Filed under: biomimicry, community, rethinking waste, sustainable design, sustainable living, sustainable products | Tags: biomimicry, community-supported agriculture, natural building materials, sustainable design, sustainable harvest
Debating building materials for a new house? A whole, unmilled tree can support 50 percent more weight than the largest piece of lumber milled from the same tree, and also sequesters carbon. Architect Roald Gundersen shapes live small-diameter trees- passed over by loggers as too small- into gorgeous building frames. A combination of arched trees and trunks of larger trees felled by wind, disease or insects provide naturally strong housing structures, claims Gunther and his business partner Amelia Baxter.
Pulling small trees from a high-density forest allows remaining trees and undergrowth to receive more light, air and nutrients. Their firm, Whole Tree Architecture and Construction, works in coordination with a USDA-supported community forest project that sustainably harvests lumber, firewood, herbs and mushrooms and manages a living inventory of the area.
Why synthetically design when nature already provides the answers? The strength and flexibility of tree crooks and arches “have been time-tested by environmental conditions for 200 million years”, Gunther states. Whole Trees can keep construction costs as low as $100 a square foot, and the resources used are renewable, with careful stewardship of surrounding forests.
Filed under: base of pyramid, finance, sustainable products, technology | Tags: base of pyramid, electricity, emerging markets, rural electrification, solar, sustainable technology, technology transfer
The solar industry is booming, yet its leaders have completely bypassed their largest potential market: the 1.6 billion people without access to electricity worldwide. I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Eckhart at Solar Power International in LA last week, at a panel on emerging markets with the Alliance for Rural Electrification, SolarWorld, and the American Council for Renewable Energy. When asked about the industry’s ignorance of emerging markets, Eckhart replied, “This is a scandal for our industry”. Less than one percent of global production of solar panels are installed in developing countries, yet the potential markets here could prove to be the world’s largest solar markets by 2020.
Filed under: climate change, sustainable products, technology | Tags: smart grid, solar
Early October, Obama signed an executive order mandating a sustainability officer for each federal agency. Last week, he visited the country’s largest solar power installation in Florida, and declared that 3.4 billion would be invested in updating our national electricity grid. All I can say is it’s about time.
Anyone who’s stated that other species don’t experience emotion hasn’t seen this image. Monica Szczupider took this shot of a 40-year old chimpanzee at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon.
Filed under: innovation, rethinking waste, sustainable design | Tags: eco-tourism, sustainable design, swords-to-ploughshares
Swords-to-phoughshares is taking on a whole new meaning: Former Air Force bases across the US are now reclaimed for massive solar farms, and abandoned military posts are being transformed into anything from national parks to R&D innovation centers. What’s the latest militant-to-peaceful repurposing? Over 750,000 abandoned military bunkers have been found across Albania, and are now being transformed into eco-hostels in an important new stage of Albanian military history. Two architecture students in Milan launched the project after inspiration from re-purposed buildings such as Switzerland’s nuclear bunker hotel , Dutch oil rig hostels, and German bunker art galleries.
Filed under: human rights
This video of a retired WWII vet giving testimony at a public hearing on marriage equality in Maine pretty much sums it up.
Filed under: intellectual property, technology | Tags: intellectual property, sustainable innovation, technology transfer
Several new patents have been added to the Eco-Patent Commons, an open-source project of the WBCSD dedicated to sustainable technology transfer. Since its launch in 2008, over ten companies from a variety of industries have publicly shared proprietary sustainable innovation for common use: Bosch, Dow, DuPont, Fuji Xerox, IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh, Sony, Taisei and Xerox.
Filed under: rethinking waste, sustainable design, sustainable products | Tags: art, low-income housing, salvaged materials, sustainable design
Dan Phillips is spreading beauty throughout the southern US with his low-income housing, hand-crafted from salvaged building materials. Employing a small staff of minimum-wage employees, Phillips requires his soon-to-be-homeowner to participate in building the house itself. “I think it’s in everyone’s DNA to want to be a builder.”, claims Phillips. The pride and skills learned in the building process ensures that his works of art are well-kept, functional, and meaningful to its owner. His East Texas-based construction company, Phoenix Commotion, perceives any piece of waste as a potential building material. This mindset has led to gorgeously crafted houses built with crushed glass bottles, dishware and mirror shards, and the creative re-use of everything from wine corks to scrap metal. A great read to feed dreams of self-built home ownership without the usual outrageous associated costs.
Filed under: base of pyramid, biomimicry, innovation, technology | Tags: base of pyramid, biomimicry, cleantech, emerging markets, technology
Cornell’s Stuart Hart claims that ‘disruptive innovations are best incubated outside of the mainstream market’. Hart feels that underserved markets, where the infrastructure has not been built out, offer a clean slate and ideal testing ground for companies to develop “disruptive” clean technologies. A new solar infrastructure, for instance, would disrupt the coal mining industry and coal-fired power plants.
By driving innovation from the underserved spaces at the base of the pyramid, companies can avoid the inertia, stranded assets, and customer un-learning problems they face in developed markets. With over two billion people in the world without access to electricity, what better markets to launch distributed generation and renewable energy industries?
“If we are really successful with this, eventually the sustainable innovations that take root in the BoP will trickle up to the top of the pyramid.”
