Source: The Conversation – UK – By Quynh Hoang, Lecturer in Marketing and Consumption, Department of Marketing and Strategy, University of Leicester
For years, big tech companies have placed the burden of managing screen time squarely on individuals and parents, operating on the assumption that capturing human attention is fair game.
But the social media sands may slowly be shifting. A test-case jury trial in Los Angeles is accusing big tech companies of creating “addiction machines”. While TikTok and Snapchat have already settled with the 20-year-old plaintiff, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is due to give evidence in the courtroom this week.
The European Commission recently issued a preliminary ruling against TikTok, stating that the app’s design – with features such as infinite scroll and autoplay – breaches the EU Digital Services Act. One industry expert told the BBC that the problem is “no longer just about toxic content, it’s about toxic design”.
Meta and other defendants have historically argued that their platforms are communication tools, not traps, and that “addiction” is a mischaracterisation of high engagement.
“I think it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified in the LA court. He noted that the field of psychology does not classify social media addiction as an official diagnosis.
Tech giants maintain that users and parents have the agency and tools to manage screen time. However, a growing body of academic research suggests features like infinite scrolling, autoplay and push notifications are engineered to override human self-control.
Video: CBS News.
A state of ‘automated attachment’
My research with colleagues on digital consumption behaviour also challenges the idea that excessive social media use is a failure of personal willpower. Through interviews with 32 self-identified excessive users and an analysis of online discussions dedicated to heavy digital use, we found that consumers frequently enter a state of “automated attachment”.
This is when connection to the device becomes purely reflexive, as conscious decision-making is effectively suspended by the platform’s design.
We found that the impulse to use these platforms sometimes occurs before the user is even fully conscious. One participant admitted: “I’m waking up, I’m not even totally conscious, and I’m already doing things on the device.”
Another described this loss of agency vividly: “I found myself mindlessly opening the [TikTok] app every time I felt even the tiniest bit bored … My thumb was reaching to its old spot on reflex, without a conscious thought.”
Social media proponents argue that “screen addiction” isn’t the same as substance abuse. However, new neurophysiological evidence suggests that frequent engagement with these algorithms alters dopamine pathways, fostering a dependency that is “analogous to substance addiction”.
Strategies that keep users engaged
The argument that users should simply exercise willpower also needs to be understood in the context of the sophisticated strategies platforms employ to keep users engaged. These include:
1. Removing stopping cues
Features like infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications create a continuous flow of content. By eliminating natural end-points, the design effectively shifts users into autopilot mode, making stopping a viewing session more difficult.
The issue of social media addiction is of particular concern when it comes to children, whose impulse control mechanisms are still developing. The US trial’s plaintiff says she began using social media at the age of six, and that her early exposure to these platforms led to a spiral into addiction.
Lawyers in the US trial have pointed to internal documents, known as “Project Myst”, which allegedly show that Meta knew parental controls were ineffective against these engagement loops. Meta’s attorney, Paul Schmidt, countered that the plaintiff’s struggles stemmed from pre-existing childhood trauma rather than platform design.
Our study heard from many adults (mainly in their 20s) who described the near-impossibility of controlling levels of use, despite their best efforts. If these adults cannot stop opening apps on reflex, expecting a child to exercise restraint with apps that affect human neurophysiology seems even more unrealistic.
Potential harms of overuse
The consequences of social media overuse can be significant. Our research and recent studies have identified a wide range of potential harms.
Excessive exposure to rapidly changing, highly stimulating content can fracture the user’s attention span, making it harder to focus on complex real-world tasks.
And many users describe feeling “defeated” by the technology. Social media’s erosion of autonomy can leave people unable to align their online actions – such as overlong sessions – with their intentions.
A ruling against social media companies in the LA court case, or enforced redesign of their apps in the EU, could have profound implications for the way these platforms are operated in future.
But while big tech companies have grown at dizzying rates over the past two decades, attempts to rein in their products on both sides of the Atlantic remain slow and painstaking. In this era of “use first, legislate later”, people all over the world, of all ages, are the laboratory mice.
Quynh Hoang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Arshad Majid, Professor of Cerebrovascular Neurology, School of Medicine and Population Health, University of Sheffield
An explosion does not need to strike the head to injure the brain. When a blast occurs, it generates a sudden pressure wave that can pass through the body and skull in milliseconds, potentially deforming brain tissue and blood vessels along the way.
For soldiers exposed to improvised explosive devices or other blasts, and civilians caught in industrial accidents or explosions in conflict zones, the neurological effects can be long-lasting – even when brain scans appear normal.
Blast injuries can trigger changes in the brain and its blood vessels that standard medical scans do not always detect. When these injuries go unrecognised, people may receive the wrong care or be left without an explanation for symptoms that persist for years.
Most people are familiar with traumatic brain injuries caused by impacts such as falls, road traffic collisions or sports injuries. In these situations, the brain moves suddenly within the skull, leading to bruising or localised damage that can often be seen on scans.
Blast injury works differently. The rapid rise and fall in pressure created by an explosion can travel through the skull and the fluid that surrounds and cushions the brain. This generates complex mechanical forces that stretch and strain brain tissue. As a result, someone can sustain a brain injury even without any direct blow to the head.
Rather than producing one clearly visible injury, blast exposure tends to cause widespread microscopic damage. These tiny injuries can disrupt how brain cells communicate with each other, and can also damage the blood vessels that keep brain tissue healthy.
Although blast injury is often associated with military settings, it is not confined to war zones. Civilians may be exposed through industrial explosions, terrorist attacks or demolition work. In all these situations, the underlying mechanisms of brain injury are similar.
Despite these differences, blast injuries are often managed in the same way as concussions or other head injuries. When damage to blood vessels is overlooked, the severity of the injury and its long-term impact can be underestimated.
More sensitive diagnostic tools, including advanced imaging and specialised blood tests, could improve detection of subtle blood vessel damage. This would allow for more targeted treatment aimed at reducing inflammation, protecting the brain’s circulation, and ensuring patients receive appropriate long-term care.
Blast-related brain injury can also disrupt the brain’s waste-clearance system. This system normally removes harmful proteins and metabolic waste. When it is impaired, vulnerability to long-term post-concussion symptoms and neurodegenerative diseases may increase.
Brain blood vessels are especially vulnerable
One of the most important, and often overlooked, consequences of blast injury is damage to the brain’s blood vessels.
Blood vessels are thin-walled and flexible, allowing them to cope with normal changes in blood flow and pressure. During a blast, however, the rapid pressure shifts can stretch these vessels beyond their limits. This can cause tiny tears and weaken the protective barrier that normally prevents harmful substances in the bloodstream from entering brain tissue.
This protective layer, often called the blood–brain barrier, plays a crucial role in controlling what passes from the blood into the brain. When it is damaged, inflammatory cells and proteins can leak into brain tissue.
The resulting inflammation may persist long after the initial injury, interfering with normal brain function. Over time, this can contribute to symptoms such as headaches, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, slowed thinking, mood changes and fatigue.
Damage to the blood–brain barrier may help explain why some people experience ongoing symptoms months or even years after blast exposure.
Why scans can appear normal
One of the most frustrating experiences for people with blast-related brain injury is being told that their CT or MRI scan is normal, despite persistent symptoms.
Standard imaging techniques are very good at detecting fractures, bleeding or large areas of tissue damage. Blast injuries, however, often involve microscopic changes such as small vessel damage, disruption to communication between brain cells, and ongoing inflammation. These changes are usually too subtle to be seen on routine scans.
This mismatch between symptoms and imaging can delay diagnosis, complicate rehabilitation and, in some cases, affect access to appropriate support or compensation.
Progress will require close collaboration between neuroscientists, clinicians, emergency services and policymakers. Blast injury is not only a military concern. It offers broader insights into how pressure-related forces damage the brain, and how these injuries might be prevented or treated.
Recognising blast injury as a distinct form of brain trauma, particularly one that affects the brain’s blood vessels, is a crucial step towards improving care for those affected.
