Technology is a driving force of innovation. Everything we build, adapt and refine, generally has the express purpose of making our lives on this planet easier. Whether it’s transportation, growing food, or the sending and receiving of information, technology exists to solve a problem or streamline a process. Nevertheless, the environmental cost of this technology is vast. For example, the average carbon footprint for the manufacture and use of an iPhone is between 55kg and 75kg depending on the model.
However, emerging technologies are reducing environmental pressures across the board. This is in part to large companies taking a positive stance on sustainability. For example, Nike has stepped up to the plate to show others that recycling on a large scale is possible with its Reuse-A-Shoe program. Web hosting companies such as 1&1 made known their own green efforts, demonstrating how their data centers are some of the most energy efficient worldwide, preventing upwards of 30,000 tons of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere every year. Even in the banking sector, financial organizations are doing their share, as The World Bank has earmarked $16 billion to mitigate climate change in 2016 alone.
But a lot of credit is also due to ingenious inventions by lesser-known start-ups and inventors. These technologies operate with the intention of reducing carbon output, producing clean energy and depolluting water source; in essence, to mitigate the damage our current technological advances have caused.
Bladeless wind turb
ines
Wind turbines have been a staple of renewable energy for a while. However, for all the good they do, they are large, incredibly noisy, and not particularly friendly to bird populations. Vortex Bladeless is one company working on a turbine that leaves behind the cumbersome blades of conventional turbines. Instead, their models will harness power via the vibrations caused by wind. Two bladeless models exist for domestic and industrial use, and the carbon footprint is 40% less than traditional turbines.
Air filtration towers
Cities such as Delhi and Beijing suffer from very poor air quality. Daan Roosegaarde and Bob Ursem recognized this and designed a seven-meter tall filtration tower, which sucks in polluted air and expels it smog-free. Currently situated in Rotterdam, the tower is able to clean 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour.
Solar roofing
Solar panels are nothing new, but tech mogul Elon Musk is taking it one step further. His solar energy company, SolarCity, proposes not just installing solar panels onto roofs to power homes, but instead to make the roofs themselves out of solar panels. As Musk himself says, “It’s a solar roof as opposed to a module on a roof.” This technology, combined with the Tesla Powerwall – proprietary technology from one of Musk’s other endeavors – will effectively allow homes to exist off the power grid, and generate completely clean energy.
Thanks to a french import Yossi Dan, and his company Challengy, Israel is about to put some serious spice into the international Food tech scene. Dan is looking for 100 Food Tech companies to duke it out Battleground style, at the Google Campus in Tel Aviv later this month.
Details about the pitch:
Pieces include a gigantic soaring bird made of electric light tubes by Iraqi artist Adel Abidin (above) and an intricately woven screen made of fine copper wire by Jordanian architect Hiba Shahzada (below).
Architects Yazeed Obeid and Jeries Al Ali contributed a skeletal tower that references the welded metal minarets towering over rural Jordan. The sculpture morphs with movement; walk around it and the shape of the internal void creates new illusions of mass.
There are spectacular furnishings made from marble and granite, some carved with lasers to mimic Palestinian embroidery. Arabesque motifs inspire the “Unfolding Unity Stool Marble Edition” by Aljoud Lootah Design Studio (below).
The pieces begin to engage more fully with their urban surroundings at the Raghadan Tourist Terminal, where portions of the facility have been wrapped with brilliantly colored fabric and rope, creating marvellous shadows that move with the sun (above and below).
Find handmade paper cards, notebooks, and home accessories by the Association of Iraq Al Amir Women, a small community south of Amman supported in part by the craft collective. Their colorful paper spice bowls are shown, below.
Twenty-seven artists crocheted the #KeesChic Canopies providing shade along the marketplace corridors (below), diverting 25,000 plastic bags from local landfills.
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If a food worker in Egypt fails to properly wash his hands, does it cause an epidemic in another nation? More than 80 people in seven US states have been infected with food-born Hepatitis A, and at least 32 people have been hospitalized. The outbreak is linked to frozen strawberries from Egypt that were served up in 
Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design – Israel’s oldest institution of higher learning – is a prolific incubator of brilliant ideas, with its post-grads serving as the school’s best advertising. They move on to produce beautiful artifacts, while kicking forward the antique design credo of “build a better mousetrap”. Now one student has developed a device that can 
The sun may be setting on a popular morning brew. According to a new report issued by the Climate Institute, global warming will underpin an estimated 50 percent drop in coffee production by 2050. Bad news for 
“Our concern is primarily for the 25 million farmers out there whose entire livelihoods depend on this incredibly important global commodity,” Molly Harriss Olson, chief executive of Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand, which commissioned the report, told ABC. “We’ve got to build a new economy that doesn’t threaten things in our lifestyle such as our coffee.”
It’s coming up on two years since Cameron Sinclair announced the shutdown of Architecture for Humanity, probably the 
Dip a dowdy dress into one of the world’s saltiest lakes and see what happens. Artist Sigalit Landau did, and ended up growing a crystalline gown straight out of Frozen. Take a look at these images. It’s unlikely you can “Let it go”.
These days, though, he can’t devote as much time to dance as he wants. Survival is not a guarantee, and so he has altered his lifestyle to help ensure it. As it shows him kneading dough in the video above, one of his main responsibilities is to quite literally put bread on the table.