Spotted: Farmers often apply chemical pesticides and antibiotics to address crop diseases and strengthen plant defences against abiotic stress. However, these treatments are not only expensive but can also have environmentally damaging side effects. One solution is to use tailor-made microorganisms for crop protection, and this is exactly what Chilean company Exacta Bioscience is doing.
Exacta formulates combinations of microorganisms designed for soil enhancement and the protection of crops against specific diseases. The products are designed to be used in place of pesticides and antibiotics.
Some of the products the company is developing include FitoRoot, which is composed of three strains of Bacillus and designed to stimulate plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria to help crops better absorb water; FitoBac FT, which includes three strains of bacteriophages designed to fight bacterial cancer in stone fruit and kiwi; and FitoBac NT, which uses strains of bacteriophages to fight bacterial blight in walnut and hazelnut plants.
The company recently announced a partnership with US-based Ginkgo Bioworks to leverage Ginkgo’s end-to-end agricultural research and development (R&D) services to scale up the production of Exacta’s FitoRoot product. Exacta will use Ginko’s fermentation and formulation services to reduce the cost of producing FitoRoot and make it more competitive.
As awareness grows of the environmental dangers of using chemical fertilisers, Springwise is spotting more innovations aimed at finding more sustainable solutions. In the archive, find affordable, low-carbon fertilisers and the use of microbes to turn methane into soil nutrients.
Spotted: Though targeted online ads can be highly effective, 54 per cent of people also find them intrusive. In addition, the sheer volume of online advertising makes it hard for companies to stand out, with internet users often scrolling straight past any ad out of habit. Helping brands to stand out in the sea of online ads is Miami-based Sustainable Skylines, an aerial advertising company that is bringing the traditional practice of sky marketing into the 21st century – using drones.
Sustainable Skylines guides brands from start to finish – assisting with the creative design of a banner, planning the flight path, and analysing the campaign’s success once completed. Benefitting from its exclusive partnership with aviation company Velary and its Vertical Take-Off and Landing technology (VTOL), the company is able to fly slower and closer to the ground than the planes that are traditionally used.
And crucially, the process is also greener, only using three gallons of unleaded fuel for a four-hour flight of its hybrid-electric drones, compared with the 30 gallons of leaded aviation fuel needed by a single-engine plane for the same journey. Because of this, the company believes its method cuts 90 per cent of aerial advertising’s carbon footprint.
Instead of a campaign’s success being measured anecdotally, Sustainable Skylines provides an intelligent web-based analytics platform so that brands can monitor the impact of a banner. With the help of AI and computer vision, the company processes live footage of a journey to understand the reach of an ad and how many people were likely to have seen it. Using third-party cellular and geospatial datasets, the company can see exactly how many people on the ground below visited a website following a drone’s flight. With the first- and third-party data combined, Sustainable Skylines gets an accurate picture of a campaign’s success, allowing it to be further optimised in future.
As well as partnering with Velary, Sustainable Skylines has also joined forces with Mitsubishi Electric, Auvsi, and the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA).
In the archive, Springwise has spotted other innovations working to make advertising greener, including resources to help marketers decarbonise and a tool to calculate and offset advertising emissions.
Spotted: The global refurbished and used mobile phone market is expected to grow from more than $50 billion (around €47 billion) in 2022 to around $172 billion (around €161 billion) by 2033. And advocates of electronics recycling see an encouraging uptick in consumer demand for refurbished devices.
As a means of making the most of all the valuable materials found in devices that range from smartwatches and tablets to video game consoles and audio products, digital resale platform Valyuu connects buyers and sellers with its reliable second-hand electronics marketplace. Valyuu provides buyers with a reliable evaluation of products that includes photos and access to full test reports.
Sellers have multiple options on the platform. They can sell their device for an immediate payment through Fast Pay or wait a bit longer to receive a Best Value payment. Valyuu covers all shipping costs, and if a seller chooses to donate their device to the company, Valyuu donates the value of the sale to a social inclusion and education charity.
