Spotted: According to the Centres for Disease Control, up to two billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water at home, and, at the same time, up to 770 million people live without access to electricity. The purification of water, for example from sewage or rainwater, is a high-energy process, which is why a number of innovators are working to develop renewable energy sources for purification. But what if the purification process itself could generate electricity? A team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Myongji University has recently announced that it has done just that.
The research team has developed a membrane that can simultaneously provide drinking water and generate continuous electricity from various water resources. The “sandwich-like” material includes a layer of porous membrane that can filter out most contaminants smaller than 10 nanometres. This includes microplastics and particles of heavy metals.
At the same time, water flowing over a layer of conductive polymer – perpendicular to the membrane – generates direct current due to ions moving horizontally. The membrane can be manufactured in virtually any size using a 3D printing process. This means it could potentially be adapted to any number of commercial projects.
Dr. Ji-Soo Jang, who headed up the team from KIST, highlights: “As a novel technology that can solve [the] water shortage problem and produce eco-friendly energy simultaneously, it also has great potential applications in the water quality management system and emergency power system.”
Finding solutions to the problem of water shortages has led to a number of recent innovations. Springwise has spotted a countertop water purifier, and a social enterprise working to establish affordable and reliable water infrastructure in Africa.
Spanish studio Takk took cues from snugly stacked Russian dolls for the interior renovation of this Barcelona apartment, which features rooms nestled inside each other to maximise insulation.
Called 10K House, the 50-square-metre apartment was renovated by Takk using a material budget of only 10,000 euros with the aim of updating the home to be as sustainable as possible.
10K House is a residential interior design project
The project was informed by concerns about climate change as well as the global energy crisis faced by homeowners and renters.
Arranged across one open level, rooms were built “inside one another” in a formation that mimics the layers of an onion and places the rooms that require the most heat at the centre of the apartment, according to Takk.
The bedroom is raised on recycled white table legs
“This causes the heat emitted by us, our pets or our appliances to have to go through more walls to reach the outside,” principal architects Mireia Luzárraga and Alejandro Muiño told Dezeen.
“If we place the spaces that need more heat – for example, the room where we sleep – in the centre of the Matryoshka [a Russian doll] we realise that we need to heat it less because the configuration of the house itself helps to maintain the temperature.”
“The result is a kind of labyrinth that multiplies perspectives,” explained the architects, who designed the project for a single client.
MDF was used throughout the apartment
Recycled table legs were used to elevate these constructed rooms to allow the free passage of water pipes and electrical fittings without having to create wall grooves, reducing the overall cost.
For example, the raised central bedroom is clad in gridded frames of medium-density fibreboard (MDF) that are enveloped by slabs of local sheep’s wool – utilitarian and inexpensive materials that feature throughout the interior.
“Despite being a small apartment, it is very complex to ensure that you never get bored of the space,” said Luzárraga and Muiño.
The remnants of previous partitions were left exposed
After demolishing the apartment’s existing internal layout, Takk chose not to apply costly and carbon-intensive coatings to the floors and walls.
Rather, the architects scrubbed the space clean and left traces of the previous partitions and dismantled light fixtures visible, giving the apartment a raw appearance and maintaining a reminder of the original floor plan.
The kitchen features a metallic sink and low-slung cabinets
The kitchen is located in the most open part of 10K House, which includes timber geometric cabinetry and an exposed metallic sink.
According to the architects, the open kitchen intends to act as a facility “without associated gender” and address stereotypes typically attached to housework.
“Traditionally, the kitchen has been understood as a space to be used mainly by women, whether they own the house or do domestic work,” reflected Luzárraga and Muiño.
“This has meant that [historically] this space has been relegated to secondary areas of the house, poorly lit and poorly ventilated, especially in small homes.”
“One way to combat this is by placing the kitchen in better and open spaces, so that everyone, regardless of their gender, is challenged to take charge of this type of task,” they added.
10K House was constructed using CNC-milled component
The dwelling was constructed using CNC-milled components that were cut prior to arriving on-site and assembled using standard screws.
Takk chose this method to encourage DIY when building a home, and armed the client with a small instruction manual that allowed them to assemble aspects of the apartment themselves “as if [the apartment] were a piece of furniture”.
Takk was informed by soaring energy prices when designing the project
10K House is based on a previous project by the architecture studio called The Day After House, which features similar “unprejudiced” design principles, according to Luzárraga and Muiño.
The architects – who are also a couple – created a winter-themed bedroom for their young daughter by inserting a self-contained igloo-like structure within their home in Barcelona.
