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The ‘sweet herb’ (El Caa‐ehe), used by the Guaraní tribes living in the forests of today's eastern Paraguay and southern Brazil, is rapidly emerging as a natural sweetener that is an alternative both to sugar and synthetic sweeteners, well beyond Japan where it has been widely used since the mid‐1970s. Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni contains very sweet steviol glycosides in its leaves, which do not add calories and do not cause an increase in blood sugar levels. The glycoside that is most abundant in the leaves, stevioside, has high reactive oxygen species quenching activity and several properties that are beneficial to health. Rapid advances in green chemistry technology allow the production of stevia extracts that are devoid of any liquorice‐like after taste. Their high chemical and physical stability enables them to be used in baked and beverage food products and this supports the large‐scale use of stevia as a natural sweetener. Addressing bioeconomic aspects ranging from production to product formulation, this study identifies the last obstacles prior to general adoption of S. rebadudiana as a sweetener that is beneficial for health. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

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The achievements of the last two decades in using solar energy for naturally ventilating and heating buildings of any size and scope across the world are remarkable, though comprising a niche market and being generally poorly known to this point. Air quality, thermal and hygrometric comfort, and reduced energy costs are some of the benefits provided by solar ventilated spaces. We identify the remaining hurdles to be addressed prior to forthcoming widespread adoption of this technology in the building environment across the world, well beyond the cold‐climate countries.

Large‐scale integration of solar energy technologies in Rome's built environment epitomizes the needed general adoption of distributed generation via functionalization of buildings of all size and end use across the world, to become active energy generators and no longer energy users only. This essay identifies selected technology solutions and critical policy and educational initiatives to effectively achieve within the next decade (2018–2027) the widespread uptake of decentralized solar energy systems in the built environment on a global scale.

The "sweet herb" (El Caa-ehe) used by the Guaraní tribes living in the forests of today's eastern Paraguay and southern Brazil, is rapidly emerging as natural sweetener alternative both to sugar and synthetic sweeteners, well beyond Japan where it is widely used since the mid 1970s. Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni contains in its leaves highly sweet steviol glycosides which do not release calories in the human body and do not cause an increase in blood sugar levels. The glycoside most abundant in the leaves, stevioside, has high reactive oxygen species quenching activity originating several health beneficial properties. Rapid advances in green chemistry technology allowing the production of Stevia extracts devoid of liquorice-like after-taste, and their high chemical and physical stability enabling use in baked and beverage food products support large scale uptake of Stevia as natural sweetener. Addressing bioeconomy aspects ranging from production through product formulation, this study identifies the last obstacles to overcome prior to general adoption of S. rebadudiana as health beneficial sweetener.

The replacement of fossil fuels to produce electricity and heat to propel vehicles with solar energy, along with other new energy technologies, will bring significant economic, environmental, and social benefits to all Mediterranean countries. The transition to new energy, however, calls for a proactive and creative role of policy makers.