With data sensitivity a major barrier to large scale electronics recycling, Valyuu provides sellers with detailed instructions on how to wipe clean their devices. And once the company receives an item, its team of IT experts re-wipes the product for further data protection.
If a device needs something fixed, the Valyuu team of refurbishers makes it usable again. And if a device is no longer usable, Valyuu’s team of recyclers takes it apart for sustainable reuse and recycling.
The Netherlands-based company operates throughout the Benelux countries of The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany and plans to continue expanding the availability of its services internationally. Having recently closed a round of seed funding that raised €2.4 million, the company plans to further expand the range of products available on its platform, further its research and development (R&D), and make its service available in more locations.
As well as electronics, refurbishment is being used by a multitude of industries as a means of reducing waste while expanding the lifespan of goods. In Springwise’s library, innovations include a subscription service for office furniture and virtual trunk shows of used luxury items.
Spotted: Did you know that ocean basins are home to 94 per cent of the world’s total wildlife? As with many environments on land, the ocean’s health is also under threat, compromising a vast ecosystem. But it is near impossible to understand and improve biodiversity without accurate data. This is the task that German startup PlanBlue has set its sights on.
The company, which is a spin-out from The Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, uses an innovative system of ‘underwater satellites’ to map the ocean floor and gather the data necessary to make progress in terms of ecosystem restoration. By combining hyperspectral imaging, satellite navigation, and artificial-intelligence-powered (AI) automated data processing, the company’s system can process map areas quickly, easily, and in great detail – including information on organism health.
PlanBlue’s products include Orthoimagery, which provides detailed maps of seabeds; Coverage, which detects and distinguishes seagrass meadows; and Carbon Stock, which can estimate the quantity of carbon contained within seagrass meadows.
In March 2023, PlanBlue was announced as one of the winners of the World Economic Forum’s Ocean Data Challenge, and the company is currently planning a series A funding round to help it establish data distribution centres worldwide.
In the archive, Springwise has also spotted the use of lasers to monitor underwater environments, as well as the use of turmeric to restore coral reefs.
Spotted: The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2023 estimates that over a quarter of a billion people were acutely food-insecure in 2022, something UN Secretary-General António Guterres calls “a stinging indictment of humanity’s failure to make progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger, and achieve food security and improved nutrition for all.” Ugandan agtech company Hydroponics Gardens Masaka is working to reduce the number of people experiencing food insecurity by providing supported hydroponic growing programmes.
Designed specifically for smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs – especially women – the hydroponic gardens grow feed for animals and vegetables for the community. The company provides training on the hardware and software required to run a hydroponic farm, along with growing and harvesting techniques. And to help accelerate the profitability of the garden, the startup supplies growers with direct-to-consumer business models and plans.
Because the gardens don’t require soil, and use much less water than traditional gardens, the systems can be installed in a range of smaller spaces. Young growth barley grows large enough in just five to eight days to be fed to livestock, and the hydroponic gardens can be installed either vertically or horizontally, depending on what best suits the homeowner’s space. Cabbage, kale, spinach, and other greens are crops Hydroponics Gardens Masaka recommends for home-growing.
Owners can choose varied levels of automation for the systems, and waste is minimal, which is partially why hydroponic farming is a more sustainable means of growing food. So far, from the over 500 growing systems Hydroponics Gardens Masaka has installed for home use, more than 100 tonnes of food have been generated.
As the need for locally grown food continues to increase, innovators are creating a range of solutions. In the archive, Springwise has spotted examples such as the use of food waste for hydroponic nutrients and an app-led connected grow pod for home use.
Promotion: aluminium and renewable energy company Hydro is exhibiting its collaboration with designer Lars Beller Fjetland at the London Design Festival, exploring how partnerships can help make the metals industry more sustainable.
Earlier this year Hydro and Fjetland partnered to launch Bello! bench, a piece of outdoor seating made from extruded aluminium with 90 per cent recycled content.