Spotted: Together, heavy industry and transportation produce 40.4 per cent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Each sector has its own particular challenges in reducing pollution, and every manufacturing plant has its own individual machinery and processes. That complexity makes it challenging for businesses in sectors like steel, cement, telecoms, and automotive to identify ways to reduce emissions, implement changes, and track progress against company goals.
Using a deep understanding of those conditions, a team of industrial engineers worked together to create QiO Technologies to transform the ability of heavy industry to achieve carbon neutrality. Based on artificial intelligence (AI) analyses, the Foresight Sustainability Suite improves production efficiency, tracks the performance of every machine, and provides service and maintenance support.
QiO provides the three different parts of the Sustainability Suite separately or together, allowing businesses to focus on the areas they most want to improve. Foresight Optima maximises production efficiency. Foresight Maintenance tracks and predicts machine failures to help reduce operating downtime, and Foresight Service helps businesses better plan the timing and order of fixes and upgrades.
QiO’s latest product, Foresight Optima DC+, is specifically for data centres – themselves a significant contributor to global GHG emissions. With a recently closed series B round of funding that raised $10 million (around €9.4 million), QiO Technologies plans to focus its expansion into this area of work.
Manufacturing and chemical production process improvements are reducing pollution in several different ways. Springwise has spotted a new way of recycling plastic and hazardous chemical waste, and a new wood-fibre building material that produces almost zero waste.
The Earth is home to multiple delicately balanced and interconnected ecosystems, with every creature on the planet being reliant on countless other organisms to clean the air and water, regulate the climate, and provide nutrition. In fact, 75 per cent of human crop production relies, at least in part, on pollinators such as bees.
Even the smallest change within an ecological community can have devastating consequences. Good biodiversity is the best indicator of a healthy and resilient ecosystem, so preserving it is essential. Exemplifying this commitment to biological diversity was last year’s COP15, which concluded with a landmark United Nations agreement – the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF) – that pledges to protect at least 30 per cent of the planet’s land, sea, and coastal areas by 2030.
It is more important than ever to act and protect biodiversity all over the world, with innovation being central to long-lasting, impactful change. Five exciting new solutions that could help make the GBF’s goals a reality will be on display at the ChangeNOW 2023 summit.
From 2010 to 2020, the Earth lost around 4.7 million hectares of forests every year. It is estimated, as well, that up to 50 per cent of all logging in the world’s most threatened forests is connected to illegal and unsustainable timber trade. Of course, wood remains an essential construction material, but in order to protect our forests and the diverse array of habitats they provide, we need to support sustainable timber farming.
In comes EcoTree. Customers, whether they be individuals or companies, can buy a single tree or forest from EcoTree’s treeShop and track its growth through the online platform. Then, when a tree is ready to be cut for sustainable timber, the profit is returned to the customer. As well as forestry, customers can also get involved in any of EcoTree’s five biodiversity projects, including one restoring wetlands and another that boosts honey bee populations. Read more.
As human activity and the resulting changes in our climate threaten crucial biodiversity across marine and terrestrial environments, it is becoming increasingly pressing to step in – before these ecosystems are altered forever. But one key obstacle is that it can be difficult to protect an environment effectively without first understanding it properly.
BeeOdiversity uses bees as living drones to gather essential information about a given space. During their normal pollination activities, the bees collect billions of environmental samples. These are then analysed to identify, source, and assess the level of pollutants and measure plant biodiversity in a given area. The system can be used to assess the quality of a site or the impact of an activity. Armed with the data, organisations can then take proper improvement measures. Read more.
Overall, forests account for approximately 26 per cent of total land area across the globe. This may seem like a sizeable proportion, but the world has lost a third of its forests since the last ice age. This mass deforestation is devastating for the planet’s ecosystems, as wildlife habitats are destroyed and previous sources of vegetation and shelter disappear.
As well as being crucial for biodiversity, forests are also essential for capturing carbon and balancing our climate. Afforestation and reforestation projects are essential, but it can be difficult for those wanting to get involved to track these programmes. With Kanop‘s AI-powered automated platform, forest managers can easily access and track complex forest projects, even down to an individual tree. Kanop provides accurate, up-to-date information, regardless of the size of a project. Read more.
As well as being beautiful in and of themselves, coral reefs are essential for life on Earth, protecting coastlines and supporting 25 per cent of all marine ecosystems. They are, however, under threat. Rising ocean levels are increasing coastal erosion that, in turn, decreases water quality and increases sedimentation, eventually smothering the coral. And though African sea levels are rising faster than the global average, coral restoration projects in the continent are few and far between.
