Happy belated International Women’s Day. No we’re not snubbing Dolly Parton with the title of this week’s edition – although her latest ‘vaccine, vaccine, vaccine’ rendition of Jolene is making us have second thoughts.
In today’s edition:
A sustainable alternative to dye jeans
‘Right to repair’ rules tackling e-waste in Europe
A conservation milestone – cloning the endangered, black-footed ferret
If you’ve enjoyed reading the last few editions please do spread the word!
Big Business (2-minute read)
Europe tackling electronic waste by guaranteeing the ‘Right to Repair’
Planned obsolescence – the designing of products to be short-lived to encourage consumers to buy more. Electronics manufacturers have come under fire for making it increasingly difficult for consumers to repair items, e.g. limiting availability of parts or by restricting who gets to tinker with devices. The end result = a lot of e-waste.
Big steps were made in Europe this week with new ‘Right to repair’ rules for household appliances.
A breakdown:
- All new goods sold must be repairable for up to 10 years – parts have to remain readily available and must come with repair manuals.
- Appliances must be easily dismantled using conventional tools for when they really can’t be fixed anymore.
The next step aims to have requirements expanded to cover smartphones and laptops. France is leading the charge with a ‘repairability index’ telling consumers how repairable products are.
Icelandic Bank first to offer customers a carbon footprint tacker
The Icelandic bank, Islandsbanki, is offering customers the ability to track the carbon footprint of their day-to-day purchases through its mobile banking app. The functionality is supported by Meniga, using their carbon insight tool. The app places a carbon emission score against approximately 80 spending categories, when a purchase is made that score is multiplied by the purchase amount. The app then provides an overview of areas of consumer spending that are most detrimental to the environment, and provides insights to make positive alterations to daily consumption.
What’s in it for Islandsbanki:
1) Attract a growing segment of carbon-conscious consumers – 60% of consumers are making more sustainable purchases since the pandemic.
2) Increased adoption of its other green investment products – after all when people see their carbon footprint, action is likely to follow.
FedEx has a sustainable mountain to climb
According to global logistics company, FedEx, fossil fuels contribute 92% to their total carbon footprint. So, they’ve announced a goal to be carbon neutral by 2040 by investing $2 billion in electric vehicles, clean energy and a new academic centre in Yale focused on capturing carbon.
🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)
Cloning – a promising conservation milestone for endangered species
You may have heard of Dolly the sheep. Now, meet Elizabeth Ann, the black-footed ferret. In the 1970’s the black-footed ferret was thought to have been driven to extinction, but a small colony was later rediscovered in the US and became the basis of a captive-breeding program. There are now 400 ferrets in the wild, but they are all closely related which has led to inbreeding, a threat to the species’ existence. Elizabeth Ann was cloned from the preserved cells of a ferret that died more than 30 years ago, and had no living descendants. She will therefore inject some much-needed genetic diversity into the population making them more resilient to disease and environmental changes.
Dyeing for change – A natural fix to a toxic problem
The situation: More than 1.2 billion pairs of jeans are sold annually which are coloured using an indigo dye. Indigo dye is currently made through petroleum-based processes using toxic chemicals such as cyanide and formaldehyde – contributing to the textile industry being the world’s second largest water polluter.
The solution: Stony Creek Colours have developed an indigo producing crop which can supply a large volume of plant-based indigo dye for synthetic colours in textile and food.
Good news for farmers: The indigo plant can be grown using practices utilised by tobacco farmers. Meaning they have a high-value alternative crop to generate revenue, and the indigo plant supports soil regeneration through its carbon sequestering ability.
💡Start-up Spotlight (1-minute read)
Taking the circular economy mainstream
Our current ‘Linear economy’ transforms raw materials into products that are made, used and disposed of. A circular economy aims to eliminate that waste and generate value by preserving raw materials through reuse, repaire or remanufacture. A recent flurry of investment has taken the circular economy mainstream such as:
- Nestle’s Institute for Packaging Science resulted in Smarties being the world’s first confectionary brand to switch to recyclable paper packaging.
- Microsoft’s Circular Centre Initiative repurposes old servers from data centers into products which are either re-used by Microsoft or sold to customers.
- The Welsh Government’s £43 million supporting circular economy projects, as the country aims to become the number one recycler in the world.
But why? According to recent research by Kearney, companies adopting circular models have outperformed their traditional rivals. 32% of leaders reported revenue increases since launching circular economy offerings.
Collaboration is key: A circular economy requires novel approaches to policy and business transformation based on collaboration. Such as Japan’s Business Federation partnering with the World Economic Forum in a bid to transform business and policy to promote circular practices, and disseminate ideas across international supply chains.
Little Bytes
Quote: “Machine learning holds a lot of promise because one of the greatest challenges we face is a shortage of skilled people. Machine learning could help solve this problem by automating a lot of the work that is currently done manually.” Cesar Cerrudo, CTO, IOActive
Stat: A Hampton-Alexander review shows boards of the UK’s largest 350 listed companies were at least 33% female on average – a rise from 25% in 2016
Watch: An Artificial Intelligent smart cane for the visually impaired
🗞 In other news…
🎣 Gone Phishing
New Honda patent illustrated motorcycle-based drone
Tesla have just launched a social media platform
Elon has plans to build his own city in Texas
- Google launches new “Sheep View” technology
