The news site formerly known as Energydesk

Looking for Energydesk? It’s still us. We are still Greenpeace’s editorially-independent, award-winning environmental news and investigations team. We’ve just moved to a new home that suits us a little better.

Energydesk started in 2012 as a specialist UK energy blog, mostly publishing in-depth analysis of government bills, or factchecking inaccurate news stories about climate change. We still do both those things, but since expanding our remit to the environment as a whole and adding our stellar investigations unit, you’re now just as likely to find an exclusive on the chemical giants trying to discredit scientists over bee-killing pesticides, an interactive map of the illegally polluted roads near Britain’s nurseries and schools, or an investigation into the protected US landscapes that could be opened for fossil fuel extraction.

So a few things had to change.

The name.

Our original name was a direct response to the lack of an energy desk at the BBC. But it’s a confusing moniker under which to publish a story about China’s expanding control of the West African fishing industry.

Unearthed captures our investigative focus, and contains a pleasing nod to our hippie roots nestled in the centre, while the logo design has a techy/sci-fi feel that speaks to our nerdy side.

The website.

It was a blog, plain and simple. Now we have a proper, grown-up news website (currently in beta stage, so if you spot any problems, let us know). We asked our readers what they wanted, and we listened. We have a homepage, so you can browse and we can curate. Our search function is better, as is our categorisation. We have new photo and video stories, explainer boxes and better hosting for interactive data visualisations.

The look.

The entire environmental journalism world is blue and green or something in between. Seriously, gather them all together and it’s like a lovely mosaic of the sea.

We don’t think environmental news should be a niche subject, so the new look was designed to burst, triumphant and unashamedly pink, out of the green bubble. We may have just won an award for specialist journalism, but the long game is to take the planet mainstream.

The whole site is image-led, allowing us to make full use of Greenpeace’s massive library of world-class environmental photography. And it’s all just a lot sharper and more energetic.

But where it matters, we haven’t changed at all.

As Unearthed, our journalists are still committed to publishing accurate, honest, change-making stories that illuminate parts of our changing world no one else is looking at. Environmental journalism is getting better, but the media landscape is still lacking in in-depth, sustained coverage of issues that are only increasing in urgency, from climate change to ocean plastic pollution.

The phrase ‘now more than ever’ has been criminally overused since Trump’s election, but we can’t think of a more appropriate place to use it than in reference to the literally existential problem of climate change. Now more than ever, we need good journalism to tell the story and tell it right.

That’s why we started, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing.

So have a tour around the shiny new Unearthed website, and let us know what you think.