Koraï hopes to change this by restoring African coastal ecosystems. Through Koraï, companies can offset their emissions by purchasing carbon credits in the form of mangrove and seagrass nurseries, which act as powerful carbon sinks. Customers can also tailor-make their own coral reef plan, track its impact, and even visit Koraï’s nurseries to get involved with impact projects directly. Read more.
TRANSPARENT CARBON CREDITS THAT EVERYONE CAN UNDERSTAND
As we inch ever closer to the 1.5°C limit on global warming, more and more businesses are recognising the urgency of large-scale decarbonisation. One easy way corporations can do this is through the purchase of carbon credits, which allows them to offset external carbon capture and reforestation projects against their own emissions. However, the lack of transparency and regulatory requirements within carbon markets is often a cause for concern.
Startup Reforestum aims to address this lack of trust and transparency with an artificial-intelligence-driven (AI) platform that helps individuals and organisations know exactly where their offset funding is going. For businesses, Reforestum has recently introduced two new products – the ‘VCM Navigator’, which provides market intelligence and other information to see and understand VCMs, and the ‘Portfolio Manager’, a tool that helps companies more easily manage their offsetting projects in line with best practices. Read more.
Springwise is a proud partner of ChangeNOW, which takes place in Paris 25-27 May 2023. As the world’s largest event for the planet, the three-day international summit brings together entrepreneurs, businessleaders, and policymakers to accelerate change.
Spotted: For city-to-city travel, going by air is notoriously bad for our planet. Planes pump an array of greenhouse gases high up in the atmosphere, producing potent warming effects. Thankfully, UK startup ARC Aerosystems is set to be a player in mitigating the aviation sector’s emissions with its new, uniquely designed passenger aircraft. The ARC Linx P9 has been called the “world’s most advanced nine-seater aircraft with vertical take-off and landing capability.”
The revolutionary aircraft provides the flexibility of a helicopter with the performance of a fixed-wing utility aircraft, cutting costs by using a more simplistic drivetrain than a chopper. Moreover, this single-rotor aircraft is low-carbon, too, as it has been crafted to run on sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), or even, in the future, hydrogen.
Of the innovation, ARC’s CEO Seyed Mohseni said, “it’s a very exciting design concept that is the ultimate solution for the market, that is affordable, safe and practical, whilst providing the right answer to the current environmental concerns.”
While the new ARC Linx P9 is not yet commercially available, the company claims it could be airborne as soon as 2028.
Springwise has previously spotted other advancements set to make the aviation sector more sustainable, including a flight powered entirely by sustainable aviation fuel, and a zero-emission electric plane.
Spotted: Although not as polluting as cattle or pigs, poultry rearing still contributes around 790 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents each year. The equates to around eight per cent of all agriculture emissions. Much of this comes from feed, heating and lighting, and manure. But now, Dutch egg farm Kipster is pioneering a carbon-neutral approach that could be the future of poultry farming – and the company is bringing it to the US.
Kipster has partnered with Kroger groceries and MPS Egg Farms to bring its sustainable egg farming stateside. Kipster’s techniques begin with reducing greenhouse gas emissions internally as much as possible, and offsetting any remaining emissions with external carbon reduction projects. Internal measures include turning surplus food into chicken feed, rather than growing feed on land that could be used for human food production.
The ‘upcycled’ chicken feed uses by-products from crop and food processing, such as oat hulls and faulty pasta. The upcycled feed has a carbon footprint of around half that of conventional feed. Kipster’s farms are all specially designed to allow the birds to carry out their natural behaviours, reducing the need for trimming beaks and administering antibiotics. Kipster is also the first farm to remove dust, odour, ammonia, and other undesirable particles from the barn air, as well as recovering the heat using a heat pump.
Denise Osterhues, Kroger’s senior director of sustainability and social impact explains: “Choosing Kipster cage-free eggs is an easy way for our customers to help create a more sustainable food system.”
As people become more aware of the emissions cost of rearing animals, many are turning to alternatives – and innovators are keeping up with the demand. Springwise has recently spotted many types of sustainable foods, including cultivated pork made using microalgae, and a sustainable, cocoa-free chocolate.