Arshad Majid is a NIHR Senior Investigator and his research is funded by the NIHR EME programme and the NIHR Sheffield BRC. His research is also funded by the Stroke Association UK.
Favour Felix-Ilemhenbhio receives funding from the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Klaudia Kocsy receives funding from Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Byron Hyde, Philosopher of Science and Public Policy, University of Bristol, Honorary Research Associate, Bangor University
The Enhanced Games, slated to commence in May 2026, has sparked outrage across the sporting world. This new competition is the first in history to openly permit performance-enhancing drugs, and sporting bodies aren’t happy about it.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe called the concept “bollocks”, while World Anti-Doping Agency president Witold Bańka has dismissed it as “dangerous” and “ridiculous”.
Such criticisms might be justified, but they overlook the fact that the Enhanced Games is making obvious what society has always quietly accepted – that most people are willing to watch athletes risk harm when the entertainment is good enough. And that’s something that all sporting bodies should spend more time considering.
This bargain between spectacle and safety isn’t new to sport. Ancient Romans packed the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight to the death. It’s certainly been toned down over the last 2,000 years. But the gladiatorial spirit remains alive in modern arenas. How it’s packaged has merely become more sophisticated.
Consider boxing. Society has allowed professional boxing for more than 100 years despite the dangers to fighters. In one group of amateur and professional boxers, 62% were found to have dementia or amnesia.
Yet arenas still sell out. Fans celebrate knockout victories even though they know they may shorten a boxer’s life. Sporting bodies and fans have decided this trade-off is acceptable. Every time a ticket is bought, a statement is made about acceptable risk.
The multi-sport Enhanced Games simply extends this logic. Held in Las Vegas, athletes will be able to use performance-enhancing substances (approved by the drugs regulator for medical uses) “off-label” under medical supervision. These include testosterone, growth hormone and anabolic steroids.
Long-term use of substances like these can damage the heart and blood vessels, harm the liver, disrupt the body’s natural hormone production (potentially causing infertility) and affect a person’s mood and mental health.
The organisers aim to usher in a “new era of elite competition” and with it “the future of human performance”. Founder Aron D’Souza, an Australian businessman, thinks athletes should be free to do whatever they want to their own bodies. The International Federation of Sports Medicine has challenged the Enhanced Games for putting athletes at risk.
But isn’t the Enhanced Games simply a more dangerous version of traditional athletics? If brain trauma is the potential price of boxing entertainment, why the outrage about pharmaceutical enhancement risks? The moral panic about chemical enhancement seems inconsistent with society’s silence about the proven harms in so many of the sports people already love.
The Olympics already celebrates athletes who push their bodies to extremes through punishing training regimens, strict diets and recovery methods that test the limits of human physiology. Research has documented serious physical and psychological harms in many sports, including some like gymnastics and figure skating where even child athletes have faced high risks of injury and mental illness, including eating disorders, anxiety and depression.
The Enhanced Games just moves the risk threshold further along a spectrum society has already accepted.
Every time a new enhanced athlete is announced, their national sporting bodies issue condemnations. Sport Ireland stated that they were “deeply disappointed” about swimmer Shane Ryan’s decision to join the Enhanced Games. When fellow swimmer Ben Proud announced his intention to participate, governing body UK Sport said it “condemns everything the Enhanced Games stands for” and that they were “incredibly disappointed” with his decision.
But these same bodies preside over sports where athletes routinely suffer serious injuries. When will they acknowledge the risks they’re already asking athletes to accept?
The question isn’t whether the Enhanced Games introduces something morally unprecedented. It doesn’t. What it does is forces sports fans to confront the bargain they’ve always accepted but rarely discuss. Fans want extraordinary athletic performances, and they’re willing to let athletes pay extraordinary prices to deliver them.
The Enhanced Games describes itself as a ‘sports spectacle for the 21st century’.
Being honest about risk
If sporting bodies are serious about athlete welfare rather than just moral posturing, they need to be honest about risk across all of sport. In research ethics, institutional review boards conduct formal risk-benefit analyses before approving human studies. They document potential harms and assess whether benefits justify risks.
Sporting bodies should do the same. This includes the Enhanced Games. So far, they’re failing just as badly as traditional sports, hiding behind claims of medical supervision rather than stating the trade-offs.
Informed consent is central to medical ethics and some ethicists argue it isn’t talked about enough in sport. Athletes should understand the specific risks of their sport based on robust data, not vague warnings.
For example, all boxers should be aware of the dangers they face each time they take a punch to the head. Similarly, all enhanced athletes should understand what prolonged testosterone and growth hormone do to the body. Informed consent requires real information, not liability waivers.
As a philosopher of science, I suggest we need to be consistent about our judgments across different sports. The sporting establishment denouncing the Enhanced Games should look in the mirror. Boxing, rugby and motorsports organisations as well as bodies representing a host of other sports preside over activities with documented long-term harms.
The selective outrage is telling. It suggests this is more about maintaining comfortable fictions than protecting athletes. We prefer our sports wrapped in the language of safety and personal freedom. The Enhanced Games threatens to make that fiction harder to maintain.
Byron Hyde is a member of the Health Research Authority London Chelsea Research Ethics Committee and the Open University Human Research Ethics Committee. This essay does not reflect the opinions of the Health Research Authority or the Open University.
London’s National Gallery has launched a “voluntary exit” scheme for staff to address an £8.2 million deficit, with the possibility of redundancies to follow. The news bodes ill for cultural institutions and cuts, in contrast to the recent announcement of additional cultural funding from the UK government.
If the National Gallery – one of Britain’s leading attractions with over 4 million visitors a year – is struggling to balance its books, it indicates wider structural problems in the arts industry. The National Gallery’s predicament is indicative of pressures that have been building across the arts. Among these are increased operating costs, public funding not keeping pace with inflation, and increased reliance on commercial income at a time when belts are tightening across the board.
Cash injections, when they come, are not enough in the face of longitudinal real-terms decline. Competing needs for infrastructural repairs and capital projects are leaving a gap in the recurring revenues that support educational work, staff and daily activity.
As with the crisis in higher education, years of funding pressure and inflation are catching up with the sector and exposing the underlying fragility. The dawning scale of the problem has prompted a parliamentary inquiry into the financial resilience of government-sponsored museums and galleries. This is an acknowledgement of the deep-rooted nature of the challenge.
As the resources for cultural institutions have shrunk, research shows that the problems are systemic. There is a high level of churn among skilled workers in cultural occupations. Low pay, insecure conditions and limited progression push workers, especially younger workers, out of arts, culture and heritage jobs. This weakens both the sector’s resilience in the face of change and institutional capacity to innovate.
At the same time, access to finance has become a barrier. Cultural organisations face growing difficulty in securing affordable capital, lenders not understanding their businesses and a lack of appropriate financial products.
This undermines entrenched assumptions about arts organisations. High footfall does not necessarily guarantee sustainability. Last year Tate cut 7% of staff even as visitor numbers recovered after the pandemic, albeit unevenly. It also challenges the belief that philanthropy can replace public funding, or that cultural institutions should operate like other businesses. The result is a sector exposed to shocks, with insufficient room to adapt.
Financial fragility and institutional risk
The closure of the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Glasgow earlier this year is a case in point. The funding body, Creative Scotland, refused to add to its previous three-year £3.2 million commitment and cited concerns about the centre’s “ongoing viability”. The CCA faced many problems, from a staffing dispute leading to the closure of its café bar, to – more recently – anti-Israel protesters calling on it to endorse a cultural boycott, leading to a temporary closure and further tensions.
Organisations increasingly have to respond to complex and competing social pressures – including objections to their sponsors – while maintaining institutional stability. It’s a task made harder by funding models that leave scarce room for manoeuvre.
At its core, the CCA’s collapse reflected longstanding financial fragility. These additional pressures compounded an already finely balanced situation. When an organisation is reliant on emergency funding and operating with little margin for error, disruptions can have disproportionate effects.
The CCA episode demonstrates how cultural organisations are required to absorb disruption (political, reputational and operational) with diminishing financial buffers. They are expected by policymakers, campaigners and the public to widen access, sustain international partnerships, expand educational programming and generate enough income to survive. These all make sense on their own but, taken together, may pull in different directions.