Hydro is now exhibiting the bench at Material Matters at Oxo Tower, in a display that aims to communicate how the project advances the company’s ambition to decarbonise society.
The Bello! bench is the latest designer collaboration from Hydro
“Material and manufacturing literacy are key to creating truly sustainable products”, says Hydro’s marketing director, Asle Forsbak, noting an estimate that 80 per cent of a product’s environmental footprint is determined in the design phase.
The company aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and push the whole industry towards those goals as well.
This approach has guided the company into partnerships with designers and producers including Tom Dixon, Polestar, Porsche and Cake as it seeks to share knowledge about how to design with aluminium.
The collaboration explores how partnerships can help make the metals industry more sustainable
“As a designer the choices you make at the drawing board decide if the product can be taken apart and recycled again and again, which is why understanding material properties and manufacturing processes is key,” said Forsbak.
According to Forsbak, a deep understanding of engineering, material science and the realities of production all shaped the Bello! bench.
It is made from 90 per cent recycled aluminium, most of which is end-consumer scrap and can be recycled in its entirety.
The bench is made from extruded aluminium with 90 per cent recycled content
Fjetland based his design on penne rigate pasta, luxuriating in the ridged surface texture that could be created through extrusion.
As part of the exhibition, Fjetland is releasing Bello! in a new colour, a “striking, naturalesque green”, and says the design is “a practical example of how we are stronger when we work together”.
“At face value, Hydro might seem like an unlikely exhibitor at the London Design Festival,” said Forsbak. “But with the Bello! bench, we want to demonstrate how the industry and designers can work together to produce a practical and pretty product that can be mass produced, and also meet the society’s growing sustainability demands.”
The collaboration advances Hydro’s sustainability goals, according to the company
“At one hand, industrial mass production comes with a slew of challenges regarding environmental sustainability,” said Forsbak. “On the other hand, there needs to be a market pull for companies to produce sustainably.”
Forsbak explains that for “real, impactful change” it is necessary to have an amalgamation of perspectives, expertise and industries when designing products.
“The sustainability challenge of mass production isn’t solved in a vacuum; We need to work closely with our partners to help decarbonise society,” he said. “That is why collaboration is key.”
The Bello! bench can be seen at Hydro’s display at the Material Matters exhibition. The company’s stand will be made from reused structural components from past exhibitions.
To learn more about aluminium and design, visit Hydro’s aluminium knowledge hub, Shapes.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for Hydro as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
September is traditionally the month when the fashion industry puts its best foot forward, with fashion weeks taking place in New York, London, Milan and Paris. Social feeds, magazines, and style sections scrutinise the latest collections and ‘what we’ll be wearing’, while fast fashion retailers race to get high street interpretations online and into bricks and mortar stores.
Of course, September isn’t the only landmark month for fashion and the fast fashion juggernaut is relentless, with Chinese firm Shein reportedly releasing on average 6,000 new products a day. Unwanted clothes often end up in landfill, or shipped to the global south where they are either sold in low-value markets or simply burnt.
Fortunately, there are countless innovators around the world looking to shake up the way things are done in the world of textiles, from the creation of new sustainable materials to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to make manufacturing less wasteful, as well as inspiring activist groups wanting to shed light on the unsustainable reality of our modern wardrobes and encourage change.
We sat down with Emily Stochl, presenter of the Pre-Loved podcast and Director of Education for the non-profit, global advocacy organisation Remake, which is fighting for fair pay and climate justice within the clothing industry.
A discussion with emily stochl
Remake is on a mission to disrupt our current destructive model of consumption and make ‘fashion a force for good’. “We take an ‘and, and, and’ approach,” says Emily. “Education for individuals, brand accountability and policy change. Those are the three pillars of our work because we believe that those three things work in tandem. It takes people to influence politicians and it takes policy to influence brands.”
As Remake’s director of education, Emily ensures that the 1,700-strong global network of advocates have the materials they need to spread the word about more conscious consumption and fair treatment of garment workers. “I support those communities with ready-to-go materials, whether it’s for lectures, workshops, resources or curriculums – things they can use to communicate the Remake message in whatever space they are in. We believe in this grassroots model, we want to put the information in as many hands as possible.”
