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The perfectly manicured grass at the pitch of Munich’s Allianz Arena is ready for action thanks in part to its use of a hybrid system of natural and synthetic materials. Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan will have the perfect groundwork laid out for them as they face off in the UEFA Champions League Final today (Saturday, May 31, 2025). Lets recap some team history and developments before we dive into how to watch the big game live. Key stats for Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan Inter has three European Champion Clubs’ Cups to their name, which makes them the second most winning Serie A team in the competitions history. The team was victorious in 2010 and faced defeat in the final in 1967, 1972, and 2022. Paris Saint-Germain has never taken home the trophy. In 2020, the organization came close, but were ultimately defeated by Bayern München in Lisbon. They are determined to upgrade their record during their second appearance in the final. Experts have given them slightly better odds to win it all, but it truly is anyones game. How the two teams reached the final In the Champions League, 32 teams are divided into groups of four and face off six times against the other members of their group. The teams are ranked in a point system for wins and draws, with the top two advancing to a knockout round. The third place team is relegated to the Europa League. The remaining 16 teams battle it out for a place in the final. Paris Saint-Germain had a bumpy road to the finals. They were ranked 15th in the league phase but managed to squeak by. Their impressive 10-0 win against Brest helped turn the tide in the knockout round. They went on to beat Liverpool, Aston Villa, and Arsenal to secure their spot. Inter Milan had a smoother ride into the final. The organization finished fourth in the league phase and was only defeated once. They defeated Feyenoord, Bayern, and Barcelona to earn their place in the final. How can I watch or stream the final? For soccer fans in the United States, CBS Sports is the media outlet of the moment, offering 10 hours of Champions League coverage across various platforms. The big game takes place on Saturday, May 31, at 3 p.m. ET. Here’s how coverage breaks down: 1 p.m. ET: Pre-match coverage will begin, live from Munich, on Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo Network. 1:30 p.m. ET: Coverage begins on CBS. 3 p.m. ET: The game airs live on CBS and streams on Paramount+. CBS is available for traditional cable viewers and free with an over-the-air antenna. Cable subscribers can also watch CBS live through the CBS website. Cord-cutters (or anyone else) also have the option to subscribe to Paramount+, and may be eligible for a free trial. The Spanish-language channel TUDN is also an option. For football fans in the UK, tune into TNT Sports or stream on discovery+ at 8 p.m. BST.
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Lyse Martel is a Berlin-based Color, Materials, and Finish (CMF) designer and strategist in the mobility and consumer electronics industries. Her work combines craftsmanship and emerging technology to shape design strategy, drive material innovation, and create new sensory experiences. Lyse is fascinated by designs power to shape how people feel and act. She believes design can foster emotional connection and wellbeing at a time when AI and automation are making their way into many new consumer product experiences, from the car to the living room. Below, Martel explores the emotional dimension of circular design and how the CMF field is evolving to meet the global challenges of circularity and sustainability. Fast Company: Please introduce yourself to our readers.Lyse MartelLyse Martel: Im Lyse Martel, a CMF designer and design strategist, working primarily in automotive and consumer electronics. CMF, which stands for Color, Materials, and Finish, is about how a product looks, feels, and connects emotionally. So my work focuses on those elements as well as on strategy, brand identity, and sustainability. Although I mainly work in automotive and consumer electronics, CMF can apply to many different areas. Over the years Ive worked with brands like Bang & Olufsen, Hopium, and NIO. And most recently I was directing a circular design project at Volkswagen Groupdesigning for circularity from the start with a large team of designers from different disciplines. How did you find your way into this field? It was step by step. My love for design was always there, even before I knew what to call it. It was shaped by my familys craftsmanship, as well as my own curiosity for shapes, textures, colors, and sensory experiences. On my fathers side, I grew up around a lot of woodworking and carpentry. And on my mothers side are generations of tailors. So that gave me an appreciation for textiles and textures and detailing and crafts. And Ive always loved illustration and drawing and building small architectures with natural elementseverything that could involve materials and aesthetics. And I think that brought me to materiality and storytelling and eventually to CMF design. Were you able to find an educational path that encouraged your interests? I went to a specialized high school for applied arts and design, where I grew immensely as a creative person, and had a teacher who supported me and saw my potential with conceptual thinking. At university another teacher encouraged me to apply to a design internship in the automotive sector in Paris, and thats how I formally entered the CMF design field. I was immediately drawn to the innovation and complexity of using material and color to shape the brand identity for a mobility project. [Photo: Lyse Martel]How do you stay on top of trends in color and material?Much of it is intuitive, but we also learn to connect the dots and see trends. Im very much