The arts are expected to, and often do, serve as engines of regeneration. Meanwhile, they increasingly operate with an uncertain mixed economy funding model in which shrinking public subsidy prioritises an entrepreneurial approach to private sponsorship and commercial income.
This suggests that the National Gallery’s difficulties are not an outlier, but an indicator of a deeper fault line – a sign of how exposed even our best-known cultural institutions have become. An organisation of this scale and popularity being forced to cut staff underlines how little room there is to absorb rising costs or unexpected disruption. High visitor numbers and commercial activity can help, but can’t guarantee stability on their own.
Much of the postwar period was shaped by the Keynesian settlement – the consensus in favour of state intervention to support public goods and manage economic and social welfare. There was a broad acceptance that cultural institutions required public support to deliver benefits that the market alone could not. As that assumption has weakened, funding has become more fragmented and reactive, shaped by short-term pressures rather than coherent long-term strategy.
The result is organisations operating with minimal headroom and responding through tactical measures like staffing cuts instead of being able to plan ahead. What gets lost in the process is the capacity to invest in people, programmes and public value beyond the immediate funding cycle.
This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.
Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aimee Ambrose, Professor of Energy Policy, Member of Fuel Poverty Evidence and Trustee of the Fuel Poverty Research Network, Sheffield Hallam University
Swedish homes are among the warmest in Europe, reflecting high levels of insulation and longstanding strategies that have kept heating costs low for most households.Antony McAulay/Shutterstock
The new year in Sweden began with some record-breaking cold temperatures. Temperatures in the village of Kvikkjokk in the northern Swedish part of Lapland dropped to -43.6°C, the lowest recorded since records began in 1887.
Yet for the majority of Swedish households, heating is not an issue. Those living in the multi-household apartment blocks that characterise Sweden’s towns and cities enjoy average temperatures of 22°C inside their homes, thanks to communal heating systems that keep room temperatures high and costs low. For many households, heating is charged at a flat rate and included in the rent they pay.
*Some interviewees in this article are anonymised according to the terms of the research.
In the UK, meanwhile, home temperatures average just 16.6 degrees, the lowest in all of Europe. At least 6 million UK households fear the onset of cold weather because they are living in fuel poverty – unable to afford to heat their home to a safe and comfortable level.
The problem is exacerbated by the UK’s reliance on natural gas to heat its homes – a fuel which suffers from escalating price volatility. They are also the most poorly insulated in Europe, making them difficult to keep warm.
In Britain, home heating isn’t just a political hot potato; it has been shown to cost lives. In the winter of 2022-23, 4,950 people were estimated to have died earlier than expected (known as “excess winter deaths”) because of the health effects of living in cold homes – including lung and heart problems as well as damage to mental health. In contrast, despite having a much colder winter climate, Sweden’s excess winter deaths index was around 12%, one of the lowest rates in Europe and considerably below the UK’s 18% figure.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
So how did two countries that are geographically quite close end up so far apart when it comes to home heating outcomes? As two professors of energy studies – one British, the other Swedish – we have long puzzled over the stark contrast in how winter is experienced inside our homes in the north of England (Sheffield) and southern Sweden (Lund).
For the last three years, we have been researching the modern histories of home heating in both countries (plus Finland and Romania), gathering nearly 300 oral accounts of people’s memories of the daily struggle to keep warm at home for long periods each year.
By charting these experiences of home heating in both countries since the end of the second world war, we show how Britain now finds itself struggling to keep its citizens warm in winter while also facing an uphill battle to meet its environmental targets. The stories from Sweden, on the whole, suggest how different things could have been.
Post-war memories
The second world war changed many things but not, immediately, the way homes were heated. In the UK coal remained the primary domestic fuel, while Sweden stuck mainly with wood, although coal was becoming more common in cities. Cold homes were still considered normal in both countries, as Majvor* (who is now in her 80s and lives in the Swedish city of Malmö) recalled of her post-war childhood living in a one-room flat:
There was a stove in the room and that was the only source of heat – I have a memory of it being so cold in the winter that my mother had to put all three children in the same bed to keep warm. In the winter, all the water froze to ice, so you had to … heat it on the stove to get hot water.
Despite the cold, many of our interviewees remembered the burning of wood and coal to heat their homes with great affection – although less so the drudgery and dirt that went with it.
“There’s just something about a fire, isn’t there,” Sue (now in her 60s and living in Rotherham, England) told us. “The warmth, the smell, the laughter. It’s that family memory and it was just wonderful. Anyone ’round here will tell you the same: life was hard but it was wonderful. We felt loved.”
Mary (now in her 70s and also living in Rotherham) is among a very small minority who still heat their home using a coal fire. Her reflections were less positive:
I remember going to fetch coal when I was pregnant. I gave birth two days later … It’s the dirt that gets you down, the dirt from the fire. It’s disheartening when your walls are always dirty. That’s why I had them tiled because I was painting them every six months before that.
Carolina* (now in her mid-30s and living in Malmö) also had a negative recollection of her wood-burning childhood – but for a very different reason. She described how her mother had once “got the axe in her foot … She continued to chop wood anyway – but I kind of got PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] from her doing that. So I can’t do it, I’m really scared of it.”
In Sweden, home heating was seen as key to improving social conditions after the war. The emphasis was on good-quality homes for everyone as the social welfare concept of folkhem (“the people’s home”) finally gained traction. The idea had first been articulated by future prime minister Per Albin Hansson in a speech to the Swedish parliament back in 1928, as a way of expressing his vision for a fair and equal society.
From 1946, housing construction was regarded as a key political issue for improving public health and achieving Sweden’s other social welfare goals. In several cities, municipally owned public housing companies played an important role in the initial phase of new district heating systems, in part by guaranteeing a secure market. The introduction of the varmhyra (“warm rent”) policy meant heating and sometimes other utilities were included in the rent – an arrangement that continues to this day in many Swedish apartment blocks.
The UK, like Sweden, suffered the blight of cold homes during the 1940s, exacerbated by fuel rationing that extended long beyond the war. So it is difficult to explain why Britain’s new post-war welfare state did not explicitly address home heating.
Instead, the focus was on public health, with the birth of the National Health Service and recognition that the mass burning of coal was leading to fatal air pollution and unhealthy homes. Heavy city smogs, triggered by widespread coal burning in homes and factories, became increasingly common. The problem reached a climax when the “great smog of 1952” killed approximately 12,000 people, primarily in London, over just five days.
The justification for rapidly phasing out coal as the UK’s primary fuel for homes and industry was centred around ending the public health crisis of these killer smogs, rather than on changing the way homes were heated – leading to the introduction of the Clean Air Act (1956). And as the UK scrabbled for a cleaner form of heating, a game-changing discovery was made. Huge reserves of “natural gas” (methane) were found off the Yorkshire coast in 1965, offering the huge advantage of reducing visible air pollutants compared with coal.
One man in particular, Kenneth Hutchison, saw and seized the opportunity to present natural gas as the panacea the UK had been waiting for. As incoming president of the National Society for Clean Air, Hutchison hailed the gas industry as the driving force in Britain’s “smokeless revolution”. From the late 1960s, he drove the rollout of networks piping natural gas into UK households at an incredible rate, demanding: “We must convince the public that central heating by gas is best” over the grime and drudgery of coal fires.
A 1965 advert for ‘high-speed’ British gas. Video: Anachronistic Anarchist.
The chairman of British Gas, Denis Rooke – not an objective witness, admittedly – described the rollout as “perhaps the greatest peacetime operation in the nation’s history”. Between 1968 and 1976, around 13 million UK homes (of a total of about 15 million) were made ready for connection to the gas network. The cost of converting domestic heating and cooking systems from coal to gas was largely borne by the national gas supplier, making it effectively free to most households.
