Yousaf: Growing popular support for Yes the only way to Scottish independence

Nadine Dorries. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

SNP MP cleared of bullying Nadine Dorries