The price of tomorrow

Plastics have become essential to modern life, enabling advances in healthcare, food preservation, transportation, and many everyday products that improve safety, efficiency, and affordability. The environmental impact of plastics is often viewed as a waste problem, but there are implications of plastics which begin long before a bottle or bag is thrown away. From production to disposal, plastics contribute to climate change, resource use, and environmental contamination, including the generation and spread of microplastics. At the same time, scientists are working to understand the full extent of the risks these materials pose to the ecosystem and human health .This talk will provide a life-cycle perspective on plastics, highlighting key environmental challenges as well as practical pathways towards more sustainable materials and systems.

Climate change is one of the major causes of biodiversity erosion on Earth. The glaciers and their streams host an invisible and rich biodiversity, threatened by the massive glacier shrinking. Most of the microorganisms that thrive in these hostile environments are still unknown to scientists, but they are already in danger. To fill this gap, the RIVER LAB of EPFL embarked on a scientific odyssey, the Vanishing Glaciers Project. For four years, 12 expeditions on the major mountain ranges of the World lead us to explore the invisible life of almost 200 glacier-fed streams, a big scientific exploit and an exciting human adventure. And after dozens of important publications, the team continues to decipher the “invisible architects” of the glacier streams - before they could disappear.

Could a better future be closer than we think? Can we imagine neighborhoods where most daily needs are just 8 minutes away, where living well requires little energy, and where biodiversity is seen as life around us that sustains us. Reaching such a future is first a cultural and democratic challenge, much more than technical or financial. It means reclaiming power from special interests, rethinking what truly matters, and shaping together places that are more connected, resilient, and joyful.