Spotted: Sports are a cultural staple for countries around the world, whether you enjoy watching matches on TV, attending games, or playing yourself. And, according to FIFA, there are five billion football fans across the globe, making it the world’s most popular sport. To meet this popular demand, over 40 million footballs are made every year, relying on tonnes of crude-oil-based synthetic, animal leather, and rubber for their production.
This is where the Rebond Project comes in. The French organisation is rethinking traditional manufacturing to create balls that contribute to a circular economy and are made from clean and sustainably sourced materials
The initial problem the Rebond team had to solve was finding an adequate recyclable substitute for the internal or inflatable part of a football (the balloon). Rebond settled on recycled plastic bottles and a natural latex inner tube to make, what the company claims is, the first bio-sourced and recycled balloon that met competition standards. To make the ball completely ‘clean’, Rebond chose to create the external part of the football entirely out of natural vegetable-based biomaterials.
According to the company, 85 per cent of current ball production occurs in the Punjab region in India. Wanting to boost local production of “Made in France” balls, Rebond set up a French production line in Loire-Atlantique in 2019. Rebond highlights, though, that the goal isn’t to replace Punjabi workshops, but instead to use the France production line to complement them.
According to Rebond Founder and CEO Simon Mutschler, the company is now aiming to get the FIFA-accredited logo on its balls so they can be sold to official football clubs.
Springwise has spotted other innovations seeking to make sports more sustainable, including inclusive tennis programmes that recycle used balls and eco-friendly wetsuits for women.
Spotted: Desalination of seawater has the potential to help alleviate the world’s decreasing availability of freshwater. The process, however, is polluting and raises the salt levels of the water in which the plant operates to potentially dangerous levels. Additionally, the most common technique (reverse osmosis) of desalination consumes high volumes of energy.
Approaching the process with a different technology is French technology company Seawards. Seawards uses its patented cryo-separation process to desalinate seawater without any pollution and with much lower energy expenditure. Saltwater freezes at a lower temperature than pure water, and this makes it possible to extract drinkable water during a cooling cycle. This is because crystals of freshwater can be separated and collected while the salty water remains liquid.
Of the water taken into the system, around 10 per cent is turned into potable water, while the remaining 90 per cent is circulated back to the sea. Crucially, the returned water is only slightly more salty than when it entered the system and contains no chemicals, meaning it is non-polluting and can be safely absorbed by the ocean without damaging local ecosystems. This stands in contrast to traditional desalination techniques that produce toxic brine (water with a very high salt content) as a waste product.
Seawards’ team emphasises the global need to democratise access to clean water. It is a goal the company works toward with its agile system, modular design, and elimination of pollutants. And because cryo-separation requires less power than existing techniques, the process is more accessible to smaller communities.
The minimised footprint of the prefabricated infrastructure makes it easy to assemble without substantial construction costs and equipment needs, and depending on the need, the cryo-separation system can also be scaled for greater treatment volumes.
From mobile filtration systems to off-grid solar desalination, Springwise’s library includes a variety of examples of innovators seeking ways to improve community access to potable water.
Spotted: While large oil spills like the Exxon Valdez disaster make the news, smaller spills occur more frequently than the media headlines would suggest. According to the non-profit International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF), 2023 saw one large spill (greater than 700 tonnes) and nine medium spills (7-700 tonnes). On top of this, there are thousands of much smaller spills each year that still have a big impact on marine ecosystems.
To make this clean-up greener, Green Boom has developed a line of biodegradable oil absorbents, which can rapidly soak up four times their weight in oil without producing additional waste. This is important because, according to the company, oil spill clean-up creates around 9,000 tonnes of oil-absorbent waste each year, and most solutions involve single-use plastics that end up in landfills.
Green Boom’s products, including booms and mats, feature cotton-based, tear-resistant fabrics filled with natural fibre biomass that repels water and rapidly absorbs oil from spills. All the products are made from 100 per cent sustainably sourced, renewable raw materials.
The company was launched in 2019 and has earned the USDA Certified Biobased Product Certification for its absorbents. Last year, Green Boom partnered up with Netherlands-based Greaner BV to help accelerate the adoption of its more eco-friendly clean-up solutions.
Springwise has spotted several innovations aimed at oil and pollution clean-up. These include the use of oil-eating microbes and hair from salons stuffed into recycled hosiery.
Spotted: E-commerce is growing steadily, with one forecast predicting that it will reach 23 per cent of total worldwide retail sales by 2027. Unless innovative solutions are found, this growth will come with an equivalent increase in the volume of packaging. Rather than focus on recycling alone, several organisations are now turning to reuse as a way to more rapidly reduce pollution and improve the circularity of their operational processes.
