Broad-range spectral management towards next-generation net-zero energy greenhouses

Abstract

Greenhouses enable crop production in challenging climates, ensuring food security through controlled environments. Sustainable development requires addressing the food–energy–water nexus while optimising four key factors: light, temperature, CO₂ levels, and water availability. Advancing next-generation greenhouses demands a transdisciplinary approach, yet existing innovations lack a comprehensive framework for integration. This perspective highlights recent technological advances and challenges, positioning broad-range spectral management as a unifying strategy to regulate all the four factors, and aiming at developing highly-efficient and sustainable net-zero energy greenhouses, paving the way to meet future agricultural demands and contribute to global sustainability goals.