The latest products, services and cleantech applications and how they are tackling some of our most pressing social and environmental issues.
This week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the “Better Buildings Challenge SWAP,” a three-episode web-based reality series in which Hilton Worldwide and Whole Foods Market swap energy-management teams at their facilities in San Francisco.As part of the SWAP, each team identified innovative ways to save energy in Hilton San Francisco Union Square, a 1.8 million sq. foot hotel and Whole Foods Ocean Avenue, a 25,600 sq. foot grocery store. See episode one, below:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to delay the enforcement of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan was a victory for the coalition of 27 industry opponents and mostly Republican-led states that believe the regulations are a “power grab.” In response, a bipartisan group of 17 states has announced that they will collaborate to expand clean energy, modernize energy infrastructure, and drive change.
There’s plenty of talk about “smart cities” as the surest route to building strong and resilient urban environments in the face of mounting climate impacts, but what about a “smart country”? While Singapore technically is a city-state — being both a city and sovereign nation — it is embracing many of the same smart city techniques as cities across the world.Globally, cities are experimenting with smart city technologies to tackle issues such as waste collection and traffic light management, but Singapore is focused on two core global challenges: urban density and an aging population.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with conservatives seeking to delay the enforcement of President Obama's Clean Power Plan until legal challenges are resolved. The move is a blow to the administration and a victory for the coalition of 27 mostly Republican-led states and industry opponents that call the regulations "an unprecedented power grab."The temporary stay came from a 5-4 majority of the justices; the high court's four liberal justices said Tuesday they would have denied the request for delay.
With up to 50 billion connected devices predicted by 2020, a pervasive digital transformation is reshaping the economy. Will this ‘fourth industrial revolution’ lead to an acceleration of the extractive, ‘linear’ economy of today, or will it enable the transition towards a society in which value creation is increasingly decoupled from finite resource consumption?
Aerial imaging is emerging as an invaluable resource for collecting information and enforcing the law, especially when it comes to environmental protection. Satellite and drone technologies are getting increasingly smaller, cheaper, and easier to use, and are producing higher-resolution images. Among other opportunities, the tech has enabled organizations and startups to more accurately monitor environmental destruction and provide data as legal evidence.
Global fuels giant ExxonMobil seems to be unmoved by the investigations into its climate change lies – first in New York and now in California – and the international Paris Agreement that calls for limiting global temperature rise below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is funding a project to cultivate microalgae as biomass for fuels and an array of consumer products. The microscopic single-cell organisms could unlock an affordable way to generate energy using only sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2).
As sustainable business enters the mainstream, there is a growing need for a skilled labor force that can meet the needs of socially and environmentally focused firms. The rate of growth for jobs with “environmental compliance” as a keyword has increased by 24 percent since 2010, while jobs focusing on “energy efficiency” have grown by 500 percent since 2009, according to data from job search engine SimplyHired.com, compiled by Coyne College.
As President John F. Kennedy so eloquently said in 1963, in response to critics of a proposed dam project: "A rising tide lifts all boats."A current case in point that could significantly benefit the clean energy space: Tidal lagoons — an ancient, natural source of potential power that can be harnessed sustainably for the 21st century and beyond.
President Barack Obama highlighted the successes of cleantech investment – for both the economy and the environment – in his final State of the Union address on January 12.
AT&T is building a framework to help cities better serve their citizens. The tech giant is using Internet of Things (IoT) innovations to create impactful solutions for cities and forming alliances with technology leaders and industry organizations.
The emergent field of energy analytics could soon be a boon to sustainability.Several companies are now selling energy analytics apps that are superior to manual, data-crunching spreadsheets. The new apps leverage smart grid systems plus data collected by sensors via the IoT. The size of these datasets requires cloud-scale computing.So business is investing in energy efficiency, not necessarily for altruistic reasons, but for smarter operational practice and efficiency as the tools available augment.
With CES 2016 underway in Las Vegas this week, we are expecting to have announcements about exciting tech advancements coming out of our ears. Case in point: At The Ford Motor Company's press conference this morning, it announced a partnership with Amazon to integrate vehicles with Echo, the e-commerce company’s smarthome device.
In the era of personalization and connectivity, the way we interact with food could change drastically in the near future. With conceptual 3D printers for meat on the table and specialized accelerator programs for food-focused technology startups already running, changes are well underway. Professor Maged Boulos from the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland is considering how the ‘Internet of Things’ concept could be applied to food. How will technology and connectivity influence people’s diets?
Luxury vehicle manufacturers today make up about 23 percent of the plug-in electric vehicle (EV) market, and this is expected to climb to about 50 percent by the early 2020s, according to a new report from Navigant Research.
The Ford Motor Company is ‘going further’ with its Smart Mobility Plan, which focuses on innovation in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience, and data and analytics. Two recent developments include the use of sensor technology on motorcycles to collect mobility data in Africa, and autonomous vehicle testing on public roads in the US.
Earlier this month, 195 nations reached a landmark agreement at COP21 in Paris to fight climate change and unleash actions and investment towards a low-carbon, resilient and sustainable future.
The use of smartphones in the United States and Europe is helping to save more than 180 million tons of carbon emissions a year — an amount greater than the total annual emissions of the Netherlands — according to a new report released this week by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), authored by The Carbon Trust.
SolarCity is calling on Congress to swiftly pass comprehensive legislation that includes an extension of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar.The ITC, which was set to expire at the end of 2016, is a 30 percent federal tax credit for businesses and homeowners to incentivize installation of solar energy systems, fuel cells, combined heat and power systems, microturbines, small wind systems and geothermal heat pumps.Since its creation in 2006, the ITC has helped deliver job growth, cost reductions and domestic energy deployment across the country, SolarCity says.