Economic Scene: Disability Insurance Causes Pain

Plug Inn, from Renault and Publicis Sapient, is a winner in Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards. In the tiny French village of Guessling-Heméring, there aren’t any public EV chargers. But if you’re driving an electric car through the area, you can use an app to book time with a private charger at someone’s home.

For its work on using AI to address climate change, Google is Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Company of the Year. As the use of artificial intelligence grows, there’s a risk that it could boost emissions as it drives up demand for energy at data centers. But AI also has the potential to help find new ways to shrink humanity’s giant carbon footprint.

TurtleTree’s animal-free lactoferrin is a winner in Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards. Fengru Lin, cofounder and CEO of Singapore biotech company TurtleTree, wants to find a more sustainable way to make milk. But she knows that lab-grown milks can’t compete with cow’s milk when it comes to price (at least not yet).

The Global Gateway Program, from Automation Anywhere and Robo Co-Op, is a winner in Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards. Around the world, there are more than 100 million refugees who were forced to flee their homes because of violence, persecution, climate change, and more. Being displaced comes with a slew of challenges, of course, like finding work—made even more difficult by a language barrier or a mismatch in employment skills.

A Brighton vegetable farm’s fight against a metro district’s eminent domain action to provide storm drainage for new housing drew hundreds of people to an Adams County courthouse Monday in support of the nearly century-old operation. Palizzi Farm, nestled between a grocery store, a strip mall and residential neighborhoods, is seen here at its location on East Bromley Lane in an image from September, 2023, in Brighton.

Colorado voters will likely side with two ballot measures promising greater property tax relief than what a bipartisan legislative compromise rushed through in the session’s final hours is offering, the head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce warned Monday. Senate Bill 24-233 will save property owners an estimated $950 million in taxes compared to the legislature taking no action.