inspired by psychology and by whats going on in the worldanything that could possibly impact human experiences and emotions. Im paying attention to developments in architecture, interiors, digital and physical design, and material innovation. Im also looking at global trends that have nothing to do with the design industry, including culture and the natural world. Nature plays a big role because you can look at how light interacts, how materials evolve with time, the functioning of ecosystems, and agriculture. Im also very interested in how CMF design intersects with concepts like wellbeing and happiness, so I follow influential practitioners like Ivy Ross from Google, and Susan Magsamen, who works on neuroaesthetics, and Carol Gilligan, the psychologist and philosopher. Could you share more about neuroaesthetics? Neuroaesthetics looks at how design makes people feel: how beauty and art and design influence our brain, and how things like color, textures, light, and sound make us react cognitively or emotionally. We know that certain visual experiences will calm or excite us, while others make us feel uncomfortable. Designers can leverage those insights to create more meaningful and intuitive interactions. Ive always been fascinated by how design makes people feel, and neuroaesthetics gives us the scientific reasoning behind those ideas. For instance, when Im working with color and material for a car interior, I can decide to craft a more calming atmosphere with natural materials, or use soft lighting or a color gradient that can guide the users eye. I can think about how textures and tactility will influence the users feeling of comfort, or their perception of product quality or durability. When it comes to sustainability, there are a lot of materials that may not be readily acceptable to a user. In that case it can be helpful to lean into the authenticity of that material, perhaps by making it warmer or softer, or relating it to nature through colors or grain. So if we can somehow elevate or upscale the experience with that material, then we can start to shift the mindset to embrace sustainable materials or choices. Earlier you mentioned your work in circular design. Could you share more about that? Circular design is rethinking how we create and use products. It means designing for longevity, adaptability, and regeneration. We seek out the right materials, we design for easy reuse and repair, and we try to ensure that the product stays in circulation for as long as possible. Longevity is the number one criteria, because the longer you use a product, the less impact it has in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and other waste metrics. With circularity do you encounter pushback from industries that simply need consumers to keep buying more stuff? It does clash with short-term profit models, so its not easy for businesses to embrace it completely. But there is momentum for circular design, which is driven by consumer expectations, tighter regulations, and a growing recognition that resource efficiency is also smart business. Ive seen mobility and consumer electronics firms try out concepts like modularity, repairability, and designing with disassembly in mind. Neuroaesthetics seems to be a strategy for tapping into peoples innate prefrences for certain colors, materials, and finishes. But could also instigate behavior change, by tapping into the emotional layer of circularity? Absolutely, it can be surprisingly comforting, even if the materials are unexpected. When designing a circular product, youre often working with waste, like a polymer thats meant to circulate between cars. The challenge is making that material feel good, both emotionally and physically. What works is embracing the materials character, maybe it has a soft texture or a slight irregularity, like a grain or uneven thread. Or it comes in a natural color that feels ultra-fresh. These little details shift the focus from what it is to how it makes you feel. You might not even realize its recycled plastic, but it just feels right. Sometimes, a car interior can feel like a cozy cabin, all because of the right textures and tones. That emotional layer is what really connects circularity.How could neuroaesthetics help make people comfortable with something new, like self-driving cars? Its really about how shapes, colors and textures support the digital experience; all the micro-details working together to help the user feel at ease. Ive been testing self-driving vehicles recently, and its surprising how much the environment impacts your reaction. In one case, the layout was minimal, with just the right number of buttons, and that simplicity helped me relax. But I also tested a car that was entirely gray, and it felt dull and dated. Light tones or soft gradients, something that evokes a sunrise or sunset, can go a long way in making the space feel more inviting.With automation, trust becomes a key part of the brief. How easily will someone understand whats happening? Are they okay letting go of the wheel? Thats where CMF design needs to be fully integrated. I have to work closely with the interior and UX designers so that everything speaks the same language. If I propose a soft, natural palette and the shapes are cold or aggressive, it creates a disconnect.