If you’re familiar with biomass, you know that an increasing amount of food products are being used to generate energy – from diesel fuel to electricity and heat, scraps of corn, soy and other crops have become big business.

But students at a technical school in Sardinia came up with a novel idea: using grape skins to create a photovoltaic system. According to the students’ teacher, who helped them develop the project, the skins of grapes contain photovoltaic power cells – and unlike blueberries, grapes are affordable and the skins are left over after wine production. The students are hoping their innovative project will give them an edge at the EU Contest for Young Scientists this September in Bratislava, Slovakia.

The Brazilian parliament has adopted a new, hotly-debated land law. Environmentalist fear that it puts the country’s rainforest, one of the world’s richest, at high risk.

Large landowners and peasants benefit from the law, because it eases existing restrictions: landowners are no longer bound to reforest riverbanks, for example, and environmental regulations have also been softened.

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Sometimes, all it takes is the right idea to kill (at least) two birds with one stone. And that’s what Mary and her husband Mike had back in 2008. They wanted to find a way to address hunger in their native county Jamaica. That’s why they decided to plant more breadfruit-trees, because the breadfruit itself can be used for several different dishes. And their plan worked: not only did Mary and Mike help alleviate hunger, but they also helped bring some green back to the region, benefiting the climate, too. That’s the concept that drives their organization, the Trees that feed Foundation.

With their project, they also boosted the local economy by developing a model for farmers to share. And their idea encouraged follow-up projects, too. In cooperation with another non-profit organization, the Compatible Technology International, they developed a breadfruit-mill out of a bicycle – and thereby developed a CO2- neutral way to process the fruits.

And since then, their plan has only spread further, from breadfruit to other trees that produce edible fruits, like the moringa and pigeon pea trees as well as mango and guava trees. “Our intent is to supply trees for planting in small farms, field margins and urban backyards. We will focus on plants that require minimal use of fertilizers and agricultural chemicals”, the Foundation explains on its website.

If you would like to support Trees that feed and help them expand to communities in the Caribbean, Central America and Africa,go to check their website to find out how.

The plant started working a few days ago after a six-month trial period and build-up. It’s based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital and largest city. The facility is almost five football pitches (36.000 m²) big and doubles the size of the former chart-topper in Denmark. With the new solar power plant, it’s now possible to produce enough energy to heat water for 40.000 students at the Princess Noura bint AbdulRahman University, the largest women-only university in the world. The campus consits of 15 academic faculty buildings, various labs and a 700-bed hospital. The $14m plant was manufactured by Austrian research institute GREENoneTEC company and constructed by Jordanian engineering company Millennium Energy Industries. The plant operates via 36,305m2 of solar panels. And based on the lifespan of these panels, the facility could save about 52 million liters of heating oil and 125 million kilograms of CO2.

Earth Day was on Sunday, April 22nd, – a day to raise awareness about our planet and the growing threat of climate change. Organizers say more than 1 billion people across the planet took part! Celebrations across the globe marked the day, and the Earth Day Network says it collected more than 1 billion “Acts of Green,” or pledges to help the environment. From exhibitions to concerts to tree planting and cleaning up rivers and roads around the world, the young and old alike pitched in.

What was your act of green?