Spotted: While climate change is undoubtedly leading to more extreme weather events, it can be difficult to understand how climate change is impacting on local weather. After all, how are we to determine if an unseasonably warm day is due to global warming or is simply normal variation in temperature? Climate Central is attempting to answer this question with the Climate Shift Index (CSI), a free tool that reveals the level of influence of carbon emissions on daily high and low temperatures.
Climate Central, is a non-profit organisation and an independent group of scientists who research and report the facts about the changing climate and how it affects people’s lives. Climate Central uses science and big data to generate local information that makes climate change personal and helps show what can be done about it.
The CSI indicates how much more likely or frequent high temperatures and overnight lows have become in a given location. The index uses observation and model-based calculations, along with a clear and easy-to-follow colour-coded map covering the entire continental US, and a simple numeric scale. For example, a CSI level of 3 means the day’s temperatures were made at least three times more likely than they would have been without climate change.
Benjamin Strauss, Climate Central CEO and chief scientist points out that, “Climate change is invisible to most people, but it already affects our daily lives. When it’s too hot to safely work outside, play sports, or walk down a city street, the Climate Shift Index will reveal its fingerprint. When crops wilt, when tornadoes or fires erupt in unseasonal heat, the Climate Shift Index can put those events in context.”
Awareness of the impact of climate change is often seen as a first, and important, step to effecting change. This is why we are seeing a growing number of innovations aimed at measuring local effects of climate change, to help individuals and professionals better counter them. These range from data management platforms aimed at forestry professionals to a ‘heat map’ of climate injustice.
Spotted: Reducing reliance on petroleum is a driving force in many industries, and solutions are varied. In the UK, athletic shoe brand Hylo produces a vegan sneaker that looks as good as it feels. Even better, every sale contributes to the social campaign Common Goal. Common Goal uses the power of football to help shape positive social changes. Members of the Common Goal group contribute one per cent of their salary or income to the fund.
Hylo’s sneakers are made in China, with the majority of materials sourced from within 60 kilometres of the factory and all delivered by road, not air. No animal products go into the making of the shoes, and the company makes supply chain and production transparency a priority. Each pair of shoes is numbered, allowing for full traceability of every product. The company also offers a take-back service for shoes that need recycling, and gives every customer that returns a used pair a £10 credit.
In July 2021, Hylo joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition in order to ensure compliance with the leading means of sustainable, caring production. The company’s investment in biogas digesters near its manufacturing hub further offsets its carbon emissions. Having secured nearly €3 million in a recent funding round, the company plans to expand its marketing and product development.
Coffee grounds, carbon emissions, and algae are only three of the other sustainable ingredients Springwise has spotted being used to improve the environmental footprint of the footwear industry.
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
Reeded glass partitions, stucco walls and red walnut joinery feature in this renovation of a compact apartment in Tokyo by local studio I IN.
Created for Smarg, the renovation arm of Japanese real estate firm Goodlife, The Life concept apartment was designed to reframe the way that Japanese homeowners perceive renovated apartments.
Red walnut joinery features throughout the apartment (top and above)
“There is a common image of renovated apartments in Japan, which is not always positive,” said I IN.
“The majority of people prefer new buildings and spaces because of their appearance and reinforced structures as we have earthquakes.”
The kitchen cupboards are rendered in the same wood
To combat this preconception, I IN was commissioned to turn a 56-square-metre one-bed in a 1980s residential building into an understated luxury residence.
Set within Tokyo’s eastern Suitengūmae neighbourhood, the flat features an open-plan layout with the kitchen, living room and bedroom all located in one connected space.
Reeded glass partitions separate the bathroom from the living area
The kitchen sits at one end of the flat while the bedroom sits at the other, with the bed hidden from view behind a built-in walnut sideboard that the architects said serves as a “soft separation”. To separate these two domains, the living area was placed at the centre of the space.
I IN incorporated a palette of neutral colours and subtle textures throughout to create a light, restful and calming ambience.
The screens allow light to filter into the windowless bathroom
Reeded glass partition walls allow light to penetrate into the windowless toilet and bathroom while red walnut joinery, polished chrome lighting fixtures and off-white stucco walls were chosen to evoke a sense of luxury.
“We wanted to show the wooden architectural essence from old Japan through the texture of the wood and the three-dimensional layers of light, which you see in sci-fi movies,” I IN told Dezeen.
“The soft ambience from the slit light and textured glass was also important.”
In the future, the studio says the plan is to roll the design out to other buildings in central Tokyo.
I IN, which was founded by interior designers Yohei Terui and Hiromu Yuyama in 2018, was previously shortlisted for small retail interior of the year at the 2020 Dezeen Awards.
The bedroom is hidden from view thanks to another glass partition
Other renovated Tokyo flats featured on Dezeen include an overhauled 1960s apartment by design studio Minorpoet, which has its kitchen hidden behind folding wooden doors, and a refurbished flat by architect Masatoshi Hira where a family of four shares one bedroom, living space and wardrobe.
