Spotted: For homeowners looking to power their house with renewable energy, wind power offers a more efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to solar panels. But while solar panels on domestic homes are an increasingly common sight in urban and suburban areas, far fewer houses are installed with wind turbines.
To reverse this situation, UK engineer Joe Garrett has developed the AuraGen – a new vertical axis wind turbine designed to be mounted on homes and commercial buildings. The AuraGen’s unique design aims to minimise a phenomenon called ‘dynamic stall’ where factors such as wind shear and turbulence place a heavy load on turbine blades – reducing their lifespan. Moreover, the design is simple—reducing maintenance requirements—and offers good power performance.
The new turbine is omni-directional, which means it works no matter which way the wind is blowing, and the technology is tailored to work most effectively on pitched roofs. In fact, the shape of the roof enhances the turbine’s performance, acting like an aerofoil to increase the velocity of air going through the turbine.
A frame is used to directly attach the turbine to the roof. This is an important benefit as, by using the height of the house, the design does not require a tall support structure. This increases stability, meaning that the turbine itself can be wider, leading to greater power generation.
Compared to solar panels, wind turbines have a much higher power density and can operate at night. This latter point means that the AuraGen could potentially be used to charge electric vehicles overnight.
The idea for the AuraGen came to Garrett as a teenager when he worked on scaffolding and rooftops with his dad. He told Springwise that his experiences working in the wind stuck with him and gave him the idea for a roof-mounted wind turbine. Thanks to the AuraGen design, Garrett received recognition as a winner of this year’s UK Young Innovators Awards.
The AuraGen is not the only domestic wind power solution spotted by Springwise. Another designer has developed a wind turbine ‘wall’ that can be tailored to the aesthetic of each home. Springwise has also spotted a portable wind turbine weighing only 10 kilogrammes.
The world is facing unprecedented challenges – from climate change to biodiversity loss. And this decade is the decade to act. But to effect change we need solutions – today. Thankfully, entrepreneurs and innovators around the globe are working hard to find them.
Many of these innovators will be coming together later this year at the annual ChangeNOW summit in Paris to share their ideas and meet other members of the community working to create a better planet. And with two months to go until the event, Springwise is highlighting six exciting solutions that attendees can look forward to discovering.
Tackling topics from circularity to cities with everything from biocarbons to batteries, these groundbreaking innovators embody the visionary, humanistic and action-oriented spirit that we believe are fundamental for driving real change – now.
BIOCARBONS REMOVE CO2 FROM THE AIR AND REPLACE PETROLEUM-BASED PRODUCTS
Negative emission technologies—known in industry jargon as NETs—remove greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, from the air. These technologies range from the low-tech—such as tree planting—to the technologically complex. Whatever form they take, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted that carbon removal and storage is necessary to meet net-zero targets. But as commentators have pointed out, this is easier said than done.
One company that is making progress, is German startup Carbonauten. From 2022, the company will begin producing large quantities of biocarbons made from waste produced by the forestry, agriculture, food, and wood industries. This type of waste would normally be burned, buried, or left to rot, but, instead, Carbonauten’s carbonisation process turns it into useful products that lock away carbon permanently. And by preventing the rotting process, Carbonauten also prevents the release of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide.
The woody residues that are used to create the biocarbons absorb carbon dioxide during their lifetime, and this carbon is then stored away. This means that the net effect of producing the biocarbons is the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. Moreover, renewable energy is a useful byproduct of the carbonisation process, and the biocarbons themselves can replace petroleum-based plastics in key applications.
The fashion and textile industries are among the world’s most environmentally damaging. The production of clothes requires a lot of fresh water and contributes significantly to water pollution. Different sources also put the proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions that come from the fashion industry at between two and ten per cent.
To tackle fashion’s dirty secret, non-profit The Sustainable Angle launched the Future Fabrics Expo – an industry showcase that connects fashion brands to more than 5000 commercially available sustainable materials. The exhibition has grown into a huge success and is admired by designers such as Anya Hindmarch.
To support the main event, The Sustainable Angle establishes a set of criteria for sustainable materials and finds innovators who are delivering against those standards. The non-profit also provides much-needed educational resources for sustainability in textiles.
IMPROVING LIVELIHOODS AND SUPPLY CHAINS THROUGH ECOSYSTEM REGENERATION
Regenerative agriculture is a term used to describe a range of practices that acknowledge the interconnectedness of food production and the natural ecosystem. Similarly, agroforestry seeks positive interactions between trees and crop plants.
