“Within five years, there will be a global standard of sustainability and a level below which you cannot be,” said Robert Joseph, a London-based writer and wine producer. Joseph and his partners at Hugh, Kevin & Robert Wines, have launched a new line called ‘Greener Planet Sustainable’, which is a low carbon footprint wine. One of these, retailing at roughly $10 and packaged in a lighter plastic PET bottle, has been snapped up by importers for Norway and Holland.

Sustainable development, independent of organic or biodynamic production, was very prominent at the recent Bordeaux Vinexpo, the largest wine trade show in the world. Val d’Orieu, a wine cooperative whose members’ vineyards stretch over 9 000 hectares along the French Mediterranean, even rethought its stand at Vinexpo. The cooperative ordered an ecologically designed exhibit stand, including re-useable glass and wood panels, rented furniture, and eco-friendly paint. According to the stand creator, it was the first such order they had ever received.

On the production side, the emphasis for Val d’Orbieu is on fewer vine treatments, waste reduction, renewable energy sources, water management and diversity amongst employees. “The economic crisis has accelerated sustainable development,” said Michel Mathieu, Director of Marketing and Business Development. “But I just call it good sense.”

Another buzz at Vinexpo was for an innovative line of bottles called Ecova produced by Saint Gobain, Europe’s largest glass manufacturer. The bottles which weighs up to 90 grams lighter than a regular bottle and is made entirely from recycled glass. Lighter bottles will dramatically lower the carbon footprint left by transporting wine. In total Saint Gobain reckons the Ecova range has a 15% carbon reduction during manufacturing and 6% reduction during transport. This is because the lighter weight allows about 1000 extra bottles to be transported during a trip.

In another development, Castel, the world’s third largest wine producer, recently spent €3m on a water treatment and recycling system at their Loire region bottling facility. This, they believe, puts them ahead of what requirements will be 10 years down the line.

Original article: AFP. 30 June 2009. Read more…

With claims that the 11 million fridges sold annually in the US could be made 50% more efficient, the judges of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Clean Energy Prize obviously saw the potential in such technology. Such that they awarded the students first prize, which came with a cheque for $200,000. That will now no doubt help them as they launch a start-up company, Husk Insulation, to commercialise their product.

Husk Insulation will manufacture a special type of high-performance insulation called a vacuum insulated panel (VIP). VIPs take advantage of the insulating effects of a vacuum to produce significantly higher R-values (the standard for measuring thermal insulative effectiveness) than conventional insulation. VIPs are rigid panels comprised of a core material and a foil laminate membrane. The vacuum inside a VIP greatly reduces the conduction and convection of heat. While the R-values of conventional insulation are generally 4-8 per inch, VIPs have R-values between 30-50 per inch.

Although VIPs have been around for more than 20 years, they have not taken off in the mass market because they are generally not cost competitive with conventional insulation. Typical core materials (precipitated silica, superfine fibreglass, etc.) are simply too expensive even though products using VIPs need far less insulation material by volume.

Husk uses a proven & proprietary process to convert rice husk ash (RHA) into the core material for our vacuum panels. RHA is the by-product of agriculture and energy production and millions of tons of RHA are land filled annually. As a result, Husk expects to dramatically reduce the cost of VIPs, making them cost competitive in the mass market.

The founders of Husk Insulation figure it will take them about 18 months to bring the rice husk insulation to the fridge market. For which they calculate $425,000 USD will be required. Once they’ve captured the refrigeration industry, they have their sights set on the housing and transportation markets.

Original article: Warren McLaren. 14 May 2009. Treehugger. Read more…

Nimble enough to navigate where conventional gas-guzzling garbage trucks cannot, the electric DustCart robot aims to clean up a dirty industry. Once garbage has been classified, the DustCart whisks it away into its belly and takes it to a waste management site. The DustCart avoids obstacles during its travels with pre-loaded maps and sensors.
The pear-shaped robot is still in the prototype stages since its response time is still too slow for it to work on crowded streets and robots aren’t legally allowed to roam around without human guidance in Peccioli. But who knows — someday soon you may see a friendly green robot zipping down your street to save the day.

Original article: Ariel Schwartz. July 9, 2009. Inhabitat. Read more…

TIME: 12:30 – 14:00 (coffee/tea & sandwiches supplied)
VENUE: Open Innovation Studio, 27 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town

Waste management: a business opportunity at the BoP?

The City of Cape Town, with its huge wealth gap, geographical constraints and human diversity, is faced with some of the world’s most interesting challenges with regards to urban planning, spatial organisation, public transport and the environment, to name but a few. Mr Barry Coetzee, Head of Integrated Waste Management Policy, will talk to us about the City of Cape Town’s approach to serving the needs of lower income communities in terms of waste management, tackling the dual challenge of providing urban waste management solutions in poor, high-density urban environments while at the same time creating employment opportunities and encouraging entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid.

