For years the freight industry tried to force a false choice. Battery-electric or hydrogen. Back the right horse. Ignore the rest. Daimler Truck’s new Mercedes-Benz NextGenH2 Truck gives Tesla Semis a run for their money and suggests that the argument is already getting old.

Daimler says its new liquid-hydrogen fuel cell truck will enter small-series production from the end of 2026, with 100 trucks planned for customer operations. The truck is designed for ranges of well over 800 miles on a single fill and borrows major components from the battery-electric eActros 600, including the integrated e-axle, digital cockpit and latest safety systems. That matters because it points to something more realistic than a clean-tech cage match: the future of freight is likely to be electric and hydrogen, depending on route logic, geography, infrastructure and what is actually being hauled.

This is not a small distinction. It changes how ports, logistics firms, governments and even investors should think about decarbonizing freight. A battery-electric truck and a hydrogen truck are not moral rivals. They are tools for different jobs.

Battery-electric trucks are rapidly becoming the better answer for repeatable, corridor-based freight. Think port-to-warehouse routes, retail distribution loops, industrial zones and regional supply chains where trucks can charge during planned dwell times. They are quieter, simpler, mechanically cleaner and increasingly economical where charging can be controlled. That is why Daimler has already been pushing the eActros 600 hard into the market and why other manufacturers are racing to scale their own heavy-duty electric fleets. In those settings, batteries make obvious sense.

Hydrogen comes into its own where the route gets longer, the payload gets heavier and the downtime becomes more expensive. That is exactly the space Daimler is targeting with the NextGenH2. Liquid hydrogen allows the truck to carry more energy on board than compressed gaseous hydrogen, and much more usable long-haul range than many battery systems can currently offer without weight and charging tradeoffs.

Daimler says the truck can be refueled in 10 to 15 minutes using its sLH2 liquid hydrogen standard and that the system is designed to make the vehicle more comparable to diesel in real operations. That is the real benchmark in freight. Not whether the truck is futuristic, but whether it can actually replace a diesel workhorse on the routes that matter.

That also explains why the truck shares so much DNA with the eActros 600. Daimler is not building two completely separate futures. It is building one freight architecture with two energy pathways. The e-axle, digital cockpit, battery buffer, assistance systems and even aerodynamic elements are converging. The truck may store energy differently, but the logic of the vehicle is becoming unified. That is important because the clean freight revolution will not happen if every technology lives in its own expensive silo. It has to become modular, scalable and familiar enough for fleet operators to trust.

Trust is not a small issue in trucking. Freight operators are not early adopters in the consumer-tech sense. They are skeptical for good reason. Their margins are thin and their routes are punishing. Their equipment, which requires a massive upfront investment, like the cost of a house, has to work in the rain, the heat, the cold and the dark, often on deadlines that leave little room for idealism or climate values. The promise of zero-emission trucking only becomes real when it fits the brutal rhythm of actual logistics.

That is why Daimler’s move matters beyond Germany. It arrives at a moment when the global shipping and trucking system looks increasingly exposed. Wars in and around the Middle East, Red Sea disruptions from Houthi pirates, bottlenecks at ports, and the continued vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz all remind us that diesel is not just dirty. It is geopolitically fragile. A logistics system that can increasingly run on domestic electricity or locally produced hydrogen is not only cleaner. It is harder to destabilize. Saudi Aramco, the world’s richest company, and which controls endless oil reserves knows that the cost of oil can flatten in a minute once local hydrogen fuel production is figured out. That’s why they are investing in it too in Indonesia.

And yes, there is still a serious caveat. Hydrogen is only as green as the way it is made. If it comes from fossil gas without real carbon controls, the emissions story weakens quickly. The same is true of electric trucks charged from dirty grids. A zero-emission vehicle is only truly low-carbon if the energy behind it is also getting cleaner. But that does not make the transition less important. It makes the surrounding energy system more important too.