It was the realisation of this link between agricultural livelihoods and the health of the ecosystem that inspired Tristan Lecomte to start the PUR Project. Working with small-scale farmers around the globe, Lecomte observed how many challenges faced by farmers were directly linked to degradation of the natural environment.
The PUR Project is founded on a recognition that companies rely on healthy ecosystems to operate. The organisation works with those businesses to pursue actions that offset their environmental footprint within their value chain. These initiatives are not separate from the company’s core activities but are instead intimately bound up with the supply chain. For this reason, the approach taken by the PUR Project is called ‘insetting’– as opposed to the more common term ‘offsetting’.
Insetting requires the empowerment of local communities and a traceable, transparent supply chain. And the PUR Project favours nature-based solutions—such as regenerative agriculture and agroforestry—that regenerate the ecosystems companies rely on.
In nature, living things heal, live, and decompose to form new life. But when man-made materials, such as composites, are damaged they must be repaired. And current repair solutions can be costly and time-consuming. Moreover, recycling rates remain low around the world, and many products have frustratingly short shelf lives.
Now, Swiss university spin-off CompPair is taking its cue from nature with a resin that enables composite materials to ‘heal’ cracks and delaminations. All that is required is for the damaged material to be heated up in a process that takes only a few minutes.
The self-healing properties of the composites reduce maintenance costs and manufacturing defects, while extending the lifetime of the material. Moreover, the composites can be more easily recycled, and are designed to be compatible with existing manufacturing processes.
End applications for the CompPair composites can be found in the marine, sports, wind energy, aerospace, and construction industries. For example, the company’s material was recently used by a producer of high-quality catamarans.
USING DATA TO MAKE BATTERIES SAFE, DEPENDABLE, AND SUSTAINABLE
Batteries are therefore set to be at the heart of the 21st Century economy. But battery maintenance can be challenging for engineering teams thanks to issues such as inefficiencies and fires.
Now, Accure, a university spin-off from Germany, has developed a platform that uses cloud computing to help companies understand and improve the safety, reliability, and sustainability of batteries. A modern battery produces a continuous stream of data, and the Accure platform analyses this data in real-time and at scale. This allows companies to accurately forecast the safety and health of their fleet of batteries, while finding ways to optimise performance. For example, batteries age differently, and Accure’s analytics can help companies dramatically improve their lifespan.
Accure’s technology can be used to monitor batteries used in a range of applications, from e-mobility and power tools to stationary energy storage.
A NATURAL WALL SYSTEM FOR HEALTHY, DURABLE, AND SUSTAINABLE HOMES
According to Canadian startup Calmura Natural Walls, modern homes use too many cheap materials that end up in landfill, cause pollution, and contribute to poor indoor air quality. The company believes there are better ways to build using sustainable materials, and its first product is a biocomposite wall system made from lumber mill waste.
The biocomposite walls offer homeowners several immediate benefits, such as protection from fire, mould, pests, and earthquakes. They also ensure a stable temperature, reducing the owner’s energy bills while ensuring a comfortable home environment.
In addition to the cost-saving and comfort benefits, the startup’s walls serve an even greater environmental purpose by storing carbon. The wood waste that is used to make the wall panels would normally be burned, composted, or sent to landfill, leading to emissions of greenhouse gases. Instead, carbon is locked away for the long term.
Springwise is a proud partner of ChangeNow, which takes place in Paris 19-21 May 2022. As the world’s largest event for the planet, the three-day international summit brings together entrepreneurs, business leaders and policymakers to accelerate change. To find out more and book your tickets, visit changenow.world
Spotted: Incentives definitely help make daily chores more fun! Bower, an app developed by an eco-minded team from Sweden, makes sure that every trip to a recycling centre is rewarded. Users scan anything with a barcode to find out where the nearest recycling point is for that product. And if something cannot be recycled, that is part of Bower’s mission too – to educate people about what exactly goes into packaging their favourite products.
The app uses crowdsourced data to list local recycling options, and users are encouraged to add to the directory. After scanning and sorting the waste at home, users receive the deposit value of each item directly to their account after confirming drop-off at an approved location. Rewards come in either monetary or coupon form and can be transferred between users, spent, or donated to a charity.
The app is free to download and use for both iOS and Android devices, and the company is seeking commercial partners for dedicated recycling campaigns. Brands can use the app to build a better understanding of the life cycle of their products and use the data to engage in new ways and at new contact points with customers. Having recently secured more than €4 million for development purposes, the company plans to use the investment to expand first into the UK and then beyond.