A vast majority of Southern Africa’s more than 240m people live below the poverty line. Even in South Africa, by far the region’s strongest and most modern economy, 75% of the population earn less than R1800* per month.

It is the mission of this generation, our generation of Southern Africans, to reduce this gap, and allow us to build a better society. Brick by brick, the work of each contributes to the progress of all. In this battle for a common ideal, businesses are vehicles of social transformation. Their ability to engage at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) is crucial to our development and prosperity.

Businesses are emerging as an engine of positive social change as well as economic upliftment. But the challenges are huge. Identifying the right business models, learning from each other’s experience, exchanging intelligence and keeping pace with new developments is crucial in order to have a meaningful impact on the lives of people at the BoP.

The BoP Learning Lab is meant to provide sources of inspiration, to be the toolbox with which the Southern African corporate fabric can maximise its social impact at the bottom of the pyramid.

* World Resource Institute, 2008

More info on www.bop.org.za.

To confirm your attendance, please phone Norma Saayman on 021-918-4238 or e-mail to ns5@usb.sun.ac.za.

Wood has been the traditional material for pallet manufacture in South Africa and 95% of all pallets for materials handling and storage are still manufactured from wood. But wood is getting scarcer and more expensive. Composite pallets solve a lot of problems. They are made of plentiful waste-stream materials, are more durable, easier to clean and are more UV-resistant. Composite pallets don’t harbour microbes, as wooden pallets potentially do, so they do not need to be heat-treated for the export market. Heat treatment makes the pallets brittle.

Unfortunately, the price gap between timber and plastic pallets is still huge. Wooden pallets average from $9 to $16; plastic pallets cost from $40 to $80. So EnviroServ came up with a smart plan: rather than selling the Bid Pallets, it rents them out. During the development and roll-out of the pallet model, it became apparent that a logistics partner would be needed to manage, track and transport the pallets. An associated company, Rennies Distribution Services, now has a rental pool of Bid Pallets and carries the costs associated with their maintenance, repair, cleaning, storage and circulation, plus the associated risks.

One of the major risks of renting out the pallets is keeping track of their movement. The solution was to microchip them. So now they have green pallets, made of rubbish, yet carrying high-tech radio frequency identification devices.

EnviroServ Polymer Solutions aims to increase production and market demand to 30,000 new pallets a month. This will save 680 tonnes of Tetra Pak a month, or the equivalent of 2,4-million beverage cartons, that would otherwise go into the landfill.

After nine years of development, the prototype “Community Cooker” is close to being rolled out in overcrowded refugee camps as well as slums around the country.

Behind a black-painted corrugated iron cooking area, rubbish collected by local youths dries on racks before being pushed into the furnace. Technicians have spent three years modifying the firebox to produce enough heat to destroy toxins in the rubbish, particularly plastics. The stove reaches around 650° C at present and the aim is 1000° C, but UNEP who provided funding is happy that the prototype has proven rubbish can be turned into energy.

The Red Cross is looking at taking these stoves countrywide. They hope to build at least a 100 over the next five years, depending on donor funding.

The Kibera stove cost about $10,000 to build as a prototype but the designers estimate each would cost $5-6,000 once produced in larger numbers. This compares with $50 million for industrial incinerators in Europe.

Original article: Barry Moody. Reuters. 2 April 2009. Read more…

The company provides advanced oil and chemical process technology, products and services to industry. Their advanced technology specialises in environmentally sustainable, small carbon footprint chemical processing and high performance oil refining, in a closed loop, de-minimus emission process.

Hydrodec’s key technology application allows Transformer Oils to be re-refined an indefinite number of times into Superfine™ transformer oil, which has specifications equivalent to or better than that of new transformer oil. This allows the electricity industry to reduce its exclusive reliance on new oil supplies without having to make compromises in quality and performance. The annual global demand for transformer oil is about 5 billion litres and the production thereof emits about 20 million tons of CO2. Each tonne of transformer oil refined through the Hydrodec system represents a direct saving of several tonnes of CO2 emissions. With the prevalence of low levels of PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) in used transformer oils, each ton of transformer oil refined through the system represents significant reduction in the background emission to atmosphere of PCB, PCB like chemicals and Dioxin.

Hydrodec also owns patented and unique processes that enable ‘re-manufacture’ of hazardous persistent organic chemical materials, wastes and by-products into valuable products. This breakthrough creates a paradigm shift in the sustainable management of many hazardous chemicals, both at the source of production and in the environment.

Read more…