Building connection
As is the case for many now working in similar industries, the 2013 Plaza Factory collapse really opened Emily’s eyes to the dark realities of fashion production – and the individuals who are so central to a garment’s creation, but often left forgotten by the big brands they work for.
“Once that major disaster had happened, I wanted to make a difference, but this is a common story – people want to make a difference but we don’t know how to do it on our own. We need community around us. So I went out looking for that community in other sustainability spaces. I found that in the second hand community, I found Remake and the fashion advocacy community and so I got involved both in making the podcast and Remake about the same time around 2017 or 18. For me it was about finding other people who care about these issues so that we can do better together.”
And empathy is core to the Remake mission. “Pre-Covid, one of the things that we would do is take US college students in fashion programmes to meet garment workers similar in age to them in other countries to build a connection. It’s the idea that ‘women just like me‘ in the global south are producing our clothes.”
This insight that change can come through connecting the cheap top you’ve just bought to the person in a factory working up to 14 hours a day to produce hundreds of them is simple, but powerful.
#NoNewClothes
Emily also leads Remake’s #NoNewClothes campaign, which is just drawing to a close. Although as Emily says, “You can do it any time of year! #NoNewClothes is built off the ideology that it takes three months to build a habit that’s going to last. If we can get you to pledge not to buy anything new, to reset that mindset – which is automatically to buy something new – and you can commit for 90 days, it’s going to have an effect on you that we believe will last you for a long time.
“So much about how we interact with fashion is about fast fashion and marketing messages that tell us to consume. We’re saying press pause for a moment to think about over consumption and see how you can make an impact through water saved and carbon emissions saved.”
At the current tally, over 1,800 people have taken the pledge, saving around 17.6 million litres of water, and preventing 375,000 kilogrammes of carbon from entering the atmosphere. The ‘ticker’ is constantly updating on the Remake site. Each person commits to reusing clothes, buying second-hand or not buying anything new at all. The last point is the one that often gets missed but is crucial. According to a Time story earlier this year, TikTok influencer Drew Afualo, who has more than 6 million followers, defended a partnership with Shein by saying that “Sustainable fashion is a privilege,” and “Not everyone can afford to shop sustainably.”
“What I’d put back to someone who is questioning whether this is something you could do, is to ask, ‘Do you think you have what you need to get by for three months?’ And I think for the vast majority of people in the global north they absolutely do. We have enough clothing, we have enough in our closet. The first question I get asked is ‘Where do I shop instead?’ And I get that impulse because we have been trained to think about sustainable swaps but really it’s about more than that. It’s about realising you have enough or that you could be fine with less.”
Looking forward
Reflecting on the enormous impact that fashion production has both on people and our planet is disheartening, and it can feel like the individual is fighting an uphill battle against mega-corporations that are resistant to change. Luckily, Emily is keeping the faith: “I’m an eternally optimistic person, but I stay optimistic because I see change happening every day. Because I get to be a part of campaigns and see people take action and see results. I’m constantly getting that affirmation that people deciding to make change has an effect.”
For instance, at the start of the pandemic, Remake was involved in the coalition working on the #PayUp campaign. When Covid put normal life on pause, big brands started cancelling orders that garment workers had already began production on – without payment. The campaign successfully put $22 billion worth of wages back in the pockets of those workers.
“I think when challenges come your way – like covid – you can think of those as challenges,” Emily says. “But you can also think about them as moments that make people care.”
Are you looking for more positive news on ways fashion is becoming more sustainable? Take a look at our Library for some inspiring fashion innovations, and make sure you’re subscribed to our monthly newsletter so you don’t miss the first look at our next Planet Champion.
Spotted: Today’s scientists are considering whether current levels of species loss constitute a sixth mass extinction event. But what we do know for sure is that we are facing a significant biodiversity crisis. As biodiversity declines, so too does the effectiveness of entire ecosystems. And this can cause significant harm to humans in the long run, damaging our food systems and increasing the chances of infectious diseases, among other issues.
