Category: Green Friendly

An Australian startup is changing the game in sustainable fashion and manufacturing. Alt. Leather has developed an innovative, plant-based leather alternative that’s free from animal products, plastic, and the harmful environmental impacts typically associated with traditional and synthetic leathers.

Instead of animal hides or petroleum-based plastics like polyurethane (PU) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Alt. Leather’s material is crafted from natural fibers and agricultural waste. The result is a durable, leather-like product that could be used across a variety of industries, including fashion, footwear, automotive, and upholster.

The shipping industry is one step closer to achieving its long-awaited green transformation, with new technologies emerging to tackle its significant carbon footprint. At the forefront of this shift is GT Wings, a UK-based company that has developed a revolutionary wind propulsion system called AirWing. This cutting-edge sail promises to dramatically reduce fuel consumption and emissions by harnessing the natural power of wind.

Unlike traditional sails, the AirWing is no ordinary piece of fabric. Instead of simply catching the wind, the AirWing actively sucks in air and uses fan power to amplify the thrust generated by the wind flowing through it. This innovative approach allows the AirWing to generate 10 times the thrust of conventional sails, despite being smaller in size. The system is also designed for easy retrofitting, meaning it can be integrated into existing vessels as well as new ship designs.

By Tyler Irving

Prototypes designed and built at U of T Engineering contain several layers of channels, each of which contain fluids with various optical properties. By pumping the fluids in and out of the channels, the system can optimize the type, quantity and distribution of light passing through. (Artist’s impression courtesy Raphael Kay, Adrian So) 

U of T Engineering researchers have developed a multilayered fluidic system that can reduce the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings by optimizing the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light transmitted through windows.

The platform was inspired by the dynamic colour-changing skin of organisms such as squid. Compared with existing technologies, it offers much greater control while keeping costs low due to its use of simple, off-the-shelf components.

“Buildings use a ton of energy to heat, cool and illuminate the spaces inside them,” says recent graduate Raphael Kay (MIE MASc 2T2), lead author on a new paper published in PNAS.

“If we can strategically control the amount, type and direction of solar energy that enters our buildings, we can massively reduce the amount of work that we ask heaters, coolers and lights to do.”

Collector containers at the “Orca” direct air capture and storage facility, operated by Climeworks AG, in Hellisheidi, Iceland.

By JUSTINE CALMA

Climeworks says a third-party auditor has verified its carbon removal for Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify.

Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify are officially the first companies in the world to pay to filter their carbon dioxide emissions out of the air, store those emissions underground, and have that service verified by a third party. Climate tech company Climeworks announced yesterday that it had completed the service, and its third-party verification of the carbon removal marks a first for the emerging industry.

In 2021, Climeworks opened up the world’s largest direct air capture (DAC) plant, called Orca, which essentially filters carbon dioxide out of the ambient air. That captured carbon is then supposed to be trapped in basalt rock formations permanently, keeping the greenhouse gas from lingering in our atmosphere and heating up the planet. 

The tech sort of mimics what forests and trees do naturally when they take in and store carbon dioxide, a process companies have attempted to exploit for years as a way to “offset” their carbon dioxide emissions. But forest offsets have a track record of failing to result in any real-world reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. That quality control problem makes verifying carbon removal from new direct air capture facilities crucial. 

That quality control problem makes verifying carbon removal from new direct air capture facilities crucial.

The 80-footer will also feature Sunreef’s patented “solar skin”— which will see the world’s lightest solar cells fully integrated into the bodywork. 

By RACHEL CORMACK

Sunreef Yachts has been at the forefront of eco-innovation in the marine world for the past two decades. It’s not exactly surprising, then, that the Polish yard announced another groundbreaking project at this year’s Monaco Yacht Show.

Sunreef’s founder and president Francis Lapp took the stage to share that the team was recently commissioned to build an 80-foot sailing catamaran that will combine hydrogen power and electric propulsion to achieve “unrivaled autonomy for a new level of eco-conscious cruising.”

According to Lapp, hydrogen will be used to power both the cat’s appliances and electric motors. The 80-footer will also feature Sunreef’s patented photovoltaic system—sometimes referred to as a “solar skin”— which will see the world’s lightest solar cells fully integrated into the composite bodywork. This allows the cat to generate clean, green energy from the sun and then store it in the built-in batteries. Sunreef’s R&D department is currently developing a system that will use this solar power to produce hydrogen onboard. That means you could eventually sail the high seas silently and sans emissions while generating your own fuel. Not bad.

By  Derya Ozdemir

Here is a truth that you literally cannot run away from: plastic is, simply, everywhere.

From toothbrushes to disposable coffee lids, plastic has made its way into every part of our lives. It’s incredibly useful because it’s durable; however, the flip side is that it’s also really hard to get rid of, which is why it’ll continue to be a part of our lives for hundreds of years to come.

By Charné Hundermark

Global mining company Anglo American has launched a prototype of the world’s largest hydrogen-fueled mining truck at the Mogalakwena Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) mine in South Africa. Representing part of the company’s nuGen Zero Emission Haulage Solution – an end-to-end integrated green hydrogen production, fueling and haulage system for mine sites developed by the company’s FutureSmart Mining program – the truck marks a significant step towards improving sustainable mining operations both in South Africa and globally.

In the presence of H.E. Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy of South Africa, Anglo American unveiled a 2 MW hydrogen-battery hybrid truck that is designed to operate in everyday mining conditions. Anglo American plans to replace the company’s 40 diesel-powered fleet with green hydrogen systems, reducing emissions and ensuring that eight of the company’s mines reach carbon neutrality by 2030. With a capacity to carry up to 315 tons of ore each, solar power will be utilized by a hydrogen electrolyzer that will split water and provide hydrogen fuel.

Although not a direct replacement for concrete, hempcrete has many benefits as a building material.

By Nate Berg

It has become almost a cliché to discuss the benefits of hemp, the supposed wonder plant with almost endless uses— from woven fibers to edible seeds to bioplastics. “Of course, hemp is that magic crop that does everything,” says Nicholas Carter, an environmental researcher who, along with Tushar Mehta, a Toronto-based doctor, runs the website Plant Based Data. His work involves reading through scientific papers and studies and summarizing the most important work supporting plants as a source of food and other important uses. Given the hype, Carter wondered just how much power hemp really had. “I wanted to see the research out there on it, to see what’s actually real, what’s actually backed by evidence,” he says.

Magic? Not exactly. But Carter came away from his attempted debunking a hemp believer. And one of the most promising of its many uses, he found, is its application as a building material known as hempcrete.

Like its namesake concrete, hempcrete is a material mixed with a binder that hardens it into a solid in the form of blocks and panels. Made from the dried woody core of hemp stalks and a lime-based binder, hempcrete can be cast just like concrete. But unlike concrete and its binding cement, which accounts for about 8% of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions annually, hempcrete actually sequesters CO₂. According to a recent study, hempcrete can sequester 307 kilograms of CO₂ per cubic meter (19 pounds per cubic foot), roughly the equivalent of the annual carbon emissions of three refrigerators.