In Germany, a company called The Ocean Package offers a packaging-as-a-service solution consisting of fully traceable reusable boxes. Each box consists of up to 70 per cent recycled polypropylene plastic and 30 per cent virgin materials. To avoid unnecessary dyeing and material treatment, the boxes are all grey – the colour of plastic after it’s been recycled. Up to one-quarter of the weight of the boxes, which are designed to be easily flattened and returned via postboxes, is recovered ocean-bound plastic from the North Sea.
Most of the companies that partner with The Ocean Package are in the subscription and rental sector and have already established reusable packaging cycles. In this application, the organisation’s service integrates seamlessly with these existing processes, and partners agree to return all packaging for recycling at the end of its useful life. The company is also exploring potential collaborations to bring its reusable solution to the B2C sector.
The boxes come in four sizes ranging from small to extra-large, and the accompanying logistics platform tracks every package for its full life cycl. The platform also provides detailed analysis of a company’s processes, and the data can help monitor ESG performance indicators.
The Ocean Package expects to use each box at least 20 times. Each use reduces carbon emissions by 80 per cent from that of traditional packaging systems, and waste is reduced by up to 95 per cent when compared to cardboard. The company’s development plans include expanding its network of partners and working with a broader range of organisations, including those that are not as far along in the circular economy path.
Corn-based laminate and a mushroom-based biodegradable polystyrene alternative are two examples of material innovations in Springwise’s library that could help us replace plastics.
Spotted: Each year, around 1.19 million people lose their lives in car accidents around the world. Recognising the severity of this issue, the United Nations General Assembly aims to cut road deaths in half by 2030. Israel-based startup CorrActions could play a pivotal role in achieving this target by helping to tackle the main cause of road accidents: human error.
CorrActions has developed a software, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), that detects cognitive abnormalities in drivers and passengers. Using human-motion sensors in vehicles, such as those in the steering wheel, seats, and other devices, the software analyses micro muscle movements reflecting brain activity. These movements can indicate various cognitive states, including driver intoxication, fatigue, and distraction.
As Volvo, a key investor, recognises, this technology has the potential to become a crucial and widespread feature in safety systems globally. The company has recently raised $7.25 million in its Series A funding round, led by Volvo Cars Tech Fund. CorrActions is currently engaged with multiple automakers to implement the solution into their vehicles.
Springwise has previously spotted other innovations that have harnessed AI to make transport safer, from an assisted train driving system to a real-time AI feature for a rideshare system.
Spotted: Every year, the world generates two billion metric tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW), with thousands of tonnes of that rubbish sent to landfills every day. A significant proportion of this is plastic or petroleum-based products that take hundreds of years to decompose, leaching harmful chemicals and shedding toxic microplastics into the environment as they break down.
Shifting to natural materials that can biodegrade safely is crucial in tackling our waste problem – an increasingly popular option being those made from mycelium (fungi). The problem is that when mycelial fibres are extracted from the fungi, either mechanically or chemically, the process often results in discolouration, or the delicate fibrous structures becoming damaging, which can compromise their beneficial properties.
Researchers at Shinshu University in Japan have now developed a novel method for collecting mycelial pulp that retains the physical structures of the mycelium. The team, led by Assistant Professor Satomi Tagawa, began by treating reishi and enoki mushrooms with sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide, before bleaching them using sunlight. Then, the researchers defibrillated the material using ultrasonic treatments. The result was a pulp containing micrometre-sized mycelium fibres that still had their fibrous mycelial structures intact.
Now, the research team is exploring other mushrooms that could be utilised to produce even higher quality materials, or create materials with different properties. They hope to take advantage of Japan’s position as one of the world’s largest mushroom producers, including through the creation of the Mycomaterial Technology Consortium – an initiative that focuses on maximising the utility of mushrooms.
New and more sustainable materials are being developed every day. Springwise has also spotted the use of this plant as a plastic alternative in straws as well as this company that is upcycling cardboard into foam packaging.
British design studio Layer has aimed to bring sustainability to mattress design in a collaboration with Chinese start-up Mazzu, creating a modular, foamless product made up of textile-covered springs.
The Mazzu Open mattress was designed to have the comfort of a traditional sprung mattress while being adaptable, repairable and easy to pack down when moving house, so as to prolong the product’s life.
The design features row upon row of individually textile-wrapped pocket springs, which sit sandwiched between a base “matrix” and a cushioned topper to hold them in place.
The Mazzu Open mattress is foamless and made up of modular, textile-covered springs
All its components are either recyclable or biodegradable, and no glue was used in the construction of the mattress.
The structure — left open at the sides for a distinctive, utilitarian look — also has the benefit of being hygienic, according to the studio, as users can check the inside of the mattress and take it apart to clean every element.
The modular design of the mattress means buyers can treat the springs like “pixels”, choosing between three levels of firmness for each point in the matrix to create a support pattern of their choosing. This also allows couples to customise their own side of the bed.
