The Green Party has published its ten point cycling plan for Dublin. Among the key points are:

Writing on the BBC Website, Mark Mardell profiles Freiburg, perhaps the world's greenest city. Mardell writes:

What is missing is the constant low thrum of traffic in the background. It's not that cars are completely banned from the city, but most of the centre, rather than the odd street, is a pedestrian zone. You pedal or walk to trams or trains. Freiburg can lay claim to being the greenest city in the world, and it's all rather pleasant.

 A group of students from the University of Michigan has won the $200,000 MIT Clean Energy grand prize for developing insulation panels from agricultural waste.

The May issue of National Geographic magazine features an in-depth article on green roofs. The full article can be read online here.

The market for new residential build may have bottomed out, but compared to the rest of the construction industry the sustainable building sector appears buoyant. Changing market conditions, various government incentives and updated building regulations are all helping greener building companies - but with few houses likely to be built this year and capital restricted, challenges still lie ahead. Lenny Antonelli reports

In light of the current economic conditions, an increasing number of Irish people are turning away from buying new homes, instead deciding to make the most of what they’ve got by extending and refurbishing. Lenny Antonelli visited one such house nearing completion in Glasnevin that uses a combination of materials and techniques to aim for highly sustainable results.

Designing a low-energy public building with passive ventilation and lighting in mind is one thing – making it fit seamlessly into a rural wetland environment is quite another. Lenny Antonelli visited the award-winning Ballybay Wetlands Centre in County Monaghan - a closed-panel timber frame structure designed to sit softly on the surrounding landscape.

Spirit of Ireland have been getting a lot of publicity over the last month - check out the group's news page for a list of recent media articles. If you haven't heard, the group's proposals essentially involve storing wind energy in the form of pumped storage reservoirs along the coast.