Bower will join similar solutions like the UK’s Litter Lotto app as another way to incentivise people to behave in a more sustainable fashion.
Spotted: Each year, Costa Rica produces more than 1.2 million tonnes of wood, of which around 40 per cent ends up as waste. Much of this wood waste is disposed of improperly with decomposition releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that adds to global warming. Now, renewable energy company Pelletics is putting waste to work fighting climate change.
The company takes wood and agricultural waste from sawmills and cassava cultivation and turns it into pellets that constitute a high energy density fuel. Depending on its exact properties, the feedstock is put through one or a combination of processes such as drying, particle reduction, densification, cooling, and dust removal. This treatment takes places at the company’s plant in Muelle, San Carlos, which is situated at the heart of Costa Rica’s sawmill region.
The fuel produced by Pelletics is considered carbon neutral, and can be used as a direct replacement for fossil fuels in applications such as boilers, industrial burners, and home heating. In Costa Rica, fossil fuels are imported whereas the company’s pellets are produced locally, reducing transport emissions while supporting local jobs.
The company currently works with more than 30 sawmills, and the company recently updated its facilities with new technology to further improve its sustainability.
Pelletics is not the only company spotted by Springwise that is developing bio-based alternatives to fossil fuels. Other innovations include a Kenyan biofuel company that services informal retailers, anda researcher turning cardboard boxes into biofuel.
Spotted: Each year, 3 million farm workers experience extreme pesticide poisoning, and 600 million people get sick from eating foods contaminated with agrochemicals. This is a particularly pertinent problem in Costa Rica – a leading global exporter of pineapples, bananas, and coffee.
The damage caused by agrochemicals—not just to human health, but also to the wider environment—is feeding calls from stakeholders and regulators for environmentally friendly alternatives. But finding viable substitutes that meet the performance characteristics required by agricultural producers and their demanding customers is hard.
Costa Rican startup ClearLeaf is rising to this challenge with a range of innovative solutions to replace harmful toxic pesticides. These are based on emulsions – mixtures of sticky non-toxic liquids that coat living and post-harvest crops that are vulnerable to pests. This coating protects the plant and promotes healing of damaged tissue. Crucially, the company’s antimicrobial agents are highly toxic for single celled organisms, such as bacteria and fungi, but harmless to humans, plants, insects, and wildlife.
ClearLeaf’s solutions offer several important benefits compared to alternatives. First, ClearLeaf offers one of the only non-toxic fungi-bactericides available anywhere in the world. Moreover, the company’s solutions do not cause microbial resistance and enhance rather than impede plant growth. Second, the fungi-bactericides can be applied at any time in the growing cycle and can even be used to protect produce post-harvest – keeping it fresh between farm and fork. Finally, ClearLeaf’s technology does not harm biodiversity on the farm – something that is particularly important in a country home to 5 per cent of the world’s biodiversity.
ClearLeaf is not the only innovator spotted by Springwise that is seeking to reduce the impact of traditional pesticides. One company has developed a sensor that gives farmers the ability to identify insect pests in real time. Another is employing bees to deliver organic fungicide.
Climate targets: Become a ‘decarbonised economy’ with net-zero emissions by 2050.
Sustainability issues:
Tourism – Costa Rica is home to around 5 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity, and the country’s exotic plants and animals are a major draw for tourists. Over a million people visit the country each year so responsible tourist practices are essential. Fortunately, tourism has largely been a positive catalyst for conservation in the country, with the government implementing a hunting ban and researchers mapping the country’s wildlife.
Deforestation – In the 1940s around 75 per cent of Costa Rica was covered by forests, but, by 1987, the country had lost between a half and a third of its forest cover. Since then, Costa Rica has successfully managed to stop and reverse deforestation through globally admired environmental policies and innovations.
Transportation– With an over-reliance on fossil fuels, poor public transport, and haphazard urban growth, Costa Rica’s transport network is the most polluting in Central America. In fact, 84 per cent of the hydrocarbons consumed in the country are burned by vehicles. Cleaning up the transport sector is therefore an important priority as Costa Rica attempts to become a zero-carbon country.
UNMANNED CROP MONITORING HELPS SMALL FARMERS IN COSTA RICA
We are in the era of genetically modified crops, AI, and all things automated, yet one in ten people around the world go hungry. And one third of all food produced is wasted every year. Indigo Drones is on a mission to help farmers at the production end of the chain. The company helps farmers monitor crops and spot potential issues during growing seasons through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and internet of things (IoT) devices. Read more.
