rewir trend-review-7-
TRANSCRIPT
Re-inventing life on planet earth [2.0]
REWIR TREND REVIEW #07YOUR BRAND AND BUSINESS UPDATESEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015
Is our planet spinning out of control? Environmental, societal and cultural fractions are bubbling everywhere and the issues with our everyday life seem more troublesome than ever before.
Major brands like Tesla, Google and H&M are re-writing the map of sustainability and many others follow suit. Products, services, business models and mindsets are about to change into something new. On grass-
root level, people recognise the need of adjusting, adapting and changing in order to secure our everyday lives and the lives of future generations. But is there hope?
Yes, there is. In this issue of Trend Review we invite you on a journey to see innovative projects and meet inspiring people who truly care about the sustainability of our planet and the well being of its inhabitants. Time to reinvent the way we live on planet earth!
THE SCENE
Photo: shutterstock
TOMORROWLAND
Frankly, the world we live in today is not the same place we grew up in. We have a hard time adapting to new patterns, behaviors and possibilities. And it seems the planet we live on is heading in another direction, with rapidly changing conditions that affect every day life.
Change fosters new ideas. Funding hub Kickstarter reports that the fourth most funded category is technology, with a majority of projects aimed to improve everyday life – in areas such as health, environment, sustainability and distribution of wealth.
Keeping the same pace as this change is crucial for brands and people – observing, analyzing, understanding and adapting to the new conditions. The biggest impact on the world is universal access to all human knowledge. The smartest person might be stuck in a tractor in Vietnam or out of Kentucky. Enabling that person and millions like him or her will have a profound impact on the development of the human race. Cheap mobile devices are available worldwide and online educational tools are too. This will have a huge impact on literacy and numeracy and will lead to a more informed and more educated world population in just a few years of time.
Photo: shutterstock
YOU ARE HERE
WE ARE THE ROBOTS
What if your toaster texted you telling it was unhappy and wanted to leave? Interaction designer Simone Rebaudengo created a series of connected toasters in order to make the owners more aware of their responsibility of ownership. By giving the toaster a bit of personality, maybe the owners got more aware that they weren’t really using all the gadgets surrounding them in their homes. If not being used, why not give your toaster (or bike) to someone
else? Australia based Credit Card founder has developed iBag. A smart solution that is a location enabled purse which has built-in mechanisms to stop shoppers from overspending. The app warns users by using GPS when they’re getting too close to a favorite shop. The bag sends off a text message to a trusted person to let them know that the user might be spending money they shouldn’t.
Photo: shutterstock
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
What if your trash could tell you when it was full? Well, now it can. Finnish startup Enevo thought of making waste manage-ment smarter and more efficient by creating intelligent waste containers that know when to be emptied. A small device inside the waste container provides real-time data to local waste handling
companies, telling them about waste filling levels, service predictions and also notifying them about temperatures causing different kind of development. With this tiny yet smart innovation, the waste management industry can save money and time, while limiting the footprint of carbon oxide by having fewer trucks on the streets.
http://www.enevo.com/
CONNECTED EVERYTHING
ON AND ON
Swedish fashion brand H&M launched a new service in their shops. 95% of all the clothes being thrown away could be recy-cled. This could have a serious impact on the environment and by installing recycling bins in-store, H&M hopes to make the shop visitors more aware of how they look at clothes. By three golden rules – rewear, reuse and recycle – H&M states that these are the only rules in fashion of today!
Photo: http://annesage.com/2013/03/14/long-live-fashion-un-haul-your-closet-for-hm/
WEARABLES
SMARTY PLANTS
What if the plants could talk? Well, now they pretty much can. Fieldview use sensor technology to limit wasted water, fertilizer and crops by streamline the seasonal flow of harvests. The sensors also track the health of the land with a plant growth algorithm that use over 30 years of weather data to predict weather changes as well as alerting farmers for what dates to have in mind, several weeks before they occur.
