We’re excited to announce that the Green to Grey investigation is a Sigma Award Winner for 2026!
Our groundbreaking data journalism investigation, a collaboration between Arena and 11 news teams across Europe, revealed the scale of nature and cropland loss across the continent over a six year period. It was the first investigation of its kind, revealing that every year, Europe loses 1,500 km² to construction. In the first month after publication, the investigation was read by more than 3 million people.
In its citation, the Sigma Prize Committee wrote:
“The project is an ambitious, technically sophisticated investigation that combines satellite imagery, large-scale geospatial datasets, and AI-assisted analysis to reveal patterns of environmental degradation across Europe. What’s more, the presentation is intuitive and married with strong storytelling and on-the-ground reporting. Sometimes it can be hard to see environmental impacts over time. This project made it easy.”
The project was initiated by Arena in partnership with NRK and NINA – the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. Their original 2024 investigation into land loss across Norway created waves upon publication, and was subsequently shortlisted in the innovation category for the European Press Prize.
Arena invited NRK and NINA to a meeting at the 2024 Climate Arena conference, alongside several national media teams, to discuss the methodology and potential for scaling-up. The group decided that the devastating scale of Norway’s nature loss revealed a strong public interest need to find out whether this was replicated across all of Europe.
Our cross-border team, led by Arena journalists Zeynep Şentek, Jelena Prtorić, Hazel Sheffield and Léopold Salzenstein, produced 47 publications in 10 languages, detailing our stark findings with on the ground reporting and multimedia illustrations of the changes in landscape.
The project was delivered by 41 journalists and scientists from 11 countries: Datadista (Spain), De Standaard (Belgium), Die Zeit (Germany), Facta (Italy), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), Le Monde (France), Long Play (Finland), NRK (Norway), Reporters United (Greece), The Black Sea (Turkey), and The Guardian (UK). As in the original Norwegian investigation, NINA provided scientific expertise.
The investigation has also seen further impact than simply a wide publication and readership, with politicians bringing our findings forward for discussion in halls of power, outlets experiencing spikes in subscriber numbers as a result of the project, and journalists being invited to present the findings at scientific conferences.
NINA also developed a citizen science app following the project, that allows people across the world to help track land loss. Journalists and scientists from the project were accepted for publication in Nature Communications, the open-source scientific journal.
Green to Grey was made possible in part by grants from Journalismfund Europe and IJ4EU, and we thank them both for their ongoing support.
Read the full announcement on all the Sigma Award winners, and explore the Green to Grey investigation.