Our research suggests this transition was presented to UK households as a fait accompli. But most of our UK-based interviewees remembered the advent of natural gas as a major step forward in cleanliness, comfort and convenience. As 75-year-old Rita from Rotherham recalled of moving into a new council estate with gas heating in 1967:
It was like another universe! It was comfortable, everything became less intense – you didn’t need so much clothing … The days of cooking on the fire were gone. Fabulous! The boiler didn’t have to go all the time – the gas fire could take the chill off.
Britain’s gas rollout not only brought gas central heating but other appliances such as gas fridges and fires that further lightened the domestic load. For Rita’s and many other families, it felt like a cascade of liberations which made homes brighter and more enjoyable to live in.
Yet half a century later, Hutchison’s faith in gas appears less justified. While it certainly cleaned up the UK’s visible air pollution, natural gas is methane by another name – a powerful greenhouse gas.
How Sweden ‘futureproofed’
With a much smaller population and less crowded cities, air quality in Sweden had been less of a concern than in the UK in the immediate post-war period. But in the 1960s, proposals for a mass home-building programme raised fears this could worsen air pollution.
Without the option of “clean” natural gas, Sweden turned to district heating – an idea which had originated in New York in the 19th century. But Sweden committed to it in a big way during the 1960s and ‘70s, deciding it was the best way to meet the heating needs of the 1 million homes now being built. This decision shaped the way homes in Sweden are heated: today, some 90% of its multi-family apartment blocks are connected to district heating systems – with heat distributed from power plants (usually on the edge of cities) as hot water via a network of pipes.
Upon its introduction, district heating was celebrated for its efficiency, affordability for households (especially when combined with the warm rent policy), and flexibility – it is easy to change the fuel source. For some municipalities, district heating plants opened up opportunities to produce cheap electricity. Whereas UK households were (and remain) largely individually responsible for paying for their heating, in Sweden it was seen as a collective good.
Even the 1973 oil crisis – when geopolitical tensions in the Middle East quadrupled the price of oil – failed to dent public trust in the Swedish approach to home heating. In response to the oil crisis, Sweden moved quickly to change the fuels used to power district heating, introducing more domestic waste and biomass into the mix – a move that, from a climate perspective, now appears a highly prescient shift.
According to Kjell* (now in his 60s, living in a small town in south-west Sweden), 1973 was “when the whole concept changed because suddenly fossil fuels became expensive”. He explained:
The expansion of nuclear power [meant] electricity became very cheap … The government promoted the idea that ‘now we should use electricity, we should use direct electric heating’ … All you had to do was turn a thermostat, press a button, and it was warm.
As well as nuclear power expansion, Sweden doubled down on hydropower production and was among the earliest European countries to invest in other renewable energy sources. Its government was also an early proponent of the now-familiar concept of energy efficiency – encouraging both households and industry to conserve energy and invest in insulation. By the mid-1990s, every Swedish home was rated by the EU as having comprehensive insulation and double glazing as a minimum. The equivalent figure in the UK in 2025 was only around 50%.
The flagship initiative “Seal up Sweden” encouraged households to insulate homes and restrict room temperature to 20 degrees (still almost four degrees warmer than the average UK home today). And the warm rent system gave landlords a vested interest in improving the energy performance of their properties.
Whether it was realised at the time or not, in the defining moment of the oil crisis, Sweden was futureproofing its urban heating systems – and laying the foundations for its enduring reputation as a leader in clean energy and climate policy. Sweden eschewed energy imports in favour of harnessing its own energy assets through expansion in hydropower, waste and nuclear energy – although this latter commitment would soon be tested by the major 1979 accident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the US.
The era of power cuts
In stark contrast, the UK’s rapid natural gas rollout couldn’t move fast enough to protect households from the twin effects of the oil crisis and miners’ strikes in the 1970s. Electricity – mostly still generated by coal and oil – was rationed via rolling blackouts. Many workplaces were required to restrict their operations to a three-day week.
With the average British home heated to 13.7 °C at this time (compared with 20-21 °C in Sweden), there was little scope to ask households to cut back further, so nationwide power cuts were imposed instead. Homes were regularly plunged into darkness. Tony (now in his early 70s, from the English town of Whiston on Merseyside) worked as a social worker during this period. He recalled seeing many interiors without doors or bannisters – they had been burnt to keep the family warm.
Extra candles were imported into Britain in 1972 to cope with power cuts. Video: AP Archive.
Nonetheless, “clean” gas pioneer Hutchison was feeling vindicated as the UK enjoyed an era of falling gas prices throughout the 1980s. Climate change was still, at most, a nascent agenda, so it didn’t seem to matter that British households were living in some of the least energy-efficient (and worst insulated) homes in Europe.
Gas remained affordable through the miners’ strike of 1984-85 and privatisation of the gas industry in 1986, with the average household gas bill six times cheaper in real terms than today. Yet British households continued to modestly heat their homes, with average internal home temperatures slowly rising from 16.1 °C in 1990 to 17.8 °C by 1999.
Over the same period, Sweden went through several momentous changes as concern for the environment grew – amid recognition of the greenhouse effect (the build-up of gases trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere) and acid rain (rainfall made acidic by air pollution). This resulted in another pioneering move: the world’s first carbon tax on fossil fuels in 1991, which further galvanised its move away from oil.
Amid Sweden’s dash for energy independence, electric-powered home heat pumps increasingly came to be viewed as something of a status symbol. Even households living in multi-family urban apartments were growing increasingly concerned about the monopolistic nature of district heating. They started opting out in favour of individual heat pumps, undermining these collective systems that rely on everyone contributing.
Short-lived progress in the UK
Britain was much slower to embrace the need to address the world’s climate crisis. One promising intervention finally came in 2006, when Tony Blair’s New Labour government required all newly built homes to meet stringent environmental design standards (although this did little to lessen the environmental burden of existing homes).
In turn, higher standards of environmental design in new homes helped establish a market for more environmentally friendly, electric-powered heat pumps in Britain. Installations accelerated from 2004, mainly in social housing. The following year, gas connections peaked at 95% of UK households – then slowly started to fall, down to the current level of 74% across England and Wales.
With this reduction of reliance on gas, the level of emissions associated with heating UK homes also began to decline. Those urging Britain to do something about its position as one of Europe’s least environmentally conscious nations celebrated, if cautiously. But this progress, such as it was, proved short-lived.
From 2010, the new Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government began dismantling key initiatives aimed at domestic energy efficiency, including New Labour’s Code for Sustainable Homes as well as financial incentives to install heat pumps and renewables such as solar panels. Sales of these technologies started to fall away.
Since then, initiatives to promote adoption of renewable forms of home heating in the UK have been dogged by controversies – such as the renewable heat incentive in Northern Ireland, which resulted in the suspension of senior government officials.
Heat pump technology explained. Video: Nesta.
Ambitious plans (driven by the UK’s legally binding emissions reduction targets) to install 600,000 heat pumps a year have been met with public suspicion. Uptake is currently at around 50,000 per year – far below the government target.
Since coming to power, the current Labour government has rolled back its manifesto pledge to ban the sale of gas boilers in homes by 2035 – to the consternation of many environmental pressure groups and climate scientists. And while its recent announcement of more comprehensive investment in domestic energy efficiency (as part of the Warm Homes Plan) is a step in the right direction, many experts still consider the level of investment inadequate to secure the scale of change required to meet the UK’s net zero climate targets.
A sizable majority (74%) of UK homes are still heated by gas boilers – which emit around twice as much CO₂ each year as some electric-powered heat pumps.
The clean heating conundrum
The volatile political scene in the UK is hampering its transition to clean energy. Reform UK, which has adopted a strident anti-net zero position, has made strong gains with disenfranchised voters, according to numerous polls. Should it gain power at the next general election in 2028 (even if as part of a coalition), Reform is likely to double-down on fossil fuel extraction and use, dealing a severe blow to efforts to wean the UK off its enduring gas dependency.
However, a shift to electric heating would not be an overnight panacea to the UK’s energy bill woes. Depending on the energy efficiency of the homes in which they are installed, heat pumps could push bills up in the short-to-medium term, because electricity remains up to five times more expensive than gas.
