As Big Tech faces criticism for the environmental impact of artificial intelligence, companies have said the technology will actually help solve climate change.
But those claims often lack scientific evidence, a new report finds. And when touting the climate benefits of AI, tech companies conflate traditional AI with the more environmentally harmful generative AI, a form of bait-and-switch that amounts to greenwashing.
The report, commissioned by a group of environmental organizations including Beyond Fossil Fuels, Friends of the Earth, and Stand.earth, analyzed 154 statements from tech companies, including those from Google and Microsoft, which purported that AI will have a net climate benefit.
Most of those comments relate to traditional AI, the analysis found, which has a smaller environmental footprint than the generative AI tools that are spurring a boom in data centers.
Tech companies, however, tend to lump these technologies together, the report says, blurring the differences and presenting the climate benefits and environmental harms as a “package deal.
But whether those climate benefits are real is also unclear. Only 26% of those statements cite published academic papers, the research found, and 36% dont cite any evidence at all.
Of the remaining statements, 29% cited corporate publicationsthe majority of which did not include peer-reviewed or published academic workand 8% cited media, NGOs, or unpublished academic papers.
Questionable AI evidence
The rapid expansion of AI has come under fire for its potential environmental harms. Reports on generative AIs climate impact vary, but the tech has been linked to intense energy and water use.
Tech companies have justified their AI expansion by pointing to AIs climate benefits. One of the most widespread claims is that AI could help mitigate 5% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Google has repeated that statistic, including in its 2024 environmental report. That figure, however, comes from a 2021 blog post by consulting firm BCG which attributes it to the firm’s own experience with clients.
This questionable extrapolation of massive global climate benefits justified on seemingly anecdotal evidence was the first clear instance of what has become a longer-term trend of overstating the climate benefits of AI, the report reads.
In reality, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects total data center consumption, driven by AI, will double by 2030and Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that this increase will grow total global power sector emissions by 10% over the coming decade.
In another example, Googles 2025 environmental report said that rooftop solar power installations assisted by an AI mapping tool would help enable partners to reduce around 6 million metric tons of lifetime GHG emissions.
Google also said that figure would be “around 6,000 times greater” than the service’s operation in 2024.
But the Beyond Fossil Fuels report says that Google’s footnotes reveal that the 6 million figure is an estimate of the total emissions avoided by rooftop solar because they produce low-emissions energy, not the additional reductions from the AI mapping tool.
This detail could create the impression, the report notes, that the climate benefits are attributed to the AI tool.
In response to a request for comment, a Google spokesperson told Fast Company that it stood by its methodology, “which is grounded in the best available science. And we are transparent in sharing the principles and methodology that guide it.” (That methodology does not mention AI.)
Microsoft, also cited in the report, declined to comment.
What even counts as ‘AI’?
To many, any mention of AI has become synonymous with generative AIexamples of which include large language models like Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot, and image or video generating services like Midjourney and Sora.
But not all AI is generative. Traditional AI, an umbrella term that covers subsets like machine learning, has been powering all sorts of technology for years, from search engines and recommendation algorithms to medical imaging.
Generative AI consumes more energy and is associated with more emissions than traditional AI. When tech companies talk about AIs climate benefits, though, they can conflate the two terms, or position them like a package deal.
Most AI climate benefits will come from traditional AI, the report found. In its analysis, the researchers said that at no point did they uncover examples in which consumer generative systems were leading to a material, verifiable, and substantial level of emissions reductions.
So climate benefit claims are attributed to traditional AI, but the majority of energy consumption comes from generative AI.
The surge in data center demand is largely driven by the exploding demand for generative AI. Those data centers are also directly spurring more natural gas in the U.S.
The confusion between these terms matters, the report says, because it amounts to a bait-and-switch type of greenwashing: Tech companies are justifying their data center expansion by touting AIs climate benefits, though most of those data centers will not be processing climate-beneficial computation on their servers.
Big Techs AI hype is distracting users from the rapid and dangerous expansion of giant, energy and water-intensive data centers, while the tech industry’s huge energy demands are throwing the fossil fuel industry a lifeline, Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner from Beyond Fossil Fuels, said in a statement.
There is simply no evidence that AI will help the climate more than it will harm it, she added. We cannot bet the climate on these baseless claims.
Shares of Fiverr International Ltd. (NYSE: FVRR) are dropping significantly this morning after the freelance marketplace platform reported its Q4 2025 financial results.
While the company reported modest revenue growth, its 2026 outlook sent the stock plunging, even as Fiverr executives put a positive spin on the impact of artificial intelligence on its business. Heres what you need to know.
Revenue increases, but outlook sends investors fleeing
On Wednesday morning, Fiverr reported its fourth-quarter 2025 results. And those results, for the most part, were mixed.
The company saw modest growth in total revenue, which rose to $107.2 million in the quartera 3.4% increase from a year earlier. Its revenue actuals fall on the lower end of the $104.3 million to $112.3 million range that the company had projected.
However, once you get past the modest revenue growth, you see that Fiverr disappointed on many other key metrics. For example, its marketplace revenue for the quarter was $71.5 million, which was 2.7% lower than the same quarter a year earlier.
Perhaps more worrying, and looking out across its entire fiscal 2025, Fiverr reported that its annual active buyers as of December 31 totaled 3.1 million.
Thats down from 3.6 million annual active buyers a year earliera decline of half a million buyers, or 13.6% year over year.
Interestingly, though, this 13.6% decline in the number of annual active buyers was offset to a large degree by an increase of 13.3% in annual spend per buyer.
