The project, initiated by Arena for Journalism in Europe and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), brought together 41 journalists and scientists from 11 countries to measure nature loss across Europe using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence. Their findings were stark: between 2018 and 2023, Europe lost approximately 9,000 km² of nature and cropland to construction - an area the size of Cyprus - at a rate equivalent to 600 football pitches every single day. The investigation also revealed that undeveloped land is disappearing up to 1.5 times faster than previously estimated by the European Environment Agency, and that more than 150,000 construction projects took place on protected land during the same period. The research fed into a peer-reviewed article published in the academic journal Nature Communications in April 2026.
Journalismfund Europe supported the project with a grant of €40,950 via the Environmental Investigative Journalism grant programme.
Partners included De Standaard (Belgium), Le Monde (France), Long Play (Finland), Die Zeit (Germany), Reporters United (Greece), Facta (Italy), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), Datadista (Spain), The Black Sea (Turkey) and The Guardian (UK).
In its citation, the Sigma Prize Committee described Green to Grey as "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," adding that its presentation was "intuitive and married with strong storytelling and on-the-ground reporting."
The award was decided from a record field of 543 entries from 84 countries. The nine other winning projects spanned a wide range of subjects and geographies - from Russia's shadow war on Baltic Sea infrastructure (Financial Times) and Iran's sanctioned oil trade (Reuters) to state-sponsored orphaning of detainees' children under Assad's rule in Syria (Lighthouse Reports and partners), lethal lead poisoning in Nigeria's battery recycling industry (The Examination / New York Times), forced adoption of Ukrainian children in Russia (Neue Zürcher Zeitung / Texty.org.ua), decades of shell-company fraud in Mexico (Quinto Elemento Lab), algorithmic exclusion of elderly Peruvians from state benefits (Salud con Lupa), criminal targeting of Sudanese refugees at the Egypt border (ARIJ / Al-Muhajir), and the destruction of Brazil's Cerrado biome (Ambiental Media).
More info: www.sigmaawards.org