PELLETS MADE FROM AGRICULTURAL WASTE REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS
Each year, Costa Rica produces more than 1.2 million tonnes of wood, of which around 40 per cent ends up as waste. Much of this wood waste is disposed of improperly with decomposition releasing methane – a greenhouse gas that adds to global warming. Now, renewable energy company Pelletics is putting waste to work fighting climate change. The company takes wood and agricultural waste from sawmills and cassava cultivation and turns it into pellets that constitute a high energy density fuel. Read more.
Each year, 3 million farm workers experience extreme pesticide poisoning, and 600 million people get sick from eating foods contaminated with agrochemicals. This is a particularly pertinent problem in Costa Rica – a leading global exporter of pineapples, bananas, and coffee. Costa Rican startup ClearLeaf is rising to this challenge with a range of innovative solutions to replace harmful toxic pesticides. Read more.
Words: Matthew Hempstead
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Spotted: There are roughly 70 million kilometres of road worldwide. Most roads are made using oil-based bitumen to bind the small pieces of crushed materials together. Maintaining and repairing such an extensive network currently involves trucking in new materials to fill holes and cracks on heavy duty construction vehicles. All of this combines to make roads significant polluters.
That may be changing soon, thanks to Norwegian startup Carbon Crusher. Using dedicated machinery and a paper industry byproduct, the company has developed a carbon negative road repair process. This new process recycles the old road surface by scraping off the top layer and crushing it. Carbon Crusher’s machine greatly reduces the size of the pieces of road, which, when bonded together with lignin (a natural byproduct of the paper industry), create a more flexible, sustainable surface.
By scraping off the entire road surface and crushing it small enough for reuse in smooth, uniform application, Carbon Crusher eliminates the need to bring in new materials to fill previous surface damage. Lignin’s flexibility also helps reduce long-term maintenance costs as roads become more resilient and strong.
Carbon Crusher is currenlty focusing on developing its equipment and the roads themselves. Yet future plans include making roads act as chargers for electric vehicles. Moreover, further reductions in time and resource cost could be achieved by making the machinery autonomous and hydrogen powered.
Several innovators are seeking ways to make wheeled transport smarter and more efficient. Recent innovations spotted by Springwise include new methods for turning roads into power generators and connected bike helmets that keep riders and drivers safer.
Spotted: The average washing machine uses between 50 and 80 litres of water – in a world where over two billion people live in countries where water supply is inadequate.
To tackle this, Lylo Products has developed a device that allows users to wash their laundry using less water than a normal washing machine. Water is collected in a removable water tank that is placed on the floor of a shower like a mat. As the user showers, this tank fills up and is then reattached to the device’s base. The machine then filters the water and uses it to wash dirty clothes.
Lylo co-founder Joanne Powers recently spoke to Springwise. She explains that she was inspired to found the company after learning the shocking statistic that England could run short of water within 25 years.
One of the key benefits of Lylo is as an educational tool. “When people are using a device that collects and reuses water they suddenly start realising that water re-use is a possibility and is actually safe,” Powers explains. In this way the hope is that Lylo will act as a catalyst, inspiring other hardware innovators to explore ways for re-using water.
Affordability is another of the startup’s main aims. Students are a key target market for Lylo, as on-campus launderette facilities are often very expensive for those living on a tight budget. Eventually Powers hopes to develop a product that could be used in student accommodation – putting the responsibility for water saving onto universities rather than individual consumers.
The company’s short-term roadmap is to build a small number of units for pilot testing by the end of 2022. The purpose of this testing will be to check whether a device that involves such a lifestyle change is comfortable for people, and whether any further tweaks are needed before it goes into commercial manufacturing.
Other water-saving innovations recently spotted by Springwise include a recirculating shower, a shower sensor that encourages users to save water, and an eco-friendly fit bit for your water meter.
Spotted: Recent years have witnessed two key retail trends: the move towards more personalised, curated customer offers, and pressure from stakeholders to tackle waste in the industry. UK-based Dressipi is working to tackle both issues with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). The company’s co-founders were inspired by their own first-hand experience struggling to find the products they wanted to buy.
Dressipi has developed a software platform that gives retailers the tools they need to personalise the shopping experience for individual customers. It does this by using a combination of human style expertise and AI to develop high quality product and brand data. Human stylists create a ‘taxonomy’ of fashion attributes that can be applied to each item. AI technologies, such as computer vision and natural language processing, are then used to apply these attributes at scale.