For the 2025 fiscal year, Fiverr says that the average annual buyer spent $342 compared to the average of $302 they spent in the previous year. What this suggests is that while there were fewer buyers in 2025, they spent more on average than they did in 2024.
Yet this mixed bag of results isnt what seems to have sunk Fiverrs stock price this morning.
Instead, the main catalyst for Fiverrs stock price decline seems to be its 2026 guidance. For its current Q1 2026, the company says it expects to make between $100 million and $108 million. That would represent a decline of anywhere from 7% to a modest increase of 1%.
And for all of fiscal 2026, the company says it expects to make between $380 million and $420 million in revenue, which would represent a decline of anywhere between 12% and 3%.
As noted by investing.com, analysts had been expecting Q1 2026 guidance to be around $112.26 million and full-year 2026 guidance to be around $456.80 million. When these expectations werent met, the stock sank. Fiverr shares are currently down nearly 21% in premarket trading as of the time of this writing.
AI uncertainty abounds
Of course, the elephant in the room for Fiverr investors is artificial intelligence. For over a decade and a half, businesses have turned to Fiverr to source freelancers who could help them carry out projects, from design to coding.
But in recent years, those same businesses have begun embracing AI tools for many of those tasks.
This has led many investors (and freelancers who sell services on Fiverr) to ponder the platform’s future in a world where AI tools are increasingly commonplace.
Fiverr itself didnt say if the rise of these AI tools were the reason for its declining Q1 marketplace revenue, but the company did touch on the topic of AI, attempting to put a somewhat positive spin on it.
Address the topic, Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman said that is was clear that we are living through a significant shift in AI adoption, but he argued that this AI adoption would make humans more essential, not less.
By moving toward an agentic economy, where AI helps navigate complexity, we are ensuring that we remain the bridge between businesses and the most exceptional human talent, Kaufman argued. With our expansive global talent network, outcome based hiring model, and depth of proprietary data, Fiverr has a unique right to win in this new age of AI.”
Whether or not AI actually has a positive impact on Fiverrs marketplace remains to be seen. It will likely be one of the main points of focus for Fiverr investors in 2026.
FVRR has had a horrible 2026 so far
As of the time of this writing, FVRR stock is down nearly 21% in premarket trading to $10.79 per share.
As of yesterday, the companys stock price had already fallen more than 33% for the year to $13.10.
Unfortunately, looking back further doesnt help the companys position. Over the past year, FVRR shares have lost more than 60% of their value as of yesterdays close. Last May, the stock was trading at over $33 per share at one point.
During the same 12-month period, the New York Stock Exchange composite index has risen by nearly 6%.
The future looks green for Mikes Red Tacos.
The San Diego-based taco restaurant currently has only two locations, but it has caught the attention of the restaurant investors who made Daves Hot Chicken a scorching success.
This week, the restaurant announced that it has secured franchise development agreements for more than 200 new locations around the country. Mikes Red Tacos was founded as a food truck in 2021 by Mike Touma, followed by a brick-and-mortar location in 2022.
The brand is gaining a fast-growing following on social mediaand now it’s primed for nationwide expansion.
Fast casual with a taco twist
Mikes Red Tacos specializes in birriaa traditional, slow-cooked Mexican stew dish thats typically made from beef, lamb, or goatwhich has exploded in popularity in recent years, largely due to social media trends.
It can now be found, in various forms, on menus at numerous Mexican chains, including Taco Bell, Del Taco, and others.
Mikes Red Tacos is receiving support from early-stage investors and advisors Bill Phelps and Andrew Feghali.
Phelps is executive chairman of Daves Hot Chicken, cofounder of Wetzel’s Pretzels, and a founding investor in Blaze Pizza. He tells Fast Company that very few restaurants catch his eye, but Mikes ticked all the boxes.
I love entrepreneur-started businesses, and guys that have figured things out,” Phelps says. “The product is just amazing. Its so good, its like a breakthrough within a category.”
He adds that in the strata of Mexican chains, Mikes sits in the fast-casual lane, closer to a chain like Chipotle, rather than a fast-food chain like Taco Bell.
Weve learned over the years how to do the model for a fast-casual rollout in the franchise world, so we were able to put a team together very quickly of people we worked with before.
‘There’s a lot of competition’
Phelps says that he first walked into a Mikes Red Tacos around a year ago, and immediately saw the potential. Thats a relatively rare occurrence.
Its been once every five years we see something that looks really great and then we go for it, Phelps says. We like founder-created businesses that have incredible quality, but dont know how to scale themthats what we bring to the party. We make a deal that is great for the founder and for us (investors).
He knows success isnt guaranteed, of course.
You need to leave your ego at the door,” he says. “Theres a lot of competition. A lot of work to do. You need to work your ass off.
A lot of that work will fall on Vincent Montanelli, a seasoned industry executive, who was named the companys president. Previously, he held various leadership roles at Wetzels Pretzels.
All told, the 200 or so Mikes Red Tacos locations will be spread across 25 markets around the country, including Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Austin, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Boston, and other locations around Southern California.
The first new location is expected to open in San Diego in March, with a new, corporate-run location opening in Pasadena later this spring.
Corey duBrowa spent much of his career advising some of the worlds most scrutinized leadersfrom Marc Benioff at Salesforce to Sundar Pichai at Google. Now, as CEO of global communications firm Burson, hes helping executives navigate a charged marketplace shaped by AI disruption, ICE activity, and nonstop reputational risk. He explains why reputation remains one of the most powerful (and most misunderstood) assets in business, and how leaders should decide whether, when, and how to speak up.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scalepodcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
You and I have talked privately in recent months about how hard it is in this environment for brands and leaders to figure out what to say, where the risks are, and where the opportunities are when so much seems like it’s up in the air. Is that what you’re hearing from your clients? They’re asking, looking, or trying to find that clarity?