Spotted: Plastic is everywhere. In fact, as microplastics are found in more and more places – the bottom of the ocean, the food chain, and inside our bodies for example – concern over the use of plastics is growing. However, there are few products that can replicate plastic’s usefulness, especially as a topcoat on products such as leather and flooring. Until now, that is. Sustainable materials brand von Holzhausen has recently announced a new plastic-free topcoat that could replace the use of petroleum-based materials.
Called Liquidplant, the new customisable product is 100 per cent plant-based, petroleum-free, and completely biodegradable. The product is designed for use as a coating on products such as traditional and synthetic leather, paper, wood, plastic, and fabric.
The coating is made from sustainably grown materials, including corn sugar, castor oil, and flaxseed oil. It has similar qualities to traditional topcoats, including being flexible, as well as stain-, scratch-, and water-resistant. The company says Liquidplant can be used on its own or paired with von Holzhausen’s Terra Backing material. And at the end of its usable life, the products can be recycled into more Liquidplant.
Founded by former automotive designer Vicki von Holzhausen, the company has developed a number of vegan materials, including a bamboo-based leather, and leathers crafted from recycled consumer plastic. The company states its mission as replacing “all the animal leather in the world with non-animal leather. [It believes] in the power of plants and in transforming discarded materials into remarkable ones.”
Vegan leather is everywhere now, and its use is growing as the products become more sophisticated and luxurious. Springwise has spotted leather substitutes made from products as diverse as mycelium, fruit waste, and flowers.
Spotted: Every year we dump a colossal 2.12 billion tonnes of waste. And if we filled trucks with this rubbish, there would be vans to go around the globe 24 times. Although our rubbish clearly isn’t stored just in trucks, do we know where it actually goes? Edinburgh-based data analytics firm Topolytics is looking for answers with its data aggregation and analytics platform that aims to make the world’s waste visible, verifiable, and valuable.
The platform, called WasteMap, collects and analyses data about waste types, amounts, and movements to create insights for waste producers, investors, and governments across numerous sites, regions, and countries. With this, Topolytics envisions waste and management resources becoming more transparent and effective for both commercial use and the environment.
Michael Groves, Topolytics chief executive, explains that, “it helps waste producers and recyclers to drive resource and cost efficiencies, to trace the movement of waste and measure their impact, whilst validating performance and improving the quality and reliability of ESG and carbon reporting.”
The Scottish firm has reportedly raised £1.5 million (around €1.69 million) from “seasoned hight-net-worth-investors” and a UK Research and Innovation grant. With this money, the company claims it will launch its WasteMap solution and further commercial business.
Springwise has previously spotted other intelligent technologies that help manage the waste we make, including an AI-powered litter-picking vehicle and an AI-handled waste-sorting process.
Spotted: In 2017, Dutch researchers conducted what was then the largest study of menstruating women and found that those who worked lost nearly nine days of productivity a year due to period pain. Much of that loss of productivity was due to presenteeism; showing up for work despite not feeling well and being unable to complete tasks at the same rate. Since then, campaigners in several countries, including the UK and Spain, are working to make period pain a recognised healthcare issue.
Many doctors, of course, have heard first-hand accounts of the pain women feel during their period, and it is from years of listening to patients that the pain relieving Myoovi patch was created. Designed to fit discreetly under clothing and stay in place for as long as desired, the Myoovi device uses electrical nerve stimulation to reduce pain almost instantly.
Myoovi is a mobile TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machine, providing the same pain relief patients would get in hospital. Large butterfly patches hold the electrical device in place, either on the back or abdomen, and users adjust the intensity of the stimulation by pushing a button. A single charge generally lasts between five and 10 hours.
Available in three skin tones, the butterfly patches generally work for two to three months, after which the stickiness tends to reduce. Users can buy the device and patches as a one-off or sign up to a subscription service.
Making menstruation products more affordable and accessible is the goal of many innovators. Springwise has spotted a new way to clean reusable period pads, as well as an ad campaign that highlights some of the many experiences people go through as part of the menstruation process.
A recent University of Cambridge study that cast doubt on the long-term effectiveness of insulating UK homes is not as bad news as it first appears, argues Insulate Britain campaigner James Thomas.
On 20 January, Dezeen reported on an academic paper by Cambridge University researchers looking at the long-term effects of energy-efficiency retrofits in the UK. At first glance, the Dezeen story and/or the paper might seem “anti-retrofit”. I want to bring a counterpoint to that knee-jerk reaction.
Bad news is still good information. Information in the form of empirical primary research by qualified professionals with track records in the relevant field, backed up by well-established research institutions, peer-reviewed and published in a respected academic journal – with all parties having a strong incentive not to get caught out doing bad work – is better than most.