There is another reason the industry is moving this way, and it has less to do with climate than with safety. Daimler says the NextGenH2 will carry over the latest assistance systems from the eActros 600, including Active Brake Assist 6, Front Guard Assist and Active Sideguard Assist 2. These are not marketing flourishes. Heavy trucks remain among the most dangerous machines on public roads, and any serious upgrade in crash prevention matters. The more freight becomes software-defined, sensor-rich and digitally governed, the more it can move away from the old diesel model built around fatigue, blind spots and brute force.

Battery-electric trucks will likely dominate repeatable routes where charging is easy and economics are already starting to work. Hydrogen trucks will likely serve the heavier, longer and more demanding lanes where batteries still struggle in countries like Australia, Canada, and the US. In the future: Rail will matter more. Ports will become smarter. Road trains and platooning may return in digital form and freight itself will slowly become less about individual vehicles and more about coordinated systems like how airlines collaborate at airports around the world. Everyone has a space and a time for refueling, cleaning, loading, taxi-ing and take-off.

For now, Daimler’s NextGenH2 is not proof that hydrogen has won. It is proof that freight is finally getting more honest. The future was never going to be battery-only or hydrogen-only. The future is electric and hydrogen for shipping.

The post The future of trucking and freight is electric and hydrogen appeared first on Green Prophet.

When the US-Israel-Iran war rattles oil routes and sends stocks linked to oil prices in chaos, we remember how vulnerable freight really is. From Houthis blowing up shipping containers in the Red Sea to the IRGC regime stopping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest instability tied to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz has again exposed a truth that should have been obvious years ago: moving fuel, food, medicine and industrial goods with diesel trucks from source points around the world is not only dirty and expensive, it is strategically brittle.

A single chokepoint can raise costs across continents. A single delay can ripple through ports, warehouses and supermarket shelves. If there is a serious transportation lesson from this latest era of conflict, but also from the COVID era and the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war, it is that freight has to become more electric, more automated, more distributed and much safer.

The most visible symbol of that future is the Tesla Semi, but it is only one part of a wider shift that includes platooning, electric road trains, tunnel logistics (the Boring Company) and autonomous overnight freight. Tesla says their new Semi can travel up to 500 miles on a single charge, potentially charge itself, use just 1.7 kWh per mile, and recover up to 60% of range in 30 minutes using Tesla’s dedicated Semi chargers. These are no longer vague promises from a concept vehicle. They are operational logistics numbers, and they matter because freight does not need novelty. It needs reliability, lower costs, cleaner energy and fewer funerals on the road.

The real story is not just battery range. It is what electric trucks can do to the geometry of freight itself. Electric heavy vehicles are better suited to repeatable, software-managed routes than diesel trucks, especially on corridors between ports, warehouses, data centers, industrial parks and distribution hubs. They can charge during planned dwell time, brake regeneratively in traffic, and eventually move in synchronized convoys. That is where an old Green Prophet idea suddenly feels new again.

Years ago Green Prophet wrote about road trains as a way to reduce energy use and pollution on major corridors. Back then it sounded slightly utopian. Today it looks practical. Road trains are already used in places like Australia for long-haul freight, where multiple trailers are linked in controlled formation. The next version is more sophisticated: platooned electric trucks using software, automation and vehicle-to-vehicle coordination to move with less drag, better braking and tighter control. If war has reminded us how fragile fuel supply can be, then electrified road trains offer a direct answer. They move goods using power that can increasingly come from domestic grids rather than imported oil.

“Well said,” says Mark Russell, from Eco Trilogy, “Unfortunately, every new idea introduced in the West right now seems to be met with “that’ll never work” instead of “we can make this happen.” Somewhere along the way we’ve shifted from practical, solutions-focused thinking to a culture that resists improvement.

“Healthy debate is one thing—I can respect that. What’s harder to accept is the deliberate misinformation and outright falsehoods that cloud real progress. Take electric motors for example—they’re vastly more efficient than diesel, and that’s only the beginning of what’s possible when we choose to move forward instead of hold back.”