Hoping to assist in the protection and rejuvenation of biodiversity around the world, Switzerland-based startup Inverto has developed an innovative drone-based system. The startup combines hardware and software technologies to create innovative and custom solutions to support climate restoration and agriculture. Using the drones, Inverto can sample soils, select and monitor sites, and release seeds for reforestation.
So far, Inverto has mainly focused its efforts on mangroves, as these are efficient carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots. In December 2022, the company partnered with Delta Blue Carbon to plant 350,000 hectares of mangrove forest along the Indus River in Pakistan. And, as well as replanting mangroves, Inverto can also use its drone technologies to release beneficial insects.
Inverto is still a relatively new venture, having only been founded in 2022, but has received attention from various investors and accelerators. For example, in May this year, it received a €200,000 grant from the European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre in Switzerland to help it make use of space technologies.
The natural biodiversity that exists on our planet is precious and fortunately, innovators are working hard to protect it. In the archive, Springwise has also spotted the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor biodiversity on farmland and a startup that puts a financial value on biodiversity to incentivise more companies to protect it.
Spotted: Hydrogen is often touted as a green technology, but although it produces only water when consumed in a fuel cell, the hydrogen itself is generally produced using fossil fuels. Green hydrogen, or hydrogen produced using carbon-free electricity, is a path to decarbonising global hydrogen supplies, but it is generally too expensive today to be adopted at scale.
That may be about to change, however, with a new type of hydrogen electrolyser developed by Advanced Ionics. Ted Dillon, Advanced Ionics’ Interim Vice President of Marketing told Springwise that the company’s technology reduces the electricity required from around 51 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per kilogramme of hydrogen to just 35 kWh of electricity per kilogramme of hydrogen produced.
Importantly, the technology does not require any rare or expensive metals or ceramics, which are common in other electrolysers. The company’s Symbiotic Electrolysers use process or waste heat to generate steam for powering electrolysis. By tapping into excess heat that is already available in industrial settings, they are able to lower the amount of electricity used for the process.
Advanced Ionics has recently closed a $12.5 million (around €11.6 million) series A financing led by BP ventures, with additional investors including Clean Energy Ventures, GVP Climate, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Dillion confirmed that the funding will be used to, “expand our team, our facilities, and our work on demonstration projects with future customers.”
The drive to adopt hydrogen for use as a power provider has been picking up steam. Springwise has spotted this in a number of recent innovations in the archive, including technology that produces green hydrogen from bio-waste and a hydrogen-powered data centre.
Norwegian brand Minus is looking to disrupt the interior design industry by offering carbon-negative furniture on a subscription basis.
Minus debuted its first furniture collection, designed by Oslo studio Jenkins & Uhnger, at the biennial Designers’ Saturday event in the Norwegian capital.
The ambition is to go “beyond zero” by creating timber products that are carbon-negative across their lifespan. This led the brand to develop a rental service model.
“We started Minus to realise an optimised value chain for both production and consumption,” said Kristian Notland Harnes, the brand’s CEO and co-founder.
Minus staged an exhibition for Designers’ Saturday in Oslo
The strategy, he told Dezeen, is to design with “a 100-year perspective”.
This means taking responsibility for a product after it has left the factory, ensuring it stays in use as long as possible and is recycled at the end of its life.
“In the western world, a chair generally lives for 10 years,” Harnes said. “If the wood takes 100 years to grow, there is an imbalance there. It’s 90 per cent deforestation.”
“It’s about material control,” he added. “That leads us to subscription because it enables us to take responsibility for the material lifespan.”
The brand produces its furniture in pine wood
Minus’s first product, the Minus Chair, was launched as part of the Norwegian Presence exhibition in Milan last year and has since been longlisted for a 2023 Dezeen Award.
The brand has now added a stool, a bench and a table to its collection, all produced in pine wood.