The springs are held in place by a grid layer
Additional spring modules and a different base and topper can be added to change the size of the mattress, and the whole kit can compress down to around 80 per cent of its size when disassembled.
The mattress comes in a reusable packaging system, also designed by Layer, that sees it divided into small components and split across several cartons, each weighing less than 10 kilograms. The spring modules compress from 250 millimetres to 50 millimetres in height as part of this.
Layer founder Benjamin Hubert told Dezeen that the studio tried to tackle multiple problems with current mattresses in one go with Mazzu, ranging from the impracticability of transporting them to the lack of customisation.
The mattress has an open structure that gives it a unique aesthetic
“They are too bulky once you unpack them and they ‘inflate’ from their compressed shipped form,” said Hubert. “They contain huge amounts of foam, which is next to impossible to recycle, and for the most part you can’t pack them down again for storage or transport.”
The studio wanted to avoid using polyurethane foam, a common mattress material, because as well as being difficult to recycle, it is energy intensive to produce and generates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are harmful to health.
The material is technically recyclable, but most mattresses do not reach the scarce recycling facilities, and they are often discarded before their time. In the UK, for instance, around 6.4 million mattresses are thrown away each year — about one for every ten people — and only around 14 per cent of them are recycled.
Instead of foam, the Mazzu Open mattress’s hourglass-shaped springs are shrouded in a two-tone 3D-knit polyester sleeve. The other materials used are steel for the springs, ABS plastic for the connection system and wool for the topper. The wool is biodegradable, while all the other materials are recyclable.
The metal springs are wrapped in a 3D-knit textile
Hubert describes Mazzu as “leading the way” in delivering sustainable, high-performance bedding, and says the companies worked together for three years through the pandemic.
They went through many iterations of the mattress design in that time, as the studio tried to find a connection solution that would be both simple and comfortable.
“We must have tried about 20 different connection techniques,” said Hubert. “We had to find an optimum size that could be calibrated to fit all the standard mattress sizes too — not easy given there are a lot of international sizes.”
The springs compress to one-fifth of their full height for transport and storage
“The system needed to be highly cost-effective by using the least amount of parts and the simplest connection feature,” he continued. “The design of the connection systems changed dozens of times as we tested strength, ease of use, noise and comfort — we had hundreds of springs in the studio at times!”
Other recent designs from the London-based design studio have included sustainable dog toys for Canadian company Earth Rated and a green hydrogen vehicle retrofitting system for US start-up Croft.
Mazzu and Layer launched the Mazzu Open mattress at the German furniture fair IMM Cologne, which was held from 14 to 18 January. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Spotted: As electrification of power grids continues around the world, ageing infrastructure is slowing down the global transition to green energy. In the EU, analysts warn that the region’s annual investment in the grid is around €15 billion short of what it needs to be to meet carbon emission reduction goals, highlighting the need for physical modernisation and digitalisation to expand grid capacity.
Subra A/S, a spin-off from the Technical University of Denmark, may be able to provide the equipment needed to meet those growth goals – with its superconducting Subracables.
Older grids largely rely on copper cabling, a material that heats up during the transmission of power, resulting in a loss of up to 13 per cent of the total energy. Superconductors, by contrast, transmit electricity with no resistance when cooled. Currently, most high-temperature superconducting cables are flat tapes that have both capacity and strength limitations, and can only be used across relatively short distances.
Subra’s solution is to bundle high-temperature superconductors together for huge gains in strength, efficiency, and scalability. The company’s cables could be used across distances of 100 kilometres or more and reduce energy loss during transmission by 90 per cent. Subra says that this energy saving is the equivalent of the energy produced by 45 nuclear power plants.
Subracables take up less space, making it easier for governments to expand infrastructure. A huge problem faced by some of the oldest electric grids is that they cannot connect to new sources of power, but Subracables are designed explicitly for use with renewable energy.
A €3.5 million funding package from the European Innovation Council’s (EIC) Accelerator programme awarded in 2023 is helping Subra take its technology from prototype to production.
Distributed networks such as low-voltage connections and an all-in-one solar power generator and water purifier are innovations featured in Springwise’s library that showcase the ways in which innovators are bringing power and electricity to remote areas with smaller, more portable, and often modular structures.
Climate fatalism stands in the way of a sustainable future but designers and architects are in an ideal position to overcome it, writes Katie Treggiden.
The mainstream media is finally waking up to the realities of climate change. As wildfires, floods and storms wreak havoc across the world, journalists and activists far braver than me are speaking truth to power to make sure we all know just how serious this thing is. And that is vital and right and proper.