The same predictive models and algorithms that Dressipi uses to develop personalised insights can also be used to forecast buying and merchandising decisions. By better matching supply and demand, retailers can avoid waste in the supply chain, benefitting both their bottom line and the plant.
Dressipi’s technology has three key strengths. First, its algorithms have been developed over years in collaboration with human fashion experts. They are therefore specific to the needs of the fashion industry. Second, Dressipi owns extensive datasets of garment attributes and fashion-specific customer preferences, and the company’s ability to cleanse and parse all this data is the core of its offer. Finally, the company has a proven track record working with some of the industry’s leading names, delivering externally validated results.
Other AI-powered retail innovations spotted by Springwise include personalised wine recommendations, predictive analysis to speed shipping, and computer vision used for fashion cataloguing.
Water is life. Nothing in nature is simpler. The fate not only of humanity, but of all life on earth is bound up with our stewardship of the global water supply. And water courses are also dynamic eco-systems home to innumerable species of plants and animals. But over the past century, human water use has increased at double the rate of population growth. In simple terms, we are using more water than ever.
Recent decades have seen some important advances when it comes to clean water. Notably, between 2000 and 2020, the number of people using safely managed drinking water increased by 2 billion. But we are now facing a new, unprecedented threat to water resources: climate change. Unicef estimates that half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025, and 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030.
Responsible water stewardship requires multi-layered solutions. But innovation will play an important role. From new physical technology—such as improved desalination processes—to the use of data to improve the management of water systems, innovators are working to protect the world’s most valuable asset.
Fresh water production
At the most basic level, humans need to drink water to survive. But today, 26 per cent of the global population lack access to safely managed drinking water. At the same time, unsafe water is responsible for 1.2 million deaths each year. In response, innovators are busy developing novel ways of producing fresh water – sometimes, literally, from thin air.
Desalination—which converts the earth’s abundant resources of saltwater into fresh water—is well-established but requires access to a dependable supply of electricity. Many water-stressed regions lack this security of supply. In response, a team of researchers has come up with a solar-powered desalination system that is both more efficient and less expensive than previous methods.
Other than the world’s oceans, the atmosphere is another potential source of water that new technology is looking to tap. Israeli company Watergen has developed a portable atmospheric water generator that pulls water directly from the air. The company is in a race to hit the market with Exaersis Water Innovations, a US company that has also developed a portable device for use by campers and off-grid travellers.
Sanitation and hygiene
People need safe access to water for sanitation and hygiene. Effective sanitation systems require high levels of urban planning and maintenance, which can be challenging in some parts of the world. Map Action is a Mali-based startup that has developed a mapping app that shows the location of issues such as broken pipes, and poor-quality wastewater systems.
In other situations, people lack access to even the most basic facilities like toilets. A Spanish design studio has developed an upcycled, 3D-printed portaloo designed to provide better facilities for refugees in camps and disaster recovery zones.
By contrast in the developed world, hygiene can place major demands on water resources. For example, the average showerhead uses 12 litres of water per minute. Danish company Flow Loop has developed a new recirculating shower that reduces water use by 85 per cent.
Pollution and wastewater treatment
Exacerbating issues of water scarcity is the fact that many human activities contaminate water supplies. According to the UN Environment Programme, 80 per cent of global wastewater goes untreated, containing everything from human waste to highly toxic industrial discharges. To tackle the issue of industrial water pollution, Finnish startup Algonomi is developing a circular system that uses algae to both clean up industrial waste water and produce useful materials.
Restoring water-based eco-systems
The water resources we use come from freshwater eco-systems that are on the decline as a result of human activity. Deforestation may grab the headlines, but between 1970 and 2015 the area covered by inland and coastal wetlands declined at three times the rate of forest loss.
Fortunately, innovators are working to mitigate this loss by restoring eco-systems – even within urban contexts. A student design concept aims to improve water circulation in urban rivers by creating a coral-reef-like structure for shrimps, shellfish, and other organisms. Another design for an underwater bicycle garage benefits the aquatic life of the area with porous concrete that helps plants and mussels stick to the walls, while coconut mats help purify the water, and mesh baskets shelter fish.
Local participation
Target 6B within SDG 6 highlights the importance of supporting and strengthening the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management. An app that allows community members in East Africa to maintain and diagnose their own water systems offers an excellent example of how technology can be used for community empowerment. The app provides locals with tools—such as maintenance checklists and diagnostic decision trees—through a smartphone. This helps them to avoid situations where they must wait days or weeks for repairs to their water systems.
Words: Matthew Hempstead
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