But as more and more of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewable sources, these costs will fall, with some commentators forecasting that from 2028, the UK will start to see positive price impacts of more electricity being generated from renewables. Most UK households will not be able to take advantage of the cheaper clean electricity coming on stream for their heating, though, because they remain locked into their gas boilers.
In contrast, outside Sweden’s cities and towns, heat pumps have seen exponential growth since the 1990s, such that it now has one of the world’s highest penetration rates, with over a third of homes equipped with them. And the heat generated from these sources is effectively conserved within the country’s well-insulated housing stock.
But Sweden is not immune to political controversies around heating. Electricity price spikes in southern Sweden in recent winters have exposed households reliant on direct electric heating (mainly heat pumps) to affordability concerns. These price spikes were driven by a combination of high wholesale electricity prices, the country’s limited transmission capacity between price zones, and periods of low wind generation.
At the same time, energy-efficient district heating networks continue to be challenged by the rapid adoption of heat pumps.
The public debate about the future of nuclear power in Sweden also continues to rage. In recent years, political signals have shifted towards maintaining and potentially expanding nuclear capacity, which has increased uncertainty about whether a full phase-out remains a credible policy objective.
The Swedish city of Lund boasts the world’s largest low-temperature district heating network. Video: Alfa Laval.
Thermal comfort vs thermal restraint
The UK’s gas habit has not served it well in terms of securing thermal comfort for its households, with average indoor temperatures of 16.6°C lagging far behind the European average of 19°C. In contrast, Swedish homes are among the warmest in Europe, reflecting both affordability for many and a cultural expectation of thermal comfort.
But these contrasting expectations could yet play an intriguing role in the two countries’ home heating strategies. Both countries are entering a new phase where electrification via heat pumps may test the resilience of national grids and the fairness of pricing structures.
Despite greater precarity in the UK, an established tolerance of lower indoor temperatures may mean that, as electricity prices are lowered by increased renewable energy production, UK households can achieve warmer homes using heat pumps than they have been able using gas. Heat pumps have been found to produce up to four times more heat than a gas boiler, using the same energy input.
Conversely, Sweden’s cultural expectation of uniformly high indoor temperatures may challenge its future energy sufficiency targets and climate goals, particularly if electrification accelerates as more people – including those living in cities and large towns – seek the independence of heat pumps.
Sweden’s traditional system of cost-sharing through varmhyra (warm rent) and district heating has historically promoted equity, but growing societal disconnections and price variations risk eroding that solidarity.
In contrast, Britain has tended to rely on individual responsibility and market-led solutions when it comes to home heating. The UK Warm Homes Plan, launched in January 2026, makes clear that heat pumps are the government’s (and many scientists’) favoured route to decarbonising domestic heating, with the exception of district heating schemes in a relatively small number of areas. But this requires incentivising households to move to heat pumps while removing short-term financial pain from this move.
Ultimately, our research suggests that many UK households now understand that change needs to come. As Trevor from Whiston told us firmly:
We just can’t be doing that now [burning fossil fuels for heating] … Greenhouse gases – it’s not on … We’ve got to find another way, haven’t we?
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Aimee Ambrose receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Horizon Europe.
Jenny Palm receives funding from Forte under CHANSE ERA-NET which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.
It’s an endurance sport in which athletes ascend mountains on skis fitted with climbing skins, carry their skis over sections too steep to skin and then descend on alpine terrain. In total, 36 skimo athletes will compete at the Stelvio Ski Centre in Bormio.
Alongside skimo, the 2026 Games have introduced women’s doubles luge, women’s large hill individual ski jumping, a freestyle skiing dual moguls event and alpine skiing team combined.
With 55 of 109 medals awarded for skiing events at the 2022 Winter Olympics, it’s fair to question whether we need more skiing at the Winter Games. The International Olympic Committee certainly thought so, approving skimo and three additional skiing events for 2026 while removing one.
Milano Cortina has introduced a new variation on this tradition through ski mountaineering. It has been described as the “son of the biathlon without the shooting,” combining rapid transitions, technical descents and endurance climbing under extreme conditions.
What sets skimo apart is its unique focus on upward movement. Unlike most Winter Olympic sports, which emphasize downward or horizontal motion, skimo focuses on human-powered vertical movement — how effectively athletes can climb. Cross-country skiing is one of the only other sports in the Olympics comparable, but the elevation changes during the race are far smaller.
Ski mountaineering has deep roots dating back over 1,000 years, long before the activity was formalized as a competitive sport.
It began to emerge in the late 1800s in the Alps as an adventure-based activity before transitioning into organized competition. Its first major race was the Trofeo Mezzalama in Italy in 1933.
The first world championships of the sport were held in 2002 in France. Since then, the event has taken place every two years, alternating with continental championships, alongside an annual World Cup circuit that has helped professionalize the sport and pave its way to Olympic inclusion.
Ski mountaineering is now governed by the International Ski Mountaineering Federation and was featured at the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympics before earning full Olympic status.
Because the sport is relatively accessible, participants can take part in a wide range of mountainous environments with minimal technical equipment compared with other mountaineering disciplines. That accessibility, however, does not eliminate risk.
Most ski mountaineering takes place off-piste, where weather, avalanches and navigation hazards increase the risk of accidents.
Education around snow sports, safety awareness and responsible participation will be essential to ensure the democratization of ski mountaineering does not come at the cost of increased accidents.
The rise of designated, safer off-piste areas where people can try the sport safely is a good compromise between safety and sustainability.
Canada’s skimo prospects
Canadians are making strides on the international skimo circuit. Emma Cook-Clarke, a former mountain runner, placed sixth in the team event and women’s sprint at the 2025 world championships.
However, Canada narrowly missed Olympic qualification for 2026. This year’s favourites include Switzerland for the women’s sprint, France for the mixed relay and Spain for the men’s sprint.
Looking ahead, future success will require sustained investment. Cook-Clarke could help lead Canada to ski mountaineering gold in four years’ time, but mid- and long-term success will require a lot of work.
Canada’s elite skimo program is still emerging compared with European nations such as Norway, where the sport is well established.
Success should be measured by grassroots growth, which will provide a base for a larger, more robust elite team, and by expanded international experience as athletes compete more frequently on the world circuit.
These developments require resources, which are inevitably limited. Yet investment in ski mountaineering could be in Canada’s best interests. As a new Olympic sport, it presents an opportunity for Canada to position itself as a future leader as it has done in many other winter disciplines.
Skimo’s Olympic debut provides Canada with an opportunity to make those investments and strengthen its position at future Games.
A new direction for the Olympics
Skimo’s inclusion reflects changes in priorities surrounding sustainability, accessibility and the nature of athletic challenge.
The shift comes at a critical moment. The Winter Games face mounting scrutiny over their environmental footprint, particularly as warming temperatures threaten snow reliability in host regions.
Against this backdrop, ski mountaineering offers a meaningful test case for how the IOC can work more diligently toward its climate and sustainability goals. Skimo athletes ascend and descend under their own power rather than relying on the energy-intensive lift systems used in traditional alpine events.
While emissions from travel and venue construction remain concerns, the significance of this small shift should not be underestimated, especially in the Italian Alps, which are already experiencing above-average temperatures.
May Keeble, an undergraduate student in sports management and coaching from Bath University, contributed to this article.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nick Turner, Professor and Future Fund Chair in Leadership, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
What does it mean to love your job?
The language of love has become increasingly common in contemporary discussions of work. People say they want to love their jobs, organizations promise roles candidates will love, and recruitment ads frame employment as an emotional commitment rather than an economic transaction.
Yet despite its ubiquity, the idea of “loving your job” is rarely defined with precision. What does it actually mean to love your job? And is that kind of love always good for employees and organizations?
These questions matter for both employees and organizations. Our recent research set out to understand what employees are describing when they say they love their work, and whether that experience is always advantageous.
Across multiple studies involving thousands of employees, we found that loving your job is not the same as being satisfied with your work or feeling engaged. Instead, it reflects three experiences coming together.
The first is enthusiasm for the work itself. People who love their jobs genuinely enjoy what they do and feel energized by their work. This goes beyond momentary satisfaction and reflects a deeper emotional connection to the work.