100%, Bob. We’re in year two of Trump’s second presidency. And so, there’s renewed protectionism. Certainly, tariffs are one aspect of this. Deregulation, the America First Trade Policy. And so, helping companies to navigate these shifting priorities, and be thinking about global trade, and, frankly, regulatory uncertainty, that’s one thing.
There’s been a global shift to the right. There’s a conservative resurgence across Japan, France, Germany, U.K., to name but a few. Helping clients to be able to navigate that volatility, that societal polarization that everybody is dealing with. . . . We, in this country, because we pay attention to our own news, we’ll be focused on things like Minnesota, but you could also point to Iran, Gen Z-led protests across Asia, budget protests in Bulgaria, which were huge, and probably not on most people’s radar here.
So, guiding clients through social listening and activist engagement, and brand neutrality. How do you stand for things without necessarily putting yourself in the line of fire? Like, that’s a thing. There’s the global AI governance race. There’s competing rules about how to shape AI’s futures. It was so fascinating, to me, to watch Google, of all companies, a company that has never really lacked for resources, go into the bond market, and raise more than $30 billion worth of 100-year debt. That’s a whole new thing.
Yes.
Because AI is expensive. And so, how that’s governed and the way that investments work in that world is a whole separate thing. There’s erosion of trust in traditional media. The Washington Post, you and I both have friends at The Post.
Yes.
A third of their staff is gone . . . at the same time that only 28% of U.S. adults trust mainstream media. . . . This was the Gallup poll that came out last year. That number was in the 70s in the 70s72% in 1972.
Even the entities that are financially solvent, people have very strong feelings about.
Absolutely. And what we’re observing more and more, Bob, I, certainly, saw it at Davos, and I saw it again with the Super Bowl, 4 in 10 U.S. adults, according to that same Gallup poll, get their news from digital influencers. And I’m not saying influencers are fake news at all. Many of them, frankly, come from the world of traditional media.
But the fact that the trust is so upside down now where you have fewer than one in three Americans saying they trust traditional media forms, you realize that company-owned media channels and storytelling are becoming more important than they ever have been.
Clients have to navigate all of this at the same time that they’re thinking about things like the erosion of institutional credibility, their own institutions, not necessarily conferring confidence in the AI. For all the advantages that it has, it actually amplifies mis and disinformation at scale.
I think there’s a lot for clients to wrap their heads around, and that’s the job that we have is helping them to navigate a very confusing, and, frankly, pretty fragmented landscape.
As you go through all of these disruptions and changes, in some ways, it’s a great time to be in the business you’re in, because you’re needed more, and the stakes have never been higher. But at the same time, the pressure’s also never been higher. Right? There is more that is at risk based on the way you communicate than it ever has been before.
That’s totally true. For 15 years as a client, I had boards and C-suites asking me like, “Hey, if this thing goes really sideways, what does it cost us?” Or, “If this thing goes really well, this initiative, what’s the upside for us?” And so, we, at Davos, launched a study that proves that corporate reputation actually has quantifiable value, that companies with strong reputations realized almost 5%, 4.78% unexpected additional shareholder returns creating a reputation economy that’s worth almost $7 trillion. The stakes are a lot higher. We knew they were a lot higher, but now we can actually affix a value to those stakes.
What defines a strong reputation in this environment?
For years, I think we have been told, or it was received wisdom that there was this binary relationship of trust. Like, to be trusted or not trusted. And what I always knew is that reputation was actually comprised of different things. There’s a lab within the University of Oxford that helped us to develop this model. It takes into account eight different levers that comprise modern reputation.
Citizenship, the degree of good that a company may or may not do in the world, but also creativity. How creative are your solutions? Governance, the structures and policies and integrity that help the company to be managed. Innovation, how forward-thinking are you? What new technologies or ideas are you putting forth? Leadership, how you manage at scale, the way that you navigate things. Performance, the financial results. Products, the quality, reliability, and perception of your products.
And maybe more importantly, although I’m not sure it gets the play that it should, workplace. The culture, the well-being of your employees, the way that you manage talent.
So, if you think about how companies manage these eight levers, it’s pretty bespoke. Right? Like, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. . . . Like, the way Starbucks would have thought about these eight levers would be pretty profoundly different than the way that Google would think about those eight levers.
The lens of this research was around financial impact. But do business leaders have responsibility to think beyond just financial impact? Is there a connection between reputation and courage?
Every company has the opportunity, and, frankly, responsibility to think about among these eight levers how they show up. Right? It’s your citizenship, how creative or innovative you are, the products or services you put out in the marketplace. You, as a company, have to determine what is your unique value that you can offer in that space, and the extent to which you really choose to pull that lever hard or don’t pull that lever hard.
Because citizenship is one of these eight levers, I think all companies have both an opportunity to think about that, and also some risks attached to that. They have to think about, Are we picking a side? A political side. Or, Are we doing something that may really please our employees, but for our customer base it may be a different thing?
This gets into the whole realm of stakeholder management, the way you start to think about how the actions that you take . . . Because you only really get to communicate, Bob, after you’ve taken action. Your actions give you the hall pass to communicate, and those actions . . . sure, they can very well be related to things like corporate citizenship out in the world, but you have to be mindful of the way that people are receiving things.
The way that we did things at Starbucks back in the mid 2010s, in a different political environment with a different administration, would be received I suspect in a very different way in this administration, in this year of our Lord 2026, compared to what we did then.