This is not just a climate story. It is also a safety story, and trucking badly needs one. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 6,050 large trucks and buses were involved in fatal crashes in 2022. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety notes that most deaths in large truck crashes are not truck occupants but people in smaller vehicles. Canadians have experienced this too well. A recent high-profile case is about an Indian truck driver with dozens of traffic offenses who wiped out an entire hockey team. Truckers themselves, though happy for the jobs that require unskilled labor, lead to back problems, opiode use and addiction. My brother-in-law got addicted to crack on this path. But in society, the danger comes from mass, height, visibility problems and human error. Trucks are essential to modern life, but the diesel freight system we tolerate is still one of the most physically unforgiving machines in daily public use. If you live in rural areas in Canada for instance, it’s fairly common to hear stories of people who have been hit by logging trucks out on old lonely logging roads.

That context matters when people dismiss autonomous or semi-autonomous freight as “experimental.” The current system is experimental too. It is just old enough that we stopped calling it that. Human fatigue, poor training, distracted driving, mechanical neglect and congested road conditions are still doing terrible work every day. The case for electric freight is not that software is magic. It is that electric and digitally managed fleets can reduce some of the oldest failure points in trucking if they are deployed honestly and regulated properly.

There is strong evidence that advanced safety systems already help. A study highlighted by the IIHS found that forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking greatly reduce crash risk for large trucks. Another transportation safety summary reported that forward collision warning reduced rear-end crash rates for large trucks by 44% and automatic emergency braking cut them by 41%. These are not futuristic gains. They are available gains, and electric trucks are especially well positioned to integrate them deeply because they are software-first vehicles from the start.

This is where the Tesla Semi has real promise beyond the brand mythology. A truck that is built around sensors, cameras, digital controls, active safety systems and fleet-level telemetry is not just a cleaner truck. It is a more governable truck. That matters because freight safety is often less about one great driver and more about whether the entire system is designed to reduce bad decisions. Electric fleets can be routed to avoid dangerous congestion, scheduled for lower-risk windows and monitored continuously for maintenance, speed, route adherence and braking behavior.

Canada has already shown what happens when freight systems become too loose and too dependent on low-cost labor with weak oversight. Ontario authorities suspended truckers’ licences after uncovering dishonest testing and training practices in the commercial driving pipeline, mainly through Indian and Pakistani new immigrants, a scandal that has raised concerns about how unqualified drivers can end up operating very large vehicles on public roads. The report in TruckNews made clear that the issue was not theoretical.

There have also been wider crackdowns in western Canada. In Alberta, regulators shut down unsafe truck driver training schools and targeted carriers linked to poor safety practices, according to another TruckNews report. This is where the so-called Indian trucker scam story belongs: not in xenophobic shorthand, but in a larger, documented failure of training quality, licensing integrity and freight oversight. The public safety issue is real and the solution is better standards, better enforcement and eventually fewer opportunities for dangerous human error in the first place.

Electric and autonomous freight systems can help close that gap. A truck that is digitally supervised from depot to destination is much harder to fake than a paper credential. Its route, braking profile, charging pattern, maintenance logs and safety events are all visible. Its blind spots can be monitored more effectively. Its lane keeping can be assisted. Its speed can be constrained. Its night operation can be managed more intelligently than traditional diesel trucking, where too much depends on exhausted people trying to survive punishing schedules.

Night freight, in particular, deserves more attention. Most people think of night driving as inherently more dangerous, and for tired human drivers that is often true. But electric freight paired with high-grade sensors, automatic braking, lane support and controlled corridors changes that equation. Roads are less congested at night. Temperatures are lower and  delivery windows are easier to manage. A future fleet of electric trucks moving through dedicated logistics lanes or semi-autonomous convoy corridors after midnight may actually be one of the safest ways to move goods through and between cities of Boston and New York. As my design prof friend Tom Klinkowstein said while driving through Soho on his electric BMW, “wheeeeee.”