[AI Image: courtesy Lyse Martel]Can you share how you use AI in your work, or how AI factors into the CMF design process? Its part of my creative process in that it helps me visualize materials, colors, and sensory experiences Im considering for a project. Its a great way to communicate an idea visually, and also to put it out there so someone else can pick it up and build on it. So for me, its really a tool that helps us be more precise in how we express and share ideas.There are also really promising use cases in circular design, where AI can help us map local resources and integrate them more intelligently into products. For example, theres a lot of bamboo in China, linen in the north of France, or paper waste around Berlin. So what can we do with that knowledge? We can see where materials are available, but also think about how to reduce waste, predict life cycles, or imagine new reuse scenarios. Anything that involves localizing or optimizing can be supported by AI.And as the digital world increasingly shapes the physical one, I think theres real potential in using these new, hyper-sensory AI-generated visuals to inspire physical experiences. Neuroaesthetics helps us design for emotion, and AI can help translate those emotional cues into visual concepts that, when made real, feel meaningful and multi-sensory. Do you ever get any pushback for the decisions that you or your team might make as CMF designers? Sometimes theres a strong reaction to a particular color or material choice. I remember working on a concept car called Eve, developed with a strong focus on emerging markets and innovative design languages. I proposed an exterior in a rose gold tone, which could be read as pink. That sparked some discomfort in the room. I think it challenged certain expectations of what a car should look like, especially in Western automotive culture. But in China, rose gold is often associated with refinement and quality. Its not seen as gendered in the same way. So for me, it was an opportunity to bring a fresh, culturally relevant aesthetic into the project. I understood the hesitation, but thats part of the role. Sometimes CMF invites us to gently shift the visual language and open up new emotional possibilities.[Image: Felix Godard Design]Are there certain colors and finishes that are timeless and others that are more transitory? In the last decade we used a lot of neutrals, like beige and gray. Many brands also decided to shape themselves around their core colorsour black, our white, etc. And they would build up from there to include more exciting colors into their identity. Today I see those approaches being challenged. Gen Z is coming in and they have other ideas about whats fresh. In the past few years we saw a lot of yellows. Recently, dark reds have been popping up everywhere, and theyre a powerful, timeless choice that adds richness and sophistication. These colors grab attention and can work well, but we need to be mindful of their relevance for long-term products.I believe there is still a need for that core timelessness. You might use black as a core color, but you might tint it blue to make it more interesting or less intense. When I was at Bang & Olufsen, we often discussed how to stand out from typical black consumer electronics. For a more lifestyle-oriented, subtle design in the home, why not use gray?[Image: courtesy NIO]Are you ever surprised when a particular color takes off? The latest Pantone color of the year is a brown-beige shade, which honestly surprised me. Ive used warm grays before when I wanted to give a product a cozier, inviting feel, but this one doesnt feel as fresh to me. Im not sure it resonates with the moment in the same way other trends do. I love when a heritage brand takes an unexpected turn, like the paper company GF Smith, which recently rebranded with vibrant, poppy colrs and introduced a bespoke, rounded sans-serif typeface, GF Smith Homie. I like to see they are brushing off the history to embrace different values and just be human. They want to stand for inclusivity, so theyre going to speak up about that and make sure its seen in the brand.Where do you draw creative inspiration? Its really what makes me burn, what is calling my heart. I also need to talk to peoplenot only creatives, but people from all walks of life. I enjoy traveling through my city and looking at how people live. I learn a lot simply from riding the train, overhearing conversations, and observing how the mood changes with the seasons. I also read the news and check out certain magazines. Theres one I like, Imagine5, that focuses on how to make sustainability joyful. It explores that from all angles and its very accessible. You dont have to be a sustainability expert to enjoy it. [Image: courtesy NIO]Could you share some of the projects youve worked on that youre most proud of? I joined the global smart EV brand NIO in its early stages, when the brand vision was still taking shape, and contributed to the initial direction of color, materials, and finishes as part of the design team. The objective was to align with their vision of Blue Sky Coming, so we had to come up with progressive aesthetics and human-centered design, which later evolved into design principles. Shaping that brand was extremely rich for me in terms of learning and collaborating with so many talented designers. I also led a couple of projects one was the previously mentioned concept car called Eve. I had the opportunity to introduce more natural materials and different colors that were not commonly used in the automotive space.Introducing new aesthetics became an important theme for my later work with Bang & Olufsen, which was about connecting the dots between sound and material and design. And then more recently, the circularity project Ive been leading for Volkswagen Group is really close to my heart. The brief was to introduce longevity, adaptability, and recyclability across all design touch points for Volkswagen. To that end we provided creative direction that considered everything from exterior design, interior, user experience, and materiality.It was an interesting challenge to find the emotional layer of circularity, while staying on brand for Volkswagen. Circularity has a lot of very technical aspects, but as designers we can make circularity tangible. How do you deal with mistakes or failure in the creative process? I view mistakes or failure as an opportunity to test more, to rethink, and to reframe. If a design doesnt work, how can we