Choosing to do exactly the same things. And you might not necessarily choose to do them the same way, because of that environment.
Exactly. Or you might choose to communicate about them in a different way. Context matters. Right? I think you have to start thinking about things like context and the actions in that context before you’re thinking about message. The message is almost the last thing that you’re thinking about.
If youre tuning in to the Milan Cortina Olympics, you may be one of many spectators whos suddenly invested in the sport of curling. Youre in good company: Swedish designer Gustaf Westman, best known for his chunky homeware, has become so fascinated by the event that he used it as inspiration for his latest design.
Curling centers on an object called a curling stone. Using its gooseneck handle, competitors slide the round, 44-pound stone down an ice shuffleboard toward a target zone. Westmans curling bowl, which he debuted on Instagram on February 10, reimagines the object as a snack bowl. The stones handle has been cleverly converted into the perfect slot for a glass of wine, or whatever beverage suits the moment, while its round base has been repurposed into a vessel for chips, crackers, and popcorn. The bowl is not listed for sale on Westman’s website at the time of this writing.
Iconic Olympics-related objects like the ceremonial torch, cauldron, and medals may receive the most attention at the Games, but Westmans new bowl gives the curling stone the flowers its owed.
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Designing the curling bowl
Before Westman reimagined the curling stone as a receptacle for popcorn and charcuterie, it was already one of the most interesting pieces of sports gear at the Winter Olympics.
Since 2006, every single stone thats been thrown at the Games has been manufactured at one factory on the Scottish island of Ailsa Craig. Thats because the islands microgranite is formed by fast-cooling magma, which makes it ultra dense and hardperfectly suited for slamming into other curling stones at speed. Every stone is shaped, weighted, and polished to enable it to slide across the ice like butter, essentially making each a very precisely engineered work of art.
View this post on Instagram
Like his other designs (see Westmans whimsical collection for Ikea and puzzle-inspired shelf, for example), the bowl is pleasantly chunky, rounded, and colorful. In place of the stones usual handle is a two-pronged appendage that allows a beverage to hover directly over a spot for snacks. Overall, the bowl leans more toward artistic than performance-driven, but it does take after the real thing in one key way: It can slide.
In a video posted to his Instagram, Westman tested out his design at what appears to be a local rink, sending it shooting down the ice with potato chips, wine, and several bunches of grapes on board. At home, spectators might use this function to pass hors d’oeuvres down the table while enjoying the Games.
“I love being present and commenting on the time we are living in with my design,” Westman told Dezeen. “I also think humor has a big place in designthis is a great example of that for me.
For consumer packaged goods, the path from product idea to store shelves runs directly through the center of Unilever‘s new North American headquarters, and not just because the company makes market-saturating products like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and TRESemmé shampoo. This new headquarters space was designed specifically to put the entire process of product creation on display in its office, from ideation to development to marketing to retailing.
Spread across 111,000 square feet in downtown Hoboken, New Jersey, Unilever’s newly opened headquarters is centered around an accessible spine of rooms and facilities that are optimized for bringing new products to market. There are “innovation labs” where ideas for new products come to life, workstations where ideas can take shape, a test kitchen and salon where products get sampled and refined, and a retail lab where the company and its retail partners can see the products as they’ll look on store shelves.
“We want people to walk in and just immediately know what it is we stand for and what it is we do,” says Nathaniel Barney, Unilever’s global head of workplace services, travel, and fleet. “Not just to see it on the walls, because images come and go, but actually to feel it in the design.”
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
Unilever’s new headquarters is about a third of the size of the company’s previous suburban campus, 12 miles north in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The smaller size prioritizes the collaboration required to develop its wide range of consumer products across personal care, beauty and wellbeing, foods, and home care. In the post-pandemic context, it’s also a recognition that the company didn’t actually need its big suburban footprint, according to Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA. “When you’re like we are, now three days a week [in the office], actually those three days are all about connection, creativity, collaboration,” he says. “That’s why this design was built for the future.”
Bringing Unilver’s products to life
Unilever worked with the architecture firm Perkins & Will to design the space, centering its most collaborative product development functions in a spine that connects the entire office. Accessible by anyone passing by or taking a meeting in a nearby private room or sitting aside one of the picture windows with wide angle views across the Hudson River to Lower Manhattan, the product development spine is meant to draw in peopleand ideasfrom across the company.
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
One easy draw, especially for a company in the food business, is the flavor-wafting test kitchen. “It’s the first thing you see when you walk into the space,” says Mariana Giraldo, design principal at Perkins and Will’s New York studio. “Right behind reception, there are two windows into the kitchen, so there’s no way you can miss it.”
Employees get a chance to see new foods and flavors being developed live, and also get a chance to taste products that may be coming to market years down the line. The test kitchen is also part of the product pipeline, where new ideas get piloted and refined.
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
Down the spine, “innovation labs” are intended to be blank spaces where those ideas can be born. Intentionally open and flexible in their furnishings and equipment, the labs leave themselves open to interpretation and reconfiguration.
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
For products farther along in the product development timeline, there are spaces with a higher gloss and purpose, including the test kitchen and a fully equipped salon. Both can be used for research and development as products take shape, but also for marketing purposes when products are heading to shelves. Each doubles as a stage set.
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
Beyond serving the product development process, these spaces are meant to attract employees and encourage more engagement with the creative side of the business. Giraldo says the design team approached these spaces as amenities within the workplace.
“Here, the amenities didn’t have the purpose of just being amenities for the for the sake of it, but really being amenities that connected back to the product, and that connected back to exactly the work being developed here,” she says.
