Pique Behind the Curtain Vol. 4

Wood Doing Good

Welcome to our fourth edition of Pique Behind the Curtain, today we talk about the circular economy, preview our upcoming episode based in Bangalore and share an audience movie recommendation.

Cambium Carbon: Wood Doing Good

What happens when a tree falls in a city? It often gets sent to a landfill.

Now consider this - there are 36 million trees that come down in cities every year. That’s more than what topples in our national forests. Since most of these trees are sent to landfills or chipped on-site, much of that economic value is lost - around $26 billion.

Cambium Carbon is on a mission to change that - they’ve developed a circular economy platform that enables a fallen tree to be turned into something useful. For example, in Baltimore, they connect salvaged wood to a local woodshop to be turned into tables, chairs, and desks for Towson University.

And for every tree that Cambium Carbon harvests, it reinvests a portion of the profit into replanting new ones in the cities.

Watch the full film here.

For our next episode, we packed our bags and headed to Bangalore, where we met up with Monika Jha, a 26 year old entrepreneur and founder of Cydee Technologies who is rethinking street lights in India. By creating a brighter light with lower emissions and energy use, Jha is solving a major social challenge - safety at night - while installing a better solution for the planet.

John Oliver has a knack for simplifying complex issues into a funny, relatable and simple manner. He tackles transmission, the power grid and more this week. Watch here.

Every week we'll share recommendations from readers about climate films and documentaries to watch. This week’s rec comes from Samuel Bühlmann. Let us know if you have one for next week, just reply here!

• HOME - by Yann Arthus-Bertrand for its fantastic photography.