When the pieces are no longer serviceable, Minus says it will take them back and convert them into a charcoal-like substance called biochar, stabilising the carbon contained in the timber and preventing it from being released into the atmosphere.
The result is a kind of fertiliser that can be added to soils to help them sequester more carbon.
The furniture is designed for both subscription and sale
According to Minus’ calculations, the chair produces -2.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions throughout its life when rented or 1.9 kilograms when purchased outright, compared with an industry standard of 27 kilograms.
Minus plans to offer all of its products for sale or subscription, although the subscription model is currently still in the trial phase and only available to select businesses.
“Customers initially sign a 30-month subscription period, which basically covers our production cost,” said Harnes.
“The price falls 30 per cent every three years, giving you an incentive to keep the furniture longer. It is also possible to subscribe to used chairs at a lower price.”
The products are designed to be carbon-negative across their full lifecycle
Designers Thomas Jenkins and Sverre Uhnger played a key role in shaping Minus’ manufacturing operations.
With a brief to “design the most environmentally friendly chair possible”, they took a holistic look at how the production process could be adapted to minimise energy use and make optimal use of materials and resources.
This led Minus to adopt a decentralised approach. Instead of setting up a single production facility, the company manufactures in various factories and sources timber from as close to those locations as possible.
The furniture, meanwhile, is designed to require as little machining as possible, with few curves and no unnecessary details. The goal was to make the designs highly efficient but still functional and attractive.
By being involved from the project’s outset, Uhnger and Jenkins were able to impact the carbon footprint across every aspect of Minus’ business.
“Quite often it’s too big of an investment for a manufacturer or the brand to change all these aspects for one product or one product range,” Uhnger said.
“Therefore it is almost easier for a start-up to make real change than the bigger brands.”
The inaugural collection includes a chair, table, bench and stool
Customers can choose to leave the furniture unfinished or have it treated with linseed oil. Colour can also be added, with either a paint or lacquer finish.
“We wanted to offer different ways of purchasing the chair and different finishes, all with different levels of CO2 consumption, and allow the customer to make the choice themselves,” Jenkins told Dezeen.
“It’s a way of challenging and disrupting the industry, just as much as our work on the production side.”
The products are deliberately oversized to make them more robust, which also means they can be sanded down and/or retreated if they get marked or dented in the future.
Customers can choose the level of finish they want based on its carbon footprint
Jenkins said that “emotional durability” was also an important consideration. The designs are very simple, but they do have some defining characteristics.
Flat surfaces are made up of two pieces, meaning they can be made from standard-sized planks while legs are cylindrical.
The chair also features a double-curved backrest – a playful element that makes it comfortable from different angles.
“One of the key aspects of circularity is keeping the product in use in its original form for as long as possible,” said Jenkins. “We need people to still want to use these products for 20, 30, 50 or even 100 years.”
Minus’ process includes converting waste wood into biochar
Minus launched its collection in a pop-up exhibition for Designers’ Saturday, which took place in Oslo from 8 to 10 September.
Here, the company showcased new black and blue stain finishes for the Minus chair as well as seaweed-based bio-foam seat cushions by its partner brand Agroprene.
Minus plans to further improve its processes over the next 12 months, with the belief it can bring the CO2e of each chair down to as low as -15 kilograms.
One challenge the brand faces is that it can’t back up its claims with an environmental certification, as the end-of-life benefits of biochar are not considered within Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and there is no guarantee they will ever be.
Minus is partnering with Agroprene to offer bio-foam cushions for its chairs
Yet Harnes is confident of its effectiveness, pointing to research stating that the production of biochar can stabilise 50 per cent of the carbon in biomass such as pine.
The brand has big ambitions for the future but needs to build its audience in order to make that happen.
“Getting the contract business going is a very important part of the Minus project succeeding,” said Jenkins. “Then we can start looking at bigger projects. We want this to be sourced by local councils for schools.”
The photography is by Kristianne Marøy.
The Minus exhibition was on show as part of Designers’ Saturday from 8 to 10 September 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