Shrinking desk space
Product development also relies on heads-down and desk-centric tasks, so there are regular workstations and meeting areas in Unilever’s headquarters. But even these are shaped by the company’s focus on collaboration. Barney says that the new office carved out much more space for one-on-one meetings and smaller group interactions, and ditched formal conference rooms for large spaces that could expand or contract to host larger groups and events. (The test kitchen, for one, opens out to a common area, making it easy to integrate into an all-hands meeting or a large-scale taste test.)
[Photos: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
“Today we need probably two times the number of small rooms to what we had five or six years ago,” Barney says. “What we see a huge need for is places where we can have groups of 35 to 50 people come together and then have another 20 to 30 people on screen, if not more . . . We had to create spaces that were designed around a very different set of criteria.”
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
While Unilever’s headquarters was designed to create products and, by extension, profits, there’s an emphasis on informality across the space. That’s tied to an ethos Patel says is integral to the company’s culture. “We wanted to create a space and a location where our organization would love wasting time with each other,” he says. “We believe wasting time together is when culture blossoms. That’s when you get to know the person, you get to know what’s going on in their lives. There’s so much more than just work.”
[Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will]
If that time wasting among employees leads to an idea for a new body wash concept or mayo recipe, all the better. They won’t have to go far to start turning those ideas into the products of the future.
Ill admit it: I still secretly prefer cooking on a gas stove despite knowing that Im breathing in benzene and adding to methane emissions. What can I say, I like the tactile control of an open flame.
But recently I tested an induction range that made my gas stove seem antiquated. Charlie, from the Bay Area-based startup Copper, offers a high-end range that can do everything I expect from my current stoveand more. The appliance, which started to roll out nationally last year, has been called “the Tesla of induction stoves” by The New York Times and lauded by chefs including Christopher Kimball. I wanted to try it out as a home cook with only basic skills.
[Photo: Copper Home]
An oven thats 30x more accurate
Like most electric ovens, Charlie’s performs better than its gas counterparts. But it also surpasses the typical electric version. It preheats to 350 degrees in about four minutes, thanks in part to a large battery hidden at the base of the stove. (More on the battery later.)
I tried baking some cookies, which browned up perfectly, and then turned the heat down to 80 degrees to test another unique feature: The oven can hold a steady low temperature, making it possible to proof bread or pastry quickly when needed.
Gas ovens tend to cycle heat more aggressively, and even the pilot light alone can push temperatures too high. Standard electric ovens are better, but also cant reliably keep the temperature low enough. Id brought along some chocolate croissants and tried proofing them; the oven worked like a professional proofing drawer, which meant not having to wonder how the temperature and humidity in the kitchen would affect the rise of the dough.
[Photo: Copper Home]
The oven is incredibly precise. Most ovens fluctuate as much as 30 degrees above or below the set temperature. But incorporating a battery enables Coppers Charlie to use more sophisticated controls, including modern temperature sensors and actuators. Thanks to a recent firmware update, Charlies temperature varies no more than a single degree. Put another way, its 30 times more accurate than a typical oven.
The seesawing temperatures in other ovens lead to baked goods with burnt edges, soggy bottoms, or mushy middles. The software updatedubbed Soufflé after the notoriously finicky dish it was designed to mastermakes Charlies baking capability even more consistent. Sure, it might take away some entertainment: Would you watch the Great British Baking Show without the suspense of unpredictable results? But in real life, its the kind of tool that actually makes me want to bake more often.
[Photo: Copper Home]
The cooktop is intuitive and more precise than gas
Unlike some other induction stoves, the cooktop is easy enough to use without turning to the instruction manual. It has knobs, like a traditional range, rather than a touchscreen. When you turn one of the knobs, a display shows how hot the burner is. On the cooktop, to stand in for the visual cue of a gas flame, a bar of lights shows whether youve cranked up the heat a little or a lot.
Like other induction stoves, it can boil water incredibly quickly. (The battery gives an extra boost: A pot of 8 ounces of water boils in 4 minutes and 10 seconds.) It can also precisely control temperature. I tried melting chocolate in a pan, something that would normally be a more complicated process with a double boiler on a regular stove, and the steady low temperature helped it melt evenly.
Though I didnt try making dinner, the stove seems more than capable of handling anything I might normally prepare. It’s possible, for example, to crank up the heat and stir-fry something in a flat-bottomed wok, as Copper has demonstrated in previous tests; despite the lack of flames, the pan can get hot enough to char noodles for a dish like pad see ew.
[Photo: Copper Home]
Why theres a battery inside
Some induction stoves have an annoying buzz, caused by pulsing AC power from the outlet that creates vibrations that are especially noticeable in tri-ply pans with multiple different kinds of metl. The Charlie stove, by contrast, is remarkably quiet, thanks to its battery.
That battery, with 5 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, also means the stove can keep running for days even if the power goes out in a storm (notably, most modern gas stoves wont work if the electricity goes out, since they use electric ignition and electric safety valves). The battery also has other advantages that I didnt get to test. First, it means the stove doesnt require expensive electrical upgrades, something thats necessary with most other powerful induction stoves. The stove needs a large boost of power when it starts, but it can pull that from the battery.
Because the battery can charge when power is cheapestfor example, in the middle of the day in California, when the grid has extra solar powerit can help keep customers bills lower. As the network of appliances grows, they form a virtual power plant that can also help the grid itself. A distributed network of batteries in appliances is easier to deploy than larger utility-scale batteries. Copper is now beginning to work with some large manufacturers to design other types of appliances, like heat pumps, that can also add more energy storage to the grid.