The second is commitment to the organization. Loving your job involves feeling attached to the organization you work for, believing that its problems are your problems and finding meaning in your role within it.
The third is connection with others at work. This does not mean oversharing or blurring professional boundaries. Rather, it reflects feeling emotionally connected to the people or community at work. This sense of trust and belonging makes work feel personally significant.
Love of the job is different. It reflects a rare alignment, where enthusiasm, commitment and connection come together at once.
Why love of the job can be powerful
When these elements converge, love of the job can function as a powerful psychological resource.
In our research, love of the job was associated with outcomes above and beyond job satisfaction and work engagement. Employees who loved their jobs reported higher psychological well-being and remained more involved in their work.
For organizations, this distinction is important. Love of the job is not another label for motivation or engagement, but reflects a deeper form of attachment that helps explain why some employees remain invested even when work becomes demanding.
Under supportive conditions, loving one’s job can contribute to both individual well-being and sustained performance.
When love becomes a vulnerability
There are some possible drawbacks. While we didn’t find evidence that love of the job directly causes burnout, overwork or exploitation, past research suggests that having a deep attachment to work can create vulnerability when organizational conditions are poor.
Employees who love their jobs often feel a strong sense of responsibility for their work and their organization. In supportive environments, this can be a strength; in unsupportive ones, it may make it harder to step back, set limits or recognize when demands have become unreasonable.
This is especially relevant in organizations that encourage employees to bring their “whole selves” to work or frame work as a calling. When strong emotional attachment is celebrated without realistic workloads, fair compensation or respect for boundaries, devotion can turn into obligation.
A paradox for organizations
These findings from our research point to a paradox. In our studies, employees who reported a higher love of their job were more likely to go above and beyond their formal roles. More broadly, organizations tend to value employees who care deeply about their work, seeing them as more invested and willing to contribute.
But encouraging love of the job without protecting those who experience it can undermine the very outcomes organizations value. Love cannot be manufactured, demanded or treated as a performance metric. It also cannot be substituted for sound management practices.
Loving your job can be fulfilling when that love is freely experienced under healthy conditions. But when love is expected or leveraged in place of good management, it can become a source of strain rather than strength.
Nick Turner receives research funding from Cenovus Energy Inc., Haskayne School of Business’s Future Fund, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Julian Barling receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Borden Chair of Leadership.
Kaylee Somerville receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Zhanna Lyubykh receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Forecasting earthquakes presents a serious challenge on land, but in the oceans that cover around 70% of the Earth’s surface it is all but impossible. However, the vast network of undersea cables that crisscross the world’s seas could soon change this. As well as transmitting data around the planet, they can also monitor the tectonic movements that cause earthquakes and tsunamis.
The “Fibre Optic Cable Use for Seafloor” project (FOCUS) has demonstrated how we can use existing fibre-optic cables to detect small movements on the seafloor caused by tectonic faults. Our aim is to improve understanding of fault activity, and therefore of possible earthquakes.
The project’s main study area was a recently mapped tectonic fault on the Mediterranean seafloor, about 30 km from Catania, Sicily. Sitting at the foot of Mount Etna, Europe’s highest and most active volcano, the fault is a “strike-slip”, a type of vertical fault in the earth’s crust that is especially prone to causing earthquakes.
The location is important. Eastern Sicily and Catania, an urban region of 1 million people, have been struck by several devastating earthquakes in recent centuries. The 1908 Messina earthquake (magnitude 7.2) and tsunami killed 72,000 people, while the 1693 Catania earthquake (estimated magnitude 7.5, the strongest in Italy’s history) killed about 60,000 people and destroyed most of the large buildings in Catania.
Catania is also home to a nuclear physics institute, the INFN-LNS, which runs an offshore research station consisting of a cabled seafloor observatory. Originally designed as a test site for for the institute’s neutrino telescope located 100km away, the southern branch of this 29km-long electro-optical cable ends just 2.5km from the recently mapped “strike-slip” fault on the seabed.
The FOCUS project worked by deploying a specially designed strain cable across the newly mapped fault in hopes of detecting tectonic movement. Any movement, however small, would tug on the cable and elongate the optical fibres inside. This can be detected by analysing laser light fired into the optical fibres.
First, we connected our specially designed 6km-long strain cable (similar to submarine telecommunication cables but with special sensor fibers) to the seafloor observatory. Using an underwater plough, this cable was then buried about 20 cm below the seafloor, crossing the fault in four different locations about 1km apart.
A set of 8 acoustic beacons was also set in place, 4 on each side of the fault. This was to independently measure any possible fault movement – any change in the baselines between the beacons would confirm there had been movement.
Laser light was then fired at regular 2 hour intervals through the research site’s 29km-long electro-optical cable and into the FOCUS strain cable, which included a triple loop in the fibres, allowing the light to go back and forth three times for a total optical path length of 47km.
The laser used a technique known as BOTDR (Brillouin Optical Time Domain Reflectometry). This has been used for decades to monitor deformation of large engineering infrastructures like bridges, dams and pipelines.
False alarms show the system works
A natural disturbance in the FOCUS fibre-optic cable was detected about 1 month later, in November 2020, representing an elongation of about 1.5 cm at the first fault crossing. At first it seemed the fault might have moved, but the acoustic beacons showed no change.
The most likely cause of the cable disturbance was a submarine landslide, akin to an avalanche of sediment at the bottom of the sea.
21 months of BOTDR observations on the tight fiber in the FOCUS cable, with one curve per month. The suspected landslide in November 2020, as well as the bag drop signals of September 2021 are clearly visible. The first and third fault crossings are marked by the green lines, where elongation should be expected if the fault moves. Author’s own
A second disturbance of the cable occurred in September 2021, but in this case we definitely know the cause. I led an operation that used an unmanned submarine to place weight bags on portions of the cable that were not well buried and lying on the seafloor, or spanning uneven terrain.
Nearly 100 weight bags (weighing 25kg each) were placed on top of the cable in 4 places, pushing the cable down into the soft mud and elongating the fibres inside. The special tight fibres in the FOCUS cable were more sensitive than the standard loose fibres used by the telecom industry, and showed very strong signals.
While these two readings did not show tectonic movement, they clearly demonstrated that undersea cables can help us closely monitor the seabed.
Commercial cables
A secondary study area for the FOCUS project was a network of commercial telecommunication cables connecting the islands of the Guadeloupe archipelago. Over the three-year period between 2022 and 2024 I, along with partners at IDIL fibre optics, conducted a series of BOTDR measurements at 3-6 month intervals from roadside junction boxes.
The islands of Guadeloupe are connected by undersea telecom cables, marked on this map.
We observed seasonal shifts in BOTDR signals in the shallow-water portions of the cable (typically at depths of 10-100m), likely from temperature variations on the seabed. To confirm this, we compared the temperature shifts based on our cable readings to independent satellite data. They were accurate to within about 0.1°C.
We also observed strong mechanical strain in the telecom cables at specific geographic locations such as shelf breaks, submarine canyons and narrow straits between islands exposed to storms and strong currents.
The results from our Guadeloupe study confirmed the accuracy and sensitivity of readings from commercial cables, as opposed to the more specialised cables used at the Catania site. They underscored their potential use for detecting mechanical disturbances to the cable (natural or man-made) and for performing long-term environmental monitoring.
Together, these results offer great promise for transforming much of the world’s vast network of submarine telecom cables into seismological and environmental sensors, to help better monitor earthquake hazard and climate change.
This article is the result of The Conversation’s collaboration with Horizon, the EU research and innovation magazine. In November 2025, the magazine published an interview with the author.
Gutscher Marc-Andre receives funding from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (the CNRS, his employer), and formerly from the European Research Council (ERC) through an Advanced Grant (FOCUS) from October 2018 to September 2025 for the research presented in this article. He would also like to thank Région Guadeloupe, Orange S.A. and University Antilles, Guadeloupe, for their support in his Guadeloupe study.