That is especially important in hot countries and regions vulnerable to fuel disruption. In the Gulf, for instance, the logic is already visible. Green Prophet recently covered how Etihad Rail is using solar power at a freight terminal, which points to a larger truth: logistics is beginning to decouple from diesel. Rail, electric trucking and distributed renewable power can work together to make freight less exposed to global oil shocks. If you can move a growing share of cargo using electricity generated at home, then conflict in a shipping chokepoint matters a little less.

And then there is the tunnel idea. Elon Musk’s Boring Company is usually treated as either a curiosity or a vanity project, but its freight implications are worth taking seriously. The company explicitly positions itself around transportation, utility and freight tunnels, and Green Prophet recently looked at its proposed Dubai Loop. Most public discussion focuses on moving people, but the more consequential long game may be underground logistics around ports, airports, industrial districts and city delivery corridors.

Imagine what that means in practical terms. Instead of forcing every container, parcel or pallet through surface congestion, cities could build dedicated electric freight arteries below grade. Not for everything, but for enough high-frequency, high-value freight to change the economics of last-mile logistics. Tunnels are expensive, but so are collisions, delays, diesel pollution, road wear and lost time. If electrified trucking is the first phase of cleaner freight, then freight tunneling may become the second.

There is also a strategic military and civil defense logic to all this. When surface infrastructure is exposed, tunnel logistics and electrified transport corridors become more than just sustainability projects. They become resilience infrastructure. A society that can move food, medicine, construction materials and even emergency fuel with less dependence on imported diesel is not only cleaner: it is harder to destabilize.

There will be labor consequences and they should not be brushed aside. Better electric logistics will almost certainly mean fewer traditional long-haul driving jobs over time, especially on repetitive corridor freight. Some of those jobs will be replaced by fleet management, remote operations, charging infrastructure, maintenance, software supervision and tunnel logistics, but not all of them. That is a real social cost and governments should be planning for it now. But it should not be used as an excuse to defend a freight model that is dangerous, polluting and geopolitically fragile.

The bigger truth is simple. If the world wants safer freight after the Iran war, it should stop talking only about oil supply and start talking about transport design around renewable energy nodes and battery storage stations. Electric trucks like the Tesla Semi, road-train logic, managed night freight, autonomous convoying and freight tunnels are not fringe ideas anymore. They are pieces of a practical, lower-risk logistics future.

The old diesel model gave us pollution, dependency, fatigue and too many deaths on the road. The next freight era should be quieter, cleaner and much less lethal. That would be a technological upgrade worth taking seriously.

The big question I have is if the first versions will include sleeper cabins. Can a trucker just put the vehicle on automatic mode and write poetry from his cabin behind the wheel?

The post Tesla Semi, electric road trains and the safer freight future after the Iran war appeared first on Green Prophet.

Etihad Rail, the developer and operator of the UAE National Rail Network, signed a landmark agreement with Emerge, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC – Masdar and EDF Group to solarize the railway network’s freight terminal in Ghuweifat.

The total installed capacity is comprised of a 600 kWp ground-mounted solar PV system in addition to a 2.56 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), and upon completion is expected to generate up to 85% of the terminal’s electricity consumption.

The agreement was signed by Ahmed Al-Yafei, CEO of Etihad Rail Infrastructure and Eng. Abdulaziz AlObaidli, Chairman of Emerge, and witnessed by His Excellency Shadi Malak, CEO of Etihad Rail, Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar, and Luc Koechlin, CEO EDF Middle East.

Under the terms of the agreement, Etihad Rail will leverage Emerge’s technology to generate solar power to supplement its Ghuweifat freight terminal with renewable energy during daylight hours, thus, offsetting night-time energy consumption as well as reducing CO2 emissions by more than 8,500 tons over the duration of the contract.