[Photo: Copper Home]
The range is expensive, at around $6,000. But because of the energy and climate benefits, a number of states provide generous incentives. In California, for example, if a homeowner with a gas stove replaces it with Coppers stove, and if the stove was the last gas appliance in the home, they can get a rebate that will cover the entire cost.
Some of the first customers include large apartment buildings that want to make the switch away from gas. The New York City Housing Authority is an early adopter, recognizing that the stoves are a way to avoid expensive upgrades to its aging gas infrastructure, to comply with local emission laws, and to improve air quality for residents.
It’s a rare case of premium tech scaling up from multiple directions, adopted as much for infrastructure pragmatism as for performance. Whether it’s for public housing or a high-end kitchen, the pitch is the same: cleaner air, better performance, and a new way to support the strained electric grid.
In early February, the 22-year-old design brand Areaware announced it will close on May 1 citing tariffs and mounting pressures on the home goods industry in a letter posted to its Instagram account. Every product weve made has been an act of optimisma belief that good design can make our world a little better, the letter said. Lately though, our world has been making that difficult for us to do.
Its been a challenging few months for good design brands. In December, Food52, the parent company of Schoolhouse and Dansk, declared bankruptcy; earlier in February, it was stripped for parts and sold at auction. While Areaware and Food52 dont share the exact same business model, both brands were curators and manufacturers that assembled an eclectic mix of goods targeted toward an aspirational shopper who valued design, affordability, and storytelling in everyday objects.
Its a type of company that looks like its on its way out. To be both a curatorial voice and a manufacturing voice are two disparate and incompatible forces, says Noel Wiggins, Areawares cofounder and CEO. It is not a great business model. It’s a wonderful creative model.
A ‘record label’ for industrial design
Areaware has been a fixture in the home goods landscape since launching its first collection in 2005. It established itself as a publisher of stylish, playful, and accessibly priced products that cut across categories. If you wanted to buy something distinctive but tastefula minimalist silver baby rattle, brightly patterned napkins, pastel candles shaped like blobsyou could find it on Areawares website.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
From the start, Areaware primarily licensed pieces from independent designers, who received a 6% royalty fee, and manufactured them. Less than 10% of products were designed in-house. Through this model, it forged an entire ecosystem of design, from product development to manufacturing to wholesale and eventually direct-to-consumer retail, which it began strategically investing in four years ago. By 2024, direct sales accounted for 26% of overall revenue, domestic wholesale was responsible for 64%, and international accounts and global partners made up 10%.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
Artists and designers who wanted to mass produce their work knew they had a partner in the brand, which took care of manufacturer sourcing, marketing, and sales. This included legends like Susan Kare and Tobias Wong along with emerging studios that eventually became heavyweights like RBW, Jason Miller, and Chen Chen and Kai Williams.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
In many ways we function like a small record label, Wiggins says. Theres this kind of sound to that label and its the feeling of ideas coming before function in industrial design. Over the past 22 years, Areaware collaborated with over 50 artists, distributed its products internationally, and produced true icons of design (David Weekss Cubebot, and its many iterations, generated $18.7 million in sales).
A fragile ecosystem
While most manufacturers specialize in a specific material or one technique, Areaware was more focused on authorship and doing something interesting with an artist who wanted to experiment. This helped Areaware built a loyal following throughout the design community, but it also created issues on the business side.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
The ecosystem was fragile, Wiggins says. This is because the company made so many different types of materially different goodsfrom glass butter dishes to woodbottle openers and stainless-steel flasks. The variety that gave Areaware its creative identity was also a weak business point.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
This multidisciplinary approach created structural challenges, says Roberto Fantauzzi, Areawares chief design officer. Unlike companies focused on a single category, Areaware did not benefit from the same economies of scale or pricing efficiencies. Developing across multiple categories required higher upfront investment, increased tooling and mold costs, and a careful allocation of in-house resources across a range of product types.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
Depending on the type of new product, like a color update of an existing SKU or entirely new object, product development could cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, Fantauzzi says.
While the brand was able to pay its bills and not carry debt, margins were always tight. According to Wiggins, Areaware generated $4 million in sales annually on average, but profits vacillated$40,000 one year, zero the next, then minus $20,000.
Still, the company was able to manage. That is, until Trumps tariffs entered the picture. Maintaining that balance between design integrity and affordability at times meant operating with slimmer margins, Fantauzzi says. When tariffs took effect in 2025, those margins were significantly compressed, making it increasingly difficult to sustain certain collections and SKUs at the standards and prices the company strives to uphold.
It takes around 18 months for Areaware to bring a product into production and the constantly changing landscape made it extremely challenging to plan ahead and manage the risks involved. It wasn’t only the tariffs, which were horrible as they were, but it was the unknown, Wiggins says. You don’t know whether to wait out if the tariffs are going to change. It creates this enormous stall in the system.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
Around 80% of Areawares products are made in China. The rest are mostly produced in Indonesia (mostly furniture), India (cast-iron pieces), Vietnam (candles), and Mexico (silver baby rattles). Wiggins explored manufacturing the Cubebot with a wood toy maker in Vermont, but the extra cost wasnt justifiable. Production would have cost four times more for the toy itself, turning a $10 product into a $30 product for shoppers.
These pressures are also particularly challenging since Areawares business model revolves around small product runs. Aside from the Cubebot blockbuster and few products that have sold tens of thousands of units, most pieces sell in the thousands and hundreds. It wasn’t even only price; it was just the ability to make small batch, Wiggins says. We can’t set up a local factory to do small numbers.
Another casualty of the attention economy
Wigginswho was inspired by the SoHo design emporium Moss, the conceptual Dutch collective Droog, and the Milanese brand Danesecompares the trajectory of design businesses to art movements. They kind of have their generational moment and then it ends, he says.