However, fear doesn’t motivate action. The biggest obstacle for the environmental movement is no longer climate-change deniers – the evidence is incontrovertible to all but conspiracy theorists. It is those who are fully on board with the fact that humans are the root cause of some very real problems, but just don’t believe that we have what it takes to solve them. Our biggest climate challenge is no longer denial, but despair.
Fear doesn’t motivate action
To spark meaningful change, we need hope. We need to believe not only that a better world is possible, but that we each have the power to help bring it about.
I’m not talking about blind faith or passive optimism. I’m talking about active hope. I’m talking about waking up every morning and making a choice to believe that we can solve this wicked problem, and then choosing to act accordingly. And in today’s climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance.
So, how can architects and designers inspire defiant hope?
The Berkana Institute’s “two loops” model of systems change proposes multiple roles that people and institutions can play in the transition from a declining system to an emerging one. As the dominant system begins its decline, “stabilisers” keep what is required in place until something better is ready, while “hospice workers” support the process of decline, minimising harm to those still within it.
In turn, the emergent system gathers pace as “pioneers” come up with new ideas, products and systems and they are joined together into networks by “connectors”. Together, they form supportive “communities of practice” that enable them to grow their influence and, eventually, rise up to replace the old system.
In the transition from the declining linear take-make-waste economy to an emerging regenerative and circular economy, we might cast architects and designers in the role of “pioneers” – problem-solvers who can create pragmatic ways to move society towards a better world.
And that is valid; if architecture and design solve problems, then surely they should contribute genuine, impactful, and replicable solutions to arguably the biggest problem ever to have faced humanity.
In today’s climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance
However, I believe they can also play another part. On the emerging-system loop, there is a role for “illuminators”: people who paint a picture of what a better world might look like.
You see, there is no point in the model where the two loops touch, no simple juncture where people can step off one system and onto the next – they must take a leap of faith. Illuminators are the people who can give them the courage to do that.
One of the questions I get asked most often when I speak at conferences about craft and design in the transition to a circular economy is: “Okay, but how does it scale?”
Firstly, I would contend that scalability is what got us into this mess, and what we need instead are locally replicable solutions, but increasingly I am questioning whether everything we propose as an industry even needs to do that. Perhaps part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope.
Kyloe Design’s kelp chair, showcased recently as part of Green Grads at the London Design Festival, may never make it into production and it’s highly unlikely that it will drive the wholesale replacement of leather across the furniture industry. But it does showcase the potential of this incredibly renewable, climate-positive, underutilised material, while provoking the curiosity to learn more.
From responsible material sourcing and advocating for worker welfare to using smartphone components anyone can switch out, Fairphone is offering real-world solutions. But its founder, Bas Van Abel, was realistic about what he could achieve directly, so launched the company with the stated aim of motivating the rest of the industry.
Part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope
Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher might have criticised the “lack of architecture” at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, but what if contributions such as the German pavilion (pictured), which he described as nothing more than “piles of construction material”, are exactly what we need to inspire alternative ways of working? Entitled Open for Maintenance, the exhibition was billed as “an action framework for a new building culture” and collated materials recovered from previous installations to be used for repairing and upgrading buildings and public spaces all over Venice.
One of my favourite quotes about hope is from the author Arundhati Roy, who says: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” The question I would like to pose is: how can we, as an industry, help everyone to hear the sound of her breath?
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Spotted: According to the International Energy Agency’s Renewables 2023report, last year saw a ‘step change’ in renewable capacity additions, driven in large part by solar power, particularly in China. And, in the year ahead, it is expected that the world will pass an important milestone with the combination of solar and wind forecast to generate more renewable electricity than hydropower for the first time.
Despite this heartening progress, there is still scope for innovation in renewable generation, and not every problem is solved. For example, offshore wind had a difficult year in 2023, and Netherlands-based energy company SolarDuck believes that another offshore technology will become an important part of the energy mix.
The startup believes that offshore solar power will be a key component in the push to meet net-zero emissions goals. The company’s founders all have experience in the energy and maritime sectors, expertise that lent itself to the creation of low-maintenance, offshore, floating solar panels designed specifically to withstand high-velocity winds and waves for up to 30 years.
The patented design includes built-in safety aspects, along with improved means of access for maintenance teams. The solar panels are arranged in a triangle shape with a 10-degree tilt to help maximise self-cleaning capabilities and are placed on a floating foundation several feet above the water. Being slightly raised helps minimise corrosion and marine growth, and each structure is designed to be easily connected to another for quick scalability of energy supply.
Sea water provides an important cooling factor that helps the panels maintain higher levels of conversion efficiency. SolarDuck plans to generate at least one gigawatt of energy from its solution annually by 2030.
From a solar-powered cooker to new means of rejuvenating aging PV panels, solar power is such as important source of renewable energy that Springwise’s library contains a range of examples of innovations working to reduce the world’s dependence on oil and gas.