We are leading the charge in the shift to a low-carbon and energy efficient economy. By collaborating with Emerge and initiating the transition to solar power, we are not only reducing our environmental impact, but also building greener and more resilient supply chains, thus, supporting our nation’s goals and ambitions for a more sustainable future,” says Shadi Malak, CEO of Etihad Rail.

This initiative represents a significant step in Etihad Rail’s long-term commitment to environmental stewardship, directly contributing to its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy. Furthermore, it demonstrates Etihad Rail’s leadership in driving forward the UAE’s Net Zero by 2050 Strategy, supplemented by the railway network’s contribution to reducing CO2 emissions in the UAE road transport sector by 21% annually by 2050.

The Ghuweifat freight terminal serves as a key hub for facilitating seamless cross-border operations. With its strategic location at the border with Saudi Arabia, the terminal is uniquely positioned to accelerate sustainable logistics solutions regionally, aligning with Etihad Rail’s objectives to foster more eco-friendly freight operations.

By integrating solar technology into its network, Etihad Rail’s Ghuweifat terminal will eventually become self-sufficient, harnessing renewable energy to operate sustainably and reduce its carbon footprint, thus, setting a new standard for efficient and green logistics and infrastructure.

Related: Etihad Rail pioneers 3D plastics operations

Emerge, a joint venture between Masdar and EDF Group, was formed in 2021 to develop distributed solar, energy storage, and hybrid solutions for commercial and industrial applications. As an energy services company, Emerge offers clients full turnkey solutions through solar power agreements at no up-front cost to the client.

Etihad Rail connects the emirates, linking industrial and commercial centres with 11 terminals, including four major ports: Ruwais Inland Terminal, Ruwais Port, ICAD, Khalifa Port, DIC, Jebel Ali Port, Al Ghail Dry Port, Fujairah Port, Ghuwaifat Terminal, Shah Terminal, and Habshan Terminal.

Ghuwaifat is a small town in the far west of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The place forms a border crossing to Saudi Arabia on the transit road to Qatar. Ghuwaifat belongs to the urban area of Sila, which extends in the west to the border with Saudi Arabia.

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In the context of reducing the carbon footprint of passenger and public transportation, electric cars, and even electric buses are increasingly being used. On the territory of the European Union, replacing internal combustion vehicles with them in the future is not just a pious wish but a ready-made plan, the implementation of which has already begun and should be completed by 2035. After all, from then on, no new cars and vans will be allowed to be registered in any country that is part of this agreement. These used ones can be used, sold, and bought until the end of their useful life.

While in the case of passenger cars, customers are becoming more and more convinced of electric motors, the electromobility of the truck segment still raises many questions. In 2022, this type of vehicle accounted for just 0.6% of all vehicles used for road transportation*. Although more manufacturers are offering to increase efficiency and range, replacing the internal combustion vehicle fleet with them is still a plan for the distant future.

It must be admitted, however, that the preliminary statistics look impressive. According to a study by The International Council on Clean Transportation, hydrogen fuel cells in trucks can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15-33%. In addition, if so-called green hydrogen – produced using renewable energy – is used to power them, emissions drop by up to 89%**.

Investors looking for zero- and low-carbon solutions are now leaning towards the rail transportation segment, which is showing considerable success in this regard. Trains are today regarded as one of the most efficient ways to transport a large load over a significant distance with minimal CO2 emissions. In some European countries, it is already possible to encounter almost 100 percent zero-emission railroads.

What solutions will reduce the transportation industry’s carbon footprint?

One of the most essential ways to decarbonize the transportation industry is undoubtedly to use green modes of transportation as much as possible. We are primarily talking about rail transportation, which offers the highest energy efficiency and lowest greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is no doubt that the decarbonization of road transportation is an ongoing process, and electric trucks have the potential to dominate this market over time.

