Danske Bank quits new fossil fuel financing
Denmark’s biggest bank has declared an end to fossil fuel financing, after concluding that 99.9% of its carbon footprint comes from financed emissions.
Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)
This archive spans the years 2017 through 2025, a period marked by rapid advances in clean energy, medicine, technology, and social equity. It collects documented breakthroughs, policy wins, and scientific achievements from the present era. If you want evidence that progress is real and ongoing, this is where to look.
Kenya is producing its first electric buses
Electric buses are now being assembled in Kenya for the first time, marking a genuine shift in how East Africa thinks about clean public transit. A Nairobi startup called BasiGo partnered with a veteran Mombasa assembler to build 1,000 electric buses over three years — creating over 600 jobs in manufacturing, maintenance, and charging. What makes this especially promising is BasiGo’s pay-per-kilometer financing model, which makes electric buses as affordable upfront as diesel for everyday operators. Kenya’s already-clean electricity grid means these buses will run on genuinely green power. It’s a hopeful template other African cities could follow.
Canada to ban cosmetic testing on animals
The ban will cover a range of products, including make-up, perfume, body lotion, hair-styling products, shaving foam and nail polish. It would extend to cosmetics that contain animal-tested ingredients.
Dutch constitution will be amended to ban LGBTQ+ discrimination
Following the Dutch Senate’s vote passing the proposal in a 56–15 vote, it now only needs to be signed by King Willem-Alexander and the responsible minister before becoming law.
Pfizer to sell all its drugs in 45 low-income countries at non-profit price
Pfizer’s not-for-profit pricing pledge now spans all 500 of its medicines — including chemotherapy and oral cancer treatments — across 45 of the world’s lowest-income countries. That’s a major expansion of an accord the company launched in 2022, which originally covered only patented drugs. By including off-patent medicines too, Pfizer is acknowledging that even decades-old cancer treatments often remain out of reach where generic supply chains never took hold. For patients across much of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where cancer and heart disease are rising fast, this could quietly move the floor on what’s possible. And when the world’s largest drugmaker makes a move this broad, the rest of the industry tends to notice.
Sierra Leone enacts law to keep 30% posts for women in power
The Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act calls for a 30% minimum quota of women in parliament and cabinet and requires companies to set aside 30% of senior-level jobs for women.
Five U.S. states are repaving roads with unrecyclable plastic waste
Pilot programs are ongoing in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, and Hawai’i are already seeing promising results.
Saudi Arabia hosts its first international football tournament for women
Saudi Arabia launched it’s national women’s football team last year. Last week, Anoud Al Asmari made history by becoming the first Saudi female referee to be accredited by Fifa.
30% of Barbados seas to be protected under innovative “blue bond” financing scheme
The Nature Conservancy announced it will work with partners to buy a piece of Barbados’ national debt and refinance it to facilitate this goal.
Staggering 79% of new cars sold in Norway in 2022 were electric
There are now more than 600,000 EVs in Norway. In 2017, the country pledged to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2025. The government also has exempted new EVs from purchase tax and sales tax.