Need to Know
05 : 09 : 22

Sweden – While electric vehicles that produce few emissions while running are already relatively commonplace, the same cannot be said for the manufacturing processes used to produce them. Energy company Vattenfall and motorcycle brand Cake are looking to change that with the announcement of a joint innovation initiative to develop a new electric motorcycle that is fossil fuel-free, from factory floor to open road.

Visualising the climate impact of producing one Cake Kalk electric motorcycle from the current generation of vehicles, Cake suspended the bike in a glass cube 8.6m tall, representing the volume of carbon emissions taken to produce it – 637 cubic metres, equivalent to 1,186kg of carbon dioxide.

The companies are striving to reach the fossil fuel-free target by 2025, combining their specific expertise to remove carbon dioxide from not just how the bikes are powered, but their production, assembly and transport as well. As electric vehicles edge towards the mainstream, and consumers begin to re-evaluate their relationship with fossil fuels, look to our Mobility Series to track ongoing developments in the future of transport.

Iceland – Five minutes from Akureyri, one of Iceland's more northerly outposts, a geothermal spa offers visitors an unrivalled forest bathing experience. The spa, appropriately named the Forest Lagoon, is situated in the Vaolaskógur forest and was built using the natural world as its guiding design principle.

The geothermal waters were discovered by chance during an excavation project in 2015. Since then, Basalt Architects have transformed the site into a discreet location for restoration and rejuvenation, adding two infinity pools with swim-up bars, a cold tub, a sauna and a bistro to the property.

The spa is embedded into the mountainside and surrounding woodland. ‘The building is very elongated to make less of an impact on the site, so you don’t have to carve the mountain away, but work with it,’ says Marcos Zotes, a partner at Basalt Architects.

Designed to exist in harmony with the surrounding natural environment, this spa is a prime example of a Biomimicry Hotel.

A study by media company Forbes suggests that the volume of fake trade in cryptocurrency Bitcoin is remarkable. According to the report, 51% of daily Bitcoin trade is likely to be false, a practice that is known as ‘wash trading’ in the financial world.

By artificially increasing an asset's trading volume, traders can create the impression that the asset is more popular than it really is, creating deceitful conditions for future investors. Indeed, one of the most frequent complaints about Bitcoin is its widespread fake volume, which is enabled by poor surveillance across different exchange platforms. The report estimates that more than half of stated trading volume is probably false or non-economic.

Given that an estimated 46m Americans own Bitcoin, better industry regulations are urgently needed for safer investment practices. Even without fake trading, trading in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptocurrencies and alternative assets can already be very volatile.