Source: The Conversation – France – By Sharda S. Nandram, Full Professor Business & Spirituality & Hindu Spirituality & Society, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Bureaucracy once swallowed Dutch home care. Buurtzorg flipped the script by trusting nurses and focusing on purpose.
Europe’s aging population is calling for home care services that deliver care and support to individuals within their homes.
“By the 1990s, home care in the Netherlands had been reorganised. The provision of home nursing and home help were integrated and most nursing home organisations merged into large, regional home care organisations.”
Research shows that traditional home care restructuring in the Netherlands narrowed community nurses’ roles to technical tasks, replaced many care activities with cheaper helpers, and created managerial layers unfamiliar with frontline work, undermining continuity and quality of care.
In a talk at Erasmus University, Jos de Blok, a nurse and home care innovation manager who co-founded Buurtzorg Nederland in 2006, explained that before Buurtzorg, Dutch home care had become highly fragmented and product-driven. Care was divided into standardised “products” or packages, each linked to a specific task and time allocation.
Jos de Blok’s Buurtzorg model: Organisation of care – Erasmus University.
Buurtzorg was explicitly designed as a response to this fragmentation, replacing product-based care and centralised coordination with small, autonomous neighbourhood teams that take responsibility for the whole person rather than for isolated tasks.
“Many community nurses were frustrated with the efficiency-driven, bureaucratic way care was delivered, leading to new models such as Buurtzorg being founded by former community nurses.”
Humanity above bureaucracy
De Blok’s radical idea: prioritise patient needs over administrative efficiency. His approach raises a crucial question for all organizations: What enables organisations to remain human-centred in systems designed for control and efficiency?
Buurtzorg Nederland and its different entities currently employs around 14,000 professionals, the vast majority of whom are nurses working in self-managing teams. These teams, numbering over 900, provide home care in neighbourhoods and villages nationwide. The organisation operates with very low overhead, supported by a small central back-office of only a few dozen staff, while most employees work directly with clients.
Internationally the Buurtzorg model has attracted significant interest and is being implemented or piloted in more than 24 countries, including Sweden, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Its outreach suggests that the Buurtzorg approach, with its emphasis on continuity of care, professional autonomy, and neighbourhood-based relationships, is increasingly seen as a viable alternative to traditional, highly bureaucratic home care systems. Further financial details on Buurtzorg’s operations can be found in the 2024 annual report.
“Buurtdiensten” are neighbourhood support services developed in line with the Buurtzorg model’s principles. Unlike traditional home nursing, these services focus on practical, everyday assistance – such as household help and independent living support – delivered by a consistent caregiver who works with the client and their informal network to promote autonomy and well-being. The concept is part of Buurtzorg’s broader suite of community-based services alongside initiatives like Buurtzorg T (psychiatric care) and Buurtzorg Jong (youth services).
Buurtzorg’s 6 core company values
Our new study “Crafting the Virtuous Corporation Through Spiritual Discernment” published in the Journal of Business Ethics explores how Buurtzorg answers this question by following six principles of “spiritual discernment”. We understand spiritual discernment in the sense of a “practice” that enables organisations to navigate the complex interplay between internal goods (excellence in “practices”) and external goods (financial success) in creating their virtuous corporate character.
This is not about religion or mysticism; it’s about systematically asking what truly matters and what should guide choices to maintain moral clarity while pursuing legitimate business goals.
1. Serving: does this truly help our purpose?
The first principle asks whether activities genuinely help clients, teams, or the organization’s purpose. If something serves mainly to satisfy bureaucratic requirements, it gets eliminated. At Buurtzorg this principle is applied very pragmatically. Instead of accepting all standardised administrative requirements inherited from traditional home care organisations, The company redesigned its care processes and information systems around what genuinely helps clients and teams. For example, documentation and intake procedures were simplified and embedded in Buurtzorg’s own digital platform – BuurtzorgWeb, which focuses on information that supports care delivery, continuity, and professional judgement.
Administrative activities that existed mainly to satisfy managerial control or reporting layers were reduced or eliminated. As founder Jos de Blok has repeatedly emphasised, teams record what is meaningful for the client and the team, rather than filling in forms “because the system demands it.” This approach has significantly reduced administrative burden and allowed nurses to spend more time on care rather than paperwork. Buurtzorg applies this ruthlessly.
Most home care organisations use assessment systems that catalogue what patients cannot do. These systems generate data for billing and compliance purposes, but they offer little guidance for actual patient care. Buurtzorg rejected this entirely.
Instead, nurses assess what patients actually need. This shift may sound simple, but it proves radical. One nurse described approaching an elderly client who had family members willing to help but was uncertain about how to proceed. Rather than following a standardised checklist, the nurse took the time to understand the family dynamics and coach relatives on providing appropriate support. It means some visits take longer. Some require no formal medical intervention at all. The serving principle requires asking whether each activity truly benefits rather than whether it merely satisfies administrative requirements.
2. Attuning: match the method to the work
The second principle acknowledges that different activities require varying levels of engagement. Some tasks can be automated or standardised efficiently. Others demand deep attention to individual circumstances.
Buurtzorg nurses distinguish between what they call mindless and mindful activities.
Mindless activities (routine scheduling, standard documentation, supply re-ordering, and time registration), follow predetermined expectations, scheduling, basic documentation, and supply ordering. These can be systematised without losing value. Technology handles them efficiently.
Mindful activities, by contrast, require professional attention, contextual judgement, and relational engagement. These include assessing a client’s changing health or social situation, interpreting subtle signals such as increased anxiety or decline in self-care, adapting care plans in dialogue with clients and families, coordinating with informal caregivers or other professionals, and making ethical decisions when standard protocols do not fit individual circumstances. Such activities cannot be reduced to checklists or time slots without undermining care quality. Should this patient’s informal support network be more involved? Is the current care plan still appropriate given changes in the patient’s condition?
Healthcare systems often attempt to standardise mindful activities by translating complex human situations into detailed protocols and decision trees. A common example is care planning for frail older adults with multiple conditions: organisations prescribe fixed assessment tools, predefined risk scores, and mandatory intervention pathways that determine when family members should be involved, how frequently care should be delivered, and which professional is responsible, regardless of local context or personal relationships. While designed to ensure consistency and control, such protocols can reduce professional judgement to box-ticking and overlook subtle but crucial contextual factors, such as trust, family dynamics, or gradual changes in a patient’s coping ability. Buurtzorg structures its workforce into small, self-governing teams of approximately 10–12 nurses responsible for the holistic care of 50–60 patients in a neighbourhood. This team size facilitates close coordination, shared accountability, and continuity of care, and is central to Buurtzorg’s integrated, person-centred model of community nursing.
Buurtzorg deliberately takes the opposite approach. It automates what is genuinely routine, such as scheduling regular visits, registering standard care actions, or ordering supplies, while protecting space for professional judgement precisely where uncertainty, interpretation, and human values are involved. Decisions about mobilising informal support, adjusting care intensity, or responding to changes in a client’s wellbeing remain with the nursing team. In doing so, Buurtzorg foregrounds human virtues such as attentiveness, practical wisdom (phronesis),
responsibility, and relational sensitivity as core elements of high-quality, client-centred care, rather than attempting to standardise them away.
The organisational logic of Buurtzorg Nederland can be understood as a deliberate response to VUCA conditions in healthcare. In “Integrating Simplification at Buurtzorg Nederland,” Sharda Nandram argues that Buurtzorg addresses complexity not by adding rules and control, but by radically simplifying structures and decentralising authority to self-managing teams, while using technology to reduce administrative load. This perspective aligns with the analysis by Frank Martela and Sharda Nandram who show how the company scales self-management without middle managers by automating routine tasks and deliberately preserving professional judgement in complex, human situations.
Buurtzorg’s 1,400 nurses and domestic caregivers in the Netherlands work in self-managing teams with minimal hierarchical oversight. Just 20 regional coaches and a small back office support them. Teams decide on care, schedules, and hiring.
This creates natural accountability. Teams answer to each other and to patients, not to distant managers. When problems arise, the team addresses them collectively in meetings.