Lisa Cheng Smith, who once served as the chief design officer of Areaware and has developed products for Hay and Design Within Reach, says the brands closure signals a shift in what type of design is most valued today. When the brand started, the job of a product designer meant you made physical objects, but now it means digital experiences.
That speaks to me about the status a product or object has in our material consciousness, Smith says. The voices of creatives are more often seen on digital platforms now. It’s like cooking videos, YouTubethat’s how people are accessing culture. It’s less about buying a meticulously thought-through object.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
Wiggins echoes the impact of digitization on his business, particularly how information travels today. Its a lot easier for everyone to directly find what they need. Shoppers can go on any number of social media platforms to find new brands, and designers can go directly to manufacturers without an intermediary like Areaware.
You don’t need the gatekeepers as much, he says. Pre-internet, the role of a curator was, in some ways, more important because if you were a store and you had to find neat thing, you couldnt really search for [them] easily.
At the same time, the landscape has become noisier than ever and the constant firehose of content drowns out anything that isnt viral, which poses another challenge to Areawares model. Wiggins describes Areaware as a media company that sells three-dimensional stories, and getting customers to listen is tough.
Every time theres a piece of Trump news, the attention economy is going towards someone else’s story, Wiggins says. Youre constantly in competition for attention. There’s such a domination of fear in the attention system that it gets hard to get peoples attention in a way that’s sustainable.
The business of designers
So where do object makers fit into this new landscape? The wholesale model of affordable designer objects cant sustain itself. Meanwhile, few big brands today seem willing to take risks on emerging studios; instead theyre reissuing heritage pieces, which have baked-in fan bases and greater chances of becoming a break-out hit. That leaves out collectible design, which relies heavily on concept and authorship. Its a place where the voice of the designer can really be preserved, Smith says.
Beyond sales, licensing is still important to emerging studios. Sophie Collé, a furniture designer based in Brooklyn, licensed one of her earliest designs, a plant stand with an amoeba-like silhouette that she had been making by hand herself, to Areaware in 2022. The Splat table then went on to be sold at MoMA Design Store, the Guggenheim, and Coming Soonplaces that are retailer-curators first and dont typically manufacture their own goods. The deal became an important income stream for her small business, and through it her work reached a wider audience that led to custom commissions, and larger brand deals and collaborations.
[Photo: courtesy Areaware]
Not only has Areaware done so much for my career, but it really was a support system for emerging designers, Collé says. I honestly don’t really know another company that does what they did with such grace and respect for the designers themselves. Finding manufacturers and fabricators is such a beast, and not every creative has the time or even wants to be doing that side of the business. That is what really makes Areaware irreplaceable in that sense, at least in my eyes.
Ellen Van Dusen, founder of the textiles and home goods brand Dusen Dusen, has collaborated with Areaware for eight years on objects that her company isnt able to make in-house. This includes a plywood tissue box cover painted with faces and a night light. They took risks with products that were a little weird and unconventional that became huge successes, Van Dusen says.
[Photo: Areaware]
Van Dusen adds that the distribution channels brought her work to all corners of the world. People will text me pictures of the pepper grinders in New Zealand, umbrellas on the street in Japan, and the tissue box in Mexico, she says. “We don’t have those same distribution channels in house, so Areaware brought an awareness to Dusen Dusen that I don’t think we would have gotten on our own. They were an integral part of our growth. And I must mention, the tissue box was on Succession.
Beyond being a shopping destination Areaware was also an important industry connector, which is important since the design industry runs on relationships. Laura Young, managing director of collectible design gallery the Future Perfect, met many of the artists she represents now through her work at Areaware directing product development. Areaware laid the foundation for my career, she says. And Smith, who now runs Yun Hai, a retail shop and online store specializing in Taiwanese cooking, met many of the manufacturing partners she works with today through Areaware. The way that I do business is based on everything I learned there, she says.
Like the reshuffle of Food52, theres a chance some parts of Areaware might not completely disappear. For example, Wiggins is in talks with Weeks to take over production of the Cubebot. Honestly, we’re trying to find someone to take over the arduous and difficult business model, Wiggins says. And because it’s arduous and difficult and very unprofitable, it’s hard to find someone to do that.
What really holds people back from stepping up as allies in support of their marginalized colleagues? For example, why dont more men say something when they see a colleague or a customer make a sexist remark about a female co-worker?
Our research, published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, suggests that people often hesitate to intervene when co-workers are mistreated because they themselves feel disempowered in their organizations and experience distrust and polarization.
Our findings run counter to the common assumption that people dont step up to support marginalized colleagues because they dont care or are unmotivated. Not seeing much action against inequity and injustice can drive this cynical idea. Its built into many diversity, equity and inclusion training programs that rely on motivational tactics of persuasion, guilting and shaming to get people to act.
We are psychology researchers interested in how people can use their strengths to effectively support others who are marginalized. We surveyed 778 employees in Michigan and 973 employees across all provinces of Canada, representative of urban and rural areas, working-class and professional jobs, and across all demographics, including gender, race, and sexual orientation. We asked them, What makes it hard for you to be an ally for underrepresented and marginalized people (e.g., people of color, women, persons with a disability) in your organization?
Low motivation represented just 8% of the barriers people cited. And lack of awareness that marginalized groups face inequities accounted for only 10% of the barriers people mentioned. Most diversity training money tends to be devoted to teaching employees about these topicssuggesting why many diversity training programs fail.