At first glance, the Dezeen story and/or the paper might seem “anti-retrofit”
So when such a source presents information that, at first glance, seems to be at odds with what we want to hear, or what we were expecting to hear, we should take a calm moment and listen anyway; we might learn something.
The study is one of the first to use a large dataset (55,154 homes) looking at the impact of real-world retrofits in the long term. The clickbait conclusion is: empirical data shows that energy savings from retrofitting disappear after about four years.
Although the data is new, this finding is not unexpected. Economic theory predicts a “rebound effect” in energy usage following retrofits. A retrofit amounts to a reduction in the (financial) cost of warming your home – so you might well find yourself keeping your home warmer after your retrofit than before it.
Another not-unexpected finding from the paper is that retrofits have a significantly lower impact on energy consumption in homes in deprived areas, which are suffering from fuel poverty. We can assume that households in this category, pre-retrofit, were already spending up to the limit of what they could afford on heating, and that this was insufficient to keep their homes at a comfortable temperature.
After a retrofit, the same level of expenditure on energy would be enough to make such a home comfortable. So the energy usage would stay about the same – but the lives of the people living in that home would be vastly improved.
Two other significant factors contributing to the worse-than-predicted performance of retrofits, not discussed at length in the Cambridge paper, are the variance between buildings and quality control issues in retrofit installation and design.
Poor design or slapdash installation can entirely negate the performance benefits of an expensive retrofit
Different types of houses require different retrofit solutions, as might different houses of the same type. Poor design or slapdash installation can entirely negate the performance benefits of an expensive retrofit. Both of these factors point at the same thing: the need for consistent and reliably high quality in the design of retrofits and their installation.
But what stood out for me most from the Cambridge study, and from everything else I know about retrofitting, is the need for something much better than a retrofit-and-forget programme. A whole-house retrofit transforms your home from a passive pile of bricks and timber into something more like a machine, integrating multiple interacting passive and active systems.
You need to know not to throw open your windows when you’re surprised by how warm it is. Your retrofitted house is a machine; you need to learn how to drive it. You might even need to take a driving test.
The study authors say it their way: “Our results call for the urgent need to fully incorporate human behaviour into ex-ante modelling of energy use and to complement financial and regulatory energy efficiency policy instruments with soft instruments to promote the behavioural changes needed to realise the full saving potential of the adoption of energy efficiency improvements.”
In short, the rebound effect, and other effects identified by the Cambridge study, can be compensated for if the retrofits are delivered via the vehicle of an intelligent, progressive, integrated national policy. Such a programme would include comprehensive training for engineers, installers and end users, monitoring of both installation quality and post-installation usage, and refresher training where necessary.
Another possible tool, dare I mention it, could be rewards and/or penalties to incentivise sensible use by residents post-retrofit. Controversial, but it exists in many other areas of life where one person’s behaviour could have a negative impact on others. Nobody freaks out about the fact we have driving tests and driving licences – as well as fines for bad driving.
Nobody, least of all Insulate Britain, ever said national-scale retrofitting would be easy or cheap
That’s why Insulate Britain calls for something akin to the NHS for retrofitting: a National Insulation Service. Such an institution could provide other crucial benefits like trust and a service ethos, consistency across geography and time, data-sharing on what works and what doesn’t.
To free-market diehards that baulk at the notion of the less-than-optimal commercial efficiency that could come with delivering retrofits via a large state service effort, consider how we don’t marketise core state services like healthcare, education, defence. Aren’t providing energy security, eliminating fuel poverty and avoiding climate death also core?
Thanks to the Cambridge study, we now know for certain that a retrofit-and-forget approach won’t make the energy savings from retrofits stick. The Royal Institute of British Architects, and the Construction Leadership Council, and the Architects Climate Action Network have all called for a comprehensive national retrofit strategy. The report academics say it their way, Insulate Britain say it our way.
Nobody, least of all Insulate Britain, ever said national-scale retrofitting would be easy or cheap. But it’s still easier and cheaper than any other carbon mitigation intervention – if it is delivered in the form of an intelligent, progressive, integrated national policy to include not just money, but also action to support trust, quality control and behaviour change.
James Thomas is a British architect, environmental economist and campaigner. He led the team that designed Extinction Rebellion’s pink boat Berta Cáceres and spent two months in jail for blocking the M25 motorway outside London as part of an Insulate Britain protest calling for a national retrofit scheme.