regroup and find a solution thats way more interesting and beyond the obvious? In the creative process there can be a lot of fear associated with going against the grain. What Ive noticed is that if we stay in that fear space, we close ourselves off to opportunities. Its important to be in an open space of creativity and curiosity. Allow mistakes and failure to happen. When there is joy in the process and a strong intuition, you produce better results in the end. What advice would you give to aspiring designers, but also anyone who wants to enter the world you inhabit? Great design comes from a constantly growing and inspired mind. Stay curious and know that inspiration comes from everywhere. Embrace your uniqueness, but also be able to evolve from that. Be open to change and to new perspectives. There will be tough feedback and creative disagreements, but the important thing is how you receive those situations. Maintain a mindset of abundance and try to see the positive in anything you do. Finally, as creatives its important for us to take time alone to recharge, to reflect, and to work on our magic. When youre feeling well and thriving individually, your creativity also does. At that point its crucial to rejoin the collective, where you have a chance to collaborate and experience the diversity of perspectives that fuels creativity. It can be a tough road for aspiring designers, but I would encourage them to proceed with care and openness, and to leave their fears behind.
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Remember the banana peels, apple cores, and leftover pizza you recently threw in the garbage? Today, your food wasteand your neighborsis emitting climate-warming greenhouse gases as it decomposes in a nearby municipal landfill. Buried food scraps and yard waste at 51 dumps across Colorado generate an amount of methane equivalent to driving 1 million gasoline-powered cars for a year. About 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas over a period of 20 years, methane accounts for 11% of global emissions that scientists say are warming the atmosphere and contributing to more intense and severe weather, wildfires, and drought. Landfills are the third-largest source of methane pollution in Colorado, after agriculture and fossil fuel extraction. Draft methane rules released last month by the states Department of Public Health and Environment would, for the first time, require some dump operators to measure and quantify methane releases and to fix leaks. The proposal mandates that waste managers install a gas collection system if their dump generates a certain amount of the climate-warming gas. It also addresses loopholes in federal law that allow waste to sit for five years before such systems are requiredeven though science has shown that half of all food waste decays within about three and a half years. The draft rule surpasses U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards in the amount of landfill area operators must monitor for emissions. Its set to be heard by the states Air Quality Control Commission in August. Proposed regulations require the elimination of open gas flaresburning emissions directly into the atmosphereand urge the use of biocovers and biofilters, which rely on bacteria to break down gases. The 70-page draft also calls for more routine and thorough monitoring of a dump surface with advanced technologies like satellites, which recently recorded large plumes of methane escaping from a Denver-area landfill. Weve had our eyes opened thanks to technology that has made the invisible, visiblenow we know the extent of the problem, which is much greater than what estimates have portrayed, said Katherine Blauvelt, circular economy director at Industrious Labs, a nonprofit working to decarbonize industry. When landfill operators fail to control leaks, we know harmful pollutants are coming along for the ride. Cancer-causing volatile organic compounds, such as benzene and toluene, escape with methane leaching from landfills. These chemicals also contribute to the formation of lung-damaging ozone pollution, an increasing problem for the 3.6 million people who live in the greater Denver metropolitan area. Indeed, the region along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains ranked sixth in the nation for the most polluted airwith unhealthy ozone levels reported on one out of every 10 days, on average, according to the American Lung Associations 2025 State of the Air report. The state is also woefully behind in its compliance with federal air quality standards. State officials and environmental advocates agree that reducing methane emissions from landfills, which are easier to mitigate than cow burps, for example, is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to slow warming in the short term. Waste deposited in landfills continues producing methane for decades as it breaks downand its one sector where Colorado has yet to directly take action to reduce these greenhouse gases, said Tim Taylor, a supervisor in the states air pollution control division, in an online hearing last February on the proposed landfill methane rules. Colorados draft regulations are similar to those in California, Oregon, Maryland, and Washington, he added. More than 10 landfills in the state are already required under federal rules to have gas collection and control systems. Yet even with such technology in place, disposal facilities routinely exceed federal methane emissions caps. The states health department has also identified a dozen municipal solid waste landfills, based on a preliminary analysis, that would be required to put such systems in place under the proposed rules, Zachary Aedo, an agency spokesman, said in an email to Capital & Main. Many of these facilities are operated by counties, some of which expressed concerns about their ability to pay for such systems. We are a small