However, it is worth noting other solutions that could determine the reduction of the carbon footprint of freight transportation. These include such issues as:

• route optimization – thanks to modern TMS systems, logistics companies can plan routes in such a way that covering them has the least possible impact on the environment, regardless of the mode of transport chosen;
• cargo consolidation – assembling several smaller loads heading in the same direction into one large one translates into efficient use of transportation space. This can reduce the number of cars, trains, or planes in use, resulting in lower CO2 emissions;
• efficient transport management – modern technological solutions can be used to plan the transport route and monitor it from loading to unloading. This will make it possible, among other things, to control fuel consumption, as well as driver habits, which can affect a higher carbon footprint;
• preventing damage to goods in transit – by protecting the cargo you are transporting from spoilage or damage, you reduce the risk of having to transport it again;
• efficient vehicle fleet – by performing regular maintenance on the means of transportation that make up your fleet, you reduce the risk of unforeseen breakdowns and accidents. While in the case of truck transport, this is a way to reduce wasted fuel and wasted time, in the context of shipping, this equates to reducing the risk of causing an environmental disaster.

Sustainable logistics is not just about transportation itself

While transportation is by far the part of the logistics process that has the most significant impact on the environment, it is not the only one. The construction and organization of warehouses and distribution centers also significantly impact the industry’s carbon footprint.

Concerning the buildings, using renewable energy and water sources, among other things, is essential. We are talking, for example, about the use of photovoltaic installations and heat pumps, rainwater harvesting, and even the use of gray water and carbon dioxide to cool buildings.

And remember eco-friendly materials for packing goods for transport and storage. Meanwhile, goods management at the destination will be improved by so-called beacons, which are miniature electrical devices that inform, among other things, about the location of a particular cargo. This will make it possible to plan unloading optimally, as well as to organize storage space.

Selecting the right partners who share similar values will also help reduce the company’s carbon footprint. It is an excellent idea to outsource the planning of transportation processes to a company with relevant experience in this field and a wide range of available options. Road, rail, sea, or air transport organized in cooperation with the transport and logistics company AsstrA will work perfectly in this role.

Introducing solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of a logistics company will undoubtedly take time to succeed. To ensure that all processes work flawlessly and do not cause losses in the interests of investors, it is worth taking the help of professionals in this field. It is not worth rushing in the context of changes aimed at decarbonizing freight transport. It is better to do it gradually but effectively – instead of betting on greenwashing, which does not contribute to reducing the problem.

The post Low- and zero-carbon freight transportation – is it even possible? appeared first on Green Prophet.

After a turbulent 2021, with increasing public attention towards the fragility of the global supply chain and shipping industry as a whole, companies are looking for a truly sustainable option to ship their products. Similarly, individuals are seeking environmentally-friendly travel experiences.

Both of which the Dutch-based EcoClipper can provide with sailing ships.

EcoClipper plans to launch retrofitted and purpose-built sailing vessels capable of carrying cargo and passengers on a variety of international routes.

The company has developed a series of shipping lines: Trans-Atlantic, Eastern, Trans-Pacific and Global. Recently, it was announced that EcoClipper will start operating on the North Sea – an attractive option which opens up sustainable shipping and travel from the UK to mainland Europe.

It takes substantial investments to build a global sustainable sailing ship fleet. However the strategy of EcoClipper is based on investing in one ship at a time.

As such, a series of investment tranches are offered through certificates in the EcoClipper Coöperatie U.A. The first tranche is aiming for €140,000, to purchase the first retrofit vessel. The second and third tranche will bring the financing to almost one million Euros.

Follow up rounds will become larger as the community of the company grows. Investments for the first tranche start at 50 certificates for a total price of €350. Investors in the early rounds purchase certificates for a discount, while also investing in the future growth of the company.

CEO and founder, Captain Jorne Langelaan says, “At the end of last year, during the climate talks in Glasgow, it became obvious again that if we want a livable future all our industries need an immediate and absolute transition to sustainability. With EcoClipper, words are put into practice and everyone is invited to join and invest in shipping propelled by the power of the wind.”