“Because that is, of course, one of the great things about this profession: you can organize your own work. You can schedule your own appointments and decide when to come. So, you have a lot of freedom and they trust you.”
The trust principle doesn’t mean abandoning all oversight. It means distinguishing between activities where professional judgement should prevail and situations requiring standardised procedures. For routine compliance tasks, some structure makes sense. For complex care decisions, professional autonomy proves essential.
4. to 6. Needing, rethinking, and common sense principles – Continuous reassessment
The final three principles (needing, rethinking and common-sense) provide ongoing checks and embody the virtues of practical wisdom, discernment, and pragmatism, forming a cornerstone of Buurtzorg’s operational philosophy. They prevent the organisation from becoming rigid or bureaucratic over time.
The needing principle at Buurtzorg is a “fundamental law” that defines the company vision of placing the client at the centre of its activities. It insists that patients’ needs, not prescribed care packages, drive decisions. A comparative study by KPMG (published in 2015), commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Health examining Buurtzorg’s added value found that its self-managing nursing teams deliver substantially fewer hours of care per client than other home care organisations when adjusted for case mix; suggesting a stronger alignment between actual need and delivered care rather than simply billing all allocated hours. Dutch healthcare funding allocates specific hours for different patient categories.
In 2013, Buurtzorg clients received, on average, 108 hours of home care per year compared with 168 hours for other providers, yet reported high satisfaction and quality of care. This suggests Buurtzorg nurses refuse to provide unnecessary care simply because funding allows it, focusing instead on what genuinely supports the patient.
The rethinking principle requires constant evaluation of whether current approaches still serve their purpose. Buurtzorg’s founder regularly challenges teams through blog posts on the company’s intranet and discussions like, “Is this still the best way to work? Are we adding unnecessary complexity? What would happen if we simplified further?”
The common-sensing principle acts as a reality check. One team needed to adjust their approach for crisis situations. Rather than creating elaborate procedures, they simply agreed to contact each other and their regional coach for complicated questions.
Putting Buurtzorg’s holistic principles into practice
The Buurtzorg model provides a framework for healthcare organisations to integrate ethical decision-making while maintaining operational efficiency. It encourages organisations to define and serve an ultimate purpose or end toward which activity is directed that resonates with employees, fostering a sense of meaning and client centredness. This approach can enhance the quality of care and patient satisfaction by developing coherence between organisational goals and employees’ moral values and motivations.
For businesses seeking to apply this framework, implementation entails several key shifts.
Develop explicit criteria for evaluating activities beyond efficiency or profitability. Ask whether each activity serves your core purpose.
Distinguish activities that require a human touch in client interactions from those that benefit from standardisation. Protect professional judgement where it matters, while automating tasks that don’t require human practical wisdom.
Cultivate a broader rationality, one that lets moral and human values shape action alongside financial reasoning. This isn’t about rejecting structure or accountability but about ensuring that systems serve a purpose rather than replace it.
Across contexts what transfers is the commitment to discernment that keeps means and ends distinct. The goal is to build systems that support the greater good. In metric-driven workplaces, this framework offers a structured alternative that acknowledges business realities while insisting some things matter more than the bottom line.
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Sharda Nandram in the past advised Buurtzorg with Self Management research.
Puneet K. Bindlish et Raysa Geaquinto Rocha ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.
The value of wetlands on the landscape cannot be overstated — they store and filter water, provide wildlife habitat, cool the atmosphere and sequester carbon. Yet, in the farmland area of Canada’s Prairies, wetlands are being drained to increase crop production and expand urban development.
While wetlands sequester carbon, they also naturally release greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. That means the impact of wetland drainage on net GHG emissions was previously difficult to determine.
Our new study, however, has found that widespread wetland drainage on Prairie farmland releases 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-eq) per year. That’s equal to more than five per cent of Prairie agricultural emissions from the industry as a whole. CO₂-eq is a metric used to to compare emissions from different greenhouse gases by converting amounts of those gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
Our research team included Darrin Qualman from the National Farmers Union, Sydney Jensen, a then-graduate student at the University of Regina, as well as Murray Hidlebaugh and Scott Beaton, independent farmers in the Canadian Prairies.
Some tout wetland drainage as providing numerous benefits to agriculture. In addition to increasing arable land area, proponents argue that “proper drainage management … reduces the carbon footprint by cutting down equipment operation time, fuel and emissions, reduces the impacts of extreme weather events, and decreases overland flooding and nutrient washouts.”
An explainer on the important role wetlands play in the environment. (Ducks Unlimited Canada)
To quantify the net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with wetland drainage, our approach was to quantify GHG sources when wetlands are intact, and compare them with sources after drainage takes place to understand the net effect of wetland removal on emissions. The annual rate of wetland loss from existing data (10,820 hectares per year) was used to quantify associated carbon emissions for the region.
Intact wetlands emit GHGs such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, so their removal eliminates these natural emissions from the landscape. The presence of wetlands in fields can also require repeated machinery passes and lead to double fertilization around wetland margins, both of which contribute to GHG emissions.
When wetlands are drained, carbon-rich sediments are exposed to the air, allowing rapid decomposition and the release of carbon dioxide. Drainage also expands cropland area, leading to additional GHG emissions from farming activities on the newly cultivated land. It often requires the removal of rings of willow trees surrounding wetlands, with the resulting debris typically burned or composted, producing further emissions.
Our results show that the amount of carbon dioxide released from exposed soil from drained wetlands far exceeded any other source. This was much larger than emissions when wetlands were intact, including natural wetland emissions and emissions from multiple passes with machinery. Additional emissions from farming the former wetland and the removal of vegetation also made a small contribution to the overall balance.
Overall, we estimate that wetland drainage contributes to an annual increase in emissions of at least 2.1 million tonnes CO₂-eq (recognizing that stored carbon will be released over a multi-year period). It is worth noting that this includes natural emissions from intact wetlands, but emissions that are not human-caused are not typically targeted in an effort to achieve GHG reductions.
For example, reducing methane emissions from livestock is a strategy to reduce agricultural GHG emissions, but emissions from wild animals are not considered or incorporated in the same way. Our estimate swells to 3.4 million tonnes of CO₂-eq per year when we exclude natural wetland GHG emissions; this represents an increase of approximately eight per cent above currently quantified GHG emissions from the agricultural industry in the Prairie provinces.
Canada’s GHG Inventory
Canada uses a National Inventory Report to quantify GHG emissions from different jurisdictions and industries, but emissions associated with wetland drainage are not currently included. Emissions of 3.4 million tonnes of CO₂-eq from a single year of wetland drainage are substantial and exceed several emission sources currently described in the report.
For example, emissions from wetland destruction are greater than agricultural emissions from gasoline combustion in trucks or from poultry and swine manure in the Prairie provinces. Including emissions from wetland drainage in the National Inventory Report would provide a more accurate accounting of total agricultural emissions and better position the country to meet its climate commitments.
Prairie farmers play a key stewardship role in this landscape — preserving wetlands on their land provides a public good. Retaining wetlands would create many additional benefits: maintaining wildlife habitats, groundwater recharge, nutrient retention, as well as drought and flood mitigation. These wetland services help address global and regional crises related to biodiversity loss, climate change, lake eutrophication and flooding.
Research shows there is public willingness to pay to restore wetlands in the Prairie provinces. There is additionally a need to reduce conflict and increase collaboration in conversations on agricultural water management in the Canadian Prairies and develop policies that incentivize and enable landowners to consider the environmental benefits of wetlands in their decision making. By better understanding the costs of GHG emissions resulting from wetland drainage, we can better preserve wetlands in the Canadian Prairies.
Kerri Finlay receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, Canada Research Chair (CRC) program, Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture (Agricultural Development Fund), Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association (SCA). The research reported here was funded by the National Farmers’ Union.
Colin Whitfield receives funding from Canada’s Federal Tri-Agencies, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Bridge to Land Water Sky Living Lab, Central Prairies Living Lab).
Lauren Bortolotti receives funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada, Alberta North American Waterfowl Management Plan Partnership, and the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture. She is an employee of Ducks Unlimited Canada.