The most common barrier to allyship that our participants named was distrust and tension between people in their organization, which had them second-guessing themselves and self-censoring. People also reported feeling disempowered, like they didnt have the power, opportunity or resources to make a real difference for their colleagues.
Why it matters
Researchers, specialists and consultants alike approach issues of workplace inequity with the assumption that to drive action, they need to first unblock potential allies deep-seated resistance to change. For example, specialists assume that people need to become more motivated, more courageous, less biased or better informed about existing inequities in order to act as allies.
In this study, we temporarily set aside all preexisting assumptions and directly asked people what made it hard for them to be an ally, in their own words. Our goal was to identify practical roadblocks at the top of peoples minds that stop them from taking the first step, or the next logical step.
When popular messaging, like on social media, and organizational interventions misunderstand the causes of peoples inaction, they risk exacerbating frustration and tensions. Interventions need to account for their audiences true perspectives on what makes allyship difficult. Otherwise, theyll lack credibility, and people will likely be less receptive to program content.
What still isnt known
Wed like to further investigate the impacts of the specific barriers mentioned in our study. More insight could help workplaces focus interventions on addressing barriers that are the worst pressure points and avoid overspending on interventions that can move the needle only so much.
More than a quarter of respondents said they experienced no barriers to standing up for colleagues. Wed like to investigate whether these respondents simply didnt want to engage with our question, are uncertain about the barriers, or are already engaging in some form of allyship. Our teams previous research has shown that even loud allies who publicly call out bias often also engage in quiet allyship actions, such as privately checking in on how a victim of bias is doing and assisting in strategizing next steps.
Whats next
Our research team is investigating whether programs designed with this studys findings in mindstarting with building trusting relationships and helping people feel empoweredcan increase allyship action. When diversity programs built on inaccurate assumptions dont show the desired results, they risk having funding withdrawn or being halted altogether. Instead, as organizations take stock and pivot, evidence from our study and others can help them more effectively plan their next move.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Meg A. Warren is a professor of management at Western Washington University.
Michael T. Warren is an assistant professor of psychology at Western Washington University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Recently, I made myself a promise: I would not buy any more Lego for at least a year. That plan has quickly been foiled. Lego’s first-ever Peanuts set is just too good, too iconic, too beautiful (plus, my son loves Snoopy and Woodstock.) This perfect brick renditionwith the classic red doghouse and even the campfire and marshmallows to toastis too cool pass up.
Lego’s addiction to licensed intellectual propertythe company now sells 25 IP-based themes out of 45 total, often burying the open-ended, creativity-first sets that built the brandis still a problem, but this Snoopy’s Doghouse set proves exactly why these licenses work so extraordinarily well to burn your credit card.
[Photo: Lego]
The magnetism of that simple beagle silhouette, combined with Lego’s three-dimensional engineering and the bricks’ intrinsic attractive power, is a perfect formula to trash all my financial constraints. Plus, Charles M. Schulz created something so visually strong, clear, and emotionally direct that translating it into 964 plastic bricks feels less like exploitation and more like homage.
Snoopy debuted on October 4, 1950, just two days after Peanuts launched, and he spent decades evolving from a puppy shuffling on four legs into the anthropomorphic dreamer who sleeps on top of his doghouse and imagines himself as the Red Baron, a World War I flying ace. Schulz based him on Spike, his childhood black-and-white mixed breed who was unusually intelligent and could understand about 50 words.
The name Snoopy came from Schulz’s mother, who once suggested it as a good name for a future family dog. (Fun note: Schulz had considered Sniffy before remembering her advice). Over 75 years, Snoopy became more than Charlie Brown’s pethe became a vehicle for fantasy, playing shortstop on Charlie Brown’s baseball team, typing novels as the World Famous Author, and strutting around as Joe Cool. He ascended the cultural ladder enough that even NASA adopted him as a mascot, naming the Apollo 10 lunar and command modules after him and creating the Silver Snoopy Award for astronaut achievement in 1968.
[Photo: Lego]
Woodstock, the small yellow bird who first appeared in 1966 but wasn’t named until June 22, 1970, cemented Snoopy’s status as a character who operated in his own emotional universe. Schulz named Snoopys avian pal after the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, whose logo featured a bird perched on a guitar. The origin story is pure Schulz sentiment: A mother bird built a nest on Snoopy’s belly, then abandoned it, leaving Snoopy to raise the hatchlingsone of whom became Woodstock. Schulz never specified Woodstock’s species (fans guess canary or goldfinch), and he once drew a strip where Snoopy gave up trying to identify him.
Like many of us, Atlanta-based designer Robert Becker is a die-hard fan of the characters, so he spent about a year developing the concept before submitting it to Lego Ideas, the Danish companys program that accepts designs made by anyone who signs up for an account and submits a build. Submissions get considered for mass production after they receive 10,000 votes by other Ideas members. Thats when they may get approval by a company committee to be refined by Legos own designers in a long collaborative process.
[Photo: Lego]
“This set has so much character, Monica Pedersen, marketing director at the Lego Group, says in the sets press release. We were delighted that the Snoopy Campfire product idea received over 10,000 votes on the Lego Ideas platform. Im glad, too, Monica.
At 964 pieces and a $90 price tag, the set also hits the Lego complexity-affordability-granularity sweet spot, unlike many of the huge sets the company has produced in the past few years. Snoopy legs and neck are adjustable, letting you pose him and Woodstock in multiple display positions. The red doghouse opens to reveal a typewriter inside, which you can move anywhere. And the campfire scenewhich can also be hidden inside Snoopys homeis set against a starry sky backdrop. The set is already available for preorder; it will be sold in stores starting June 1.
And yes, my kid and I will be counting the days till it ships to us.