Another Dutch guy is aiming to clean up the plastics in the sea. He started when he was a teen. See our story on Boylan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup. 

The post Wind powered freight and travel ship retrofits to set sail appeared first on Green Prophet.

Bloomberg news and analytics company has picked 12 companies to watch that could decarbonize our planet. BloombergNEF is a strategic research provider covering global commodity markets and the disruptive technologies driving the transition to a low-carbon economy. 

They help commodity trading, corporate strategy, finance and policy professionals navigate change and generate opportunities. The winners of the annual contest were selected as their innovations fill important gaps in optimizing long-haul freight, making sustainable materials, tracking greenhouse gases, valuing carbon sinks and reducing energy and chemical use.

Since the inception of the BNEF Pioneers program more than a decade ago, cheap, clean technologies such as renewable energy and electric vehicles have changed the world.

Although these technologies will decarbonize large parts of the world economy, there are still significant challenges to address in achieving net-zero emissions and slowing climate change. The 2020s will arguably be an even more pivotal decade in the fight against climate change, and the Pioneers competition this year has recognized transformative technology solutions filling some remaining net-zero innovation gaps. For instance, in:

1. Managing and optimizing long-haul freight
2. Advancing materials and techniques for sustainable products
3. Monitoring and understanding our changing planet

The 2021 BNEF Pioneers are:

Challenge 1: Managing and optimizing long-haul freight

• Convoy (U.S.) provides a digital freight network and moves thousands of truckloads around the United States each day through its optimized connected network of carriers, saving money for shippers and eliminating carbon waste.
• Nautilus Labs (U.S.) advances the efficiency of ocean commerce through artificial intelligence. It provides a predictive decision-support solution that drives sustainability and profitability in global maritime shipping.
• Ontruck (Spain) is a digital transportation company that combines automation and machine learning to drive out waste in the logistics process. Ontruck offers an efficient and low-carbon solution to move freight, helping shippers to reduce transportation costs, increasing earnings for carriers, and removing carbon emissions generated from empty trucks.

Challenge 2: Advancing materials and techniques for sustainable products

• Cemvita Factory (U.S.) engineers microbes that use carbon dioxide or methane as a feedstock for the production of carbon-negative industrial chemicals. These chemicals are used by oil and gas, chemical, mining and aerospace companies that seek to apply nature-inspired technologies for reducing their carbon footprint.
• Pyrowave (Canada) electrifies chemical processes in the circular economy of plastics. Pyrowave uses microwave technology to supply the chemical industry with recycled raw materials that are drop-in substitutes for virgin chemicals.
• Via Separations (U.S.) targets U.S. energy consumption that is wasted each year through the process of separating chemicals, by electrifying energy-intensive steps in chemical production.

Challenge 3: Monitoring and understanding our changing planet

• Pachama (U.S.) uses machine learning with satellite imaging to measure carbon captured in forests. Pachama brings the latest technology in remote sensing, satellite imaging and AI to the world of forest carbon in order to enable forest conservation and restoration at scale.
• Planet (U.S.) provides global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions to better manage risk across various sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, energy and natural resources.
• QLM Technology (U.K.) offers its quantum technology to provide an understanding of greenhouse gas emissions in an affordable, accurate, scalable way using camera systems that visualize and quantify emissions as they occur.

Wildcards:

• 75F (U.S.) is an IoT-based building management system using smart sensors and controls to make commercial buildings more efficient, comfortable and healthier.
• ECOncrete (Israel) provides technology for coastal and marine infrastructure – increasing concrete strength and durability, while creating ecological value and an active carbon sink. Their CEO was sadly killed on a scooter last month in Tel Aviv, but the great idea lives on. 
• Pivot Bio (U.S.) makes nitrogen-producing microbial products that can replace the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer for cereal crops, giving farmers a crop nutrition solution to achieve more consistent yields and improve air and water quality.

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