rural county, and a multimillion-dollar containment system is going to be more than we can build, testified Delta County Commissioner Craig Fuller at the February hearing. The financial equation of this whole thing is absolutely mind-bogglingwe are struggling as it is to provide health and human services. Other county officials embraced the proposed tightening of rules. Landfills across Colorado, including in Eagle County, are leading sources of methane pollution, said Eagle County Commissioner Matt Scherr in a March 6 statement. As a local elected official I support a robust rule that embraces advanced technologies to cut pollution, protect public health and help the methane mitigation industry thrive. For larger landfill companies, like Waste Management, which operates 283 active disposal sites nationwide, figuring out which technology works to best monitor emissions from a dumps surface is proving a complex challenge. The company is testing technologies at facilities with different topographies and climate fluctuations to understand what causes emissions releases, said Amy Banister, Waste Management senior director of air programs. Landfills are complicated, emissions vary over time, and we have emissions 24/7, said Banister at an online meeting last September of a technical group created by Colorado health department officials. Drones produced a lot of false positivesand we need more work understanding how fixed sensors can be applied in a landfill environment. State health officials suggested municipalities could offset the costs of installing gas collection systems at disposal sites by converting methane into energy. Several landfill operations in Colorado currently have such waste-to-energy systemswhich send power they generate to the states power grid. We are mindful of the costs of complying with this rule and how tipping fees may be impacted, said Taylor, an air quality supervisor, at the February hearing. Analyses conducted in other states of their landfill methane rules found there wasnt an increase in tipping fees as a result of regulations over time. Tipping fees are paid by those who dispose of waste in a landfill. If operators passed on compliance costs to households, a state analysis found, the yearly average annual fee would increase $22.90 per household. Colorados push comes as the EPA issued an enforcement alert in September that found recurring Clean Air Act compliance issues at municipal solid waste landfills that led to the significant release of methane, based on 100 inspections conducted over three years. Such violations included improper design and installation of gas collection and control systems, failure to maintain adequate cover integrity, and improper monitoring of facilities for emissions. To address gaps in federal regulations, which require operators to measure emissions four times a year by walking in a grid pattern across the face of the landfill with a handheld sensor, Colorados draft rules require third-party monitoring. Such measurements must be conducted offsite by an entity approved by the states air pollution control division that uses a satellite, aircraft or mobile monitoring platform. The infrequency of such grid walkswhich skip spots that operators deem dangerouscontributes to the undercounting of methane emissions from landfills, according to a satellite-based analysis. An international team of scientists estimated potent greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are 50% higher than EPA estimates. Satellites like one operated by nonprofit Carbon Mapper found large methane plumes outside the quarterly monitoring periods over the Tower Landfill in Commerce City, northeast of Denver. The satellite allowed scientists to see parts of the landfill not accessible with traditional monitoringmeasurements that found that such landfills are underreporting their methane emissions to state regulators, said Tia Scarpelli, a research scientist and waste sector lead at Carbon Mapper. Landfill emissions tend to be quite persistentif a landfill is emitting when its first observed, its likely to be emitting later on, she added. Scarpelli cautioned that its important for regulators to investigate with operators what was happening on the landfill surface at the time the leak was measured. Tower Landfills operator, Allied Waste Systems of Colorado, provided reasons for such large methane releases in a January 2024 report to the states health department, including equipment malfunctions. The fix for about 22 emissions events over the federal methane limits detected in August 2023 by surface monitoring: Soil added as cover maintenance. Like many dumps across Colorado and the nation, the Tower Landfill is located near a community thats already disproportionately impacted by emissions from industrial activities. These landfills are not only driving climate change, they are also driving a public health crisis in our community, said Guadalupe Solis, director of environmental justice programs at Cultivando, a nonprofit led by Latina and Indigenous women in northern Denver. The Tower Landfill is near nursing homes, clinics, near schools with majority Hispanic students. Physicians in the state warned that those who live the closest to dumps suffer the worst health effects from pollutants like benzene and hydrogen sulfide, which are linked to cancer, heart, and other health conditions. People living near landfills, like myself, my family and my patients, experience higher exposure to air pollution, testified Dr. Nikita Habermehl, a specialist in pediatric emergency medicine who lives near a landfill in Larimer County, at the February 26 public hearing, leading to increased rates of respiratory issues and headaches and asthma worsened by poor air quality. By Jennifer Oldham, Capital & Main This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
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