Month: April 2025

Game On: New computer game aims to tackle plastic pollution

Stuart Mitchell

Harnessing the power of gaming to change the way we think about plastic waste is the focus of a new project by a team of scientists from the University of Portsmouth’s  Revolution Plastics Institute. The project combines multidisciplinary expertise from academia and industry to create a commercially viable game that engages players in understanding waste management.  In partnership with leading games developer Harnessing the power of gaming to change the way we think about plastic waste is the focus of a new project by a team of scientists from the…

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Unity Trust Bank marks 40 years of impact with increase in lending to areas of high deprivation

Stuart Mitchell

Unity Trust Bank, which supports organisations that create positive social impact across the UK, has reported that more than half of its lending went to customers delivering services in areas of high deprivation in 2024.  In its annual results, Unity’s overall lending remained at over £1 billion with 50.5% (2023: 45.3%) committed to where it is needed most.   Customer balances rose to a record £1.7 billion (up 10% from 2023) as more socially-minded organisations chose to place their deposits with Unity, so they could be used to improve the quality…

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Animal impact ‘still felt on huge scale’ as nation remembers five years since first lockdown

Stuart Mitchell

On the fifth anniversary of UK nations being plunged into unprecedented lockdown restrictions, the RSPCA says the impact for animals is “still being felt on a huge scale”. The charity fears impulse pet purchasing to ease lockdown “boredom”, a lack of socialisation opportunities for many young dogs, and the cost of living crisis arguably precipitated by the pandemic have all placed “enormous challenges” on pets, their owners, and the animal welfare sector. Animal abandonment rising The charity took reports about 22,503 animal abandonment incidents last year – more than in…

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Sodexo achieves prestigious recognition for commitment to social impact

Stuart Mitchell

Sodexo UK & Ireland has been awarded the Ambassador Charter Mark Award by the Social Recruitment Advocacy Group, becoming the first organisation to achieve this highest level of recognition. This milestone reflects Sodexo’s long-standing commitment to creating social impact in the communities it serves and operates in, with each of its 30,000 colleagues supporting the delivery of its varied services and taking collective responsibility for driving positive change every day. The Social Recruitment Advocacy Group was founded in 2022 by PeoplePlus, a leading organisation in social value creation, and is…

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River water temperatures swing from hot to cold: major discovery shows value of open-source environmental data

Stuart Mitchell

Scientists have unveiled rapid fluctuations in river water temperature across the United States (US), with rivers controlled by dams showing more frequent and volatile thermal changes. Experts at the University of Birmingham and Indiana University based their research on national scale, open-source data from the US Geological Survey. Such data are an essential scientific resource for understanding environmental variability between different places and over time, especially in a warming and increasingly human-dominated world. In this research, the authors leveraged 15 years’ worth of high-resolution temperature data nationally in the first…

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