Photo: shutterstcok
ECO
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Driving can be lots of fun and now, also really productive. By replacing conventional roads with hard-wearing solar cells, which help to produce up to three times more amount of energy than what we consume. Also, these solar cells warn drivers for an-imals and have built-in heating cells which are able to melt snow and ice, making the roads safer. Right now Solar Roadways is a project being funded on crowdfunding site Indiegogo, so this project might see the light of day within the next year.
http://www.pvbuzz.com/solar-roadways-still-going-strong/
PATH
NATURE CALLS
Co-existing with wild animals doesn’t generally come to mind that often, does it? In many places it is a real problem and human-animal conflicts are the results of the never ending human movement in to new territories. A new smart collar, developed in coalition with wildlife rangers and MIT, can help us humans to under-
stand the animals much better and even predict behavior. It can also be used on endangered species in order to track individuals that need protection, help and make sure that they stay safe. The collars provide GPS-tracking, real- time video feeds, heart rate and body temperature measurements.
http://www.nature.org/media/elephants/img/habitat/bg.jpg
BEACONS
JUST LIKE MAGIC!
New technologies help the environment – Mexico City’s Manuel Gea Gonzalez Hospital uses a 2,500 square meter facade that breaks down air pollutants when exposed to UV light. The honeycomb increases the surface area by 200% and allows the structure to neutralize the same amount of pollutants in one day that’s produced by 8,750 cars.
At the same time, the city of Milan is using a smog-filtering concrete facade to purify the air. Starting with an air-purifying structure in front of the Palazzo Italia – the 9,000 square meter structure will take about 2,000 tons of air-purifying concrete to complete. The concrete is made of 80% recycled materials and works by breaking down harmful pollutants into unreactive salt molecules when exposed to UV light. Inhale – exhale.
Photo: shutterstock
AIR
Headlines on social media often talk about shark attacks on popular beaches all around the world. Your chances of being attacked by a shark in the U.S. are about 15 times less than your chance of being struck by lightning, scientists of Princeton university point out. Co-existing in the natural habitat of sharks can now be even safer – in May 2014 Australian
telecommunications company Optus launched a shark detection buoy. Designed to protect people from attacks in coastal waters, the smart ocean buoy is programmed to detect sharks using sonar technology. Once a shark has been identified the buoy transmits an instant message to alert a lifeguard via the Optus network. Surf’s up mate!
CARE FOR A SWIM?
https://cleverbuoy.com.au/
JAWS
BACK TO THE ROOTS
In May 2015, Dutch design firm Weltevree unveiled Groundfridge: a prefabricated polyester structure which is placed underground, using the earth’s insulation properties to store food at a steady temperature between 7 and 15º C (44.6 to 59º F). Accessed via a hatch-like door and steps, the 7.48 ft (2.28 m) diameter structure has an integrated cabinet and lighting, and a capacity of 3,000 litres – equivalent to that of 20 regular refrigerators. Storing food under ground is not so cave-man anymore, now is it?
Photo: https://mimiberlinblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/fuorisalone-2015-exploring-weltevree/
STORAGE
SCHOOLS OUT!
Photo: http://www.repurposeschoolbags.com/
Childhood friends Thato and Rea, two young women from South Africa – founded Rethaka, a start-up with the aim to create an impact on young people and unprivileged communities. Repurpose Schoolbags is an environmentally-friendly innovation made from ‘upcycled’ plastic shopping bags with built-in solar technology that charges during
the day and transforms into a light at night. The initiative targets school children in underprivileged communities and addresses a number of problems – letting kids study after dark in homes without electricity. Also the bags are designed with reflective material that makes the children visible to traffic.
LIGHT
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN
For many reasons the imbalance of wealth, education and health won’t lead the humans to a prosperous future. Our planet isn’t doing so well and we need to take better care of it, starting with the simple possibilities we have around us, one step at a time. The climate changes are here to stay. So is pollution, and unfortunately
even war. However, there is hope. Simple, smart and affordable innovations are popping up everywhere which prove that change doesn’t have to cost a fortune as long as there is a will to improve and develop. Sustainability is no longer an option – it is an obligation. Got it?
CONCLUSION
