TOWARD SUSTAINABLE CITIES
2016 - EDITED BY
EDITORIAL
cities more sustainable, and to illustrate how stakeholders can better work together to reach this goal. It offers a 360-degree approach, with examples from all over the world, to show that urban sustainability represents not a utopia, but a reality already under construction. Divided into six different categories – environmental quality, circular economy, energy, water, construction, transportation – this publication highlights the most promising solutions that have proven their high potential for impact. You will discover the stories of a technological breakthrough that converts carbon dioxide into fuel, an efficient system to create local circular economy networks, an innovative permeable pavement allowing water to restore aquifers, a solar-powered subway, and many more. But these proofs of concept are illustrations of deeper, more systemic changes that need to be strengthened. Experts from leading non-profit organizations (the B Team, C40, WWF, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, etc.), corporations (Total, SUEZ, Lafarge, etc.) and the media share their views to help us understand these trends and better identify levers of action. They emphasize that each and everyone of us, as city dwellers, consumers, government representatives, businesspersons, journalists and citizens of the world has an active role to play. What will yours be?
EDITORIAL
T
oday’s societies face environmental challenges of unprecedented magnitude and complexity. Last September, the world passed the alarming 400 parts per million carbon dioxide threshold, and air pollution has reached all-time highs in many parts of the globe. The root causes of climate change are multiple and intrinsically linked, so they need to be addressed in a collaborative way by all stakeholders. But today’s societies are also more educated and connected than ever before, both at a local and global level, making them well-equipped to build this much-needed coordinated response together. Cities stand out as ideal places for inventing and testing these alternative models for the future. They gather many different stakeholders and are extraordinary laboratories for testing and implementing innovative solutions. And they don’t operate in silos: they also actively share their experiences with one another and collaborate to develop more resilient, adaptive models. This publication represents a collaborative approach, just as the response to mitigate climate change must be. For the first time, the world’s leading economic newspapers and global experts from the public and the private sectors are brought together to present the most promising innovations that make
3
CONTRIBUTORS
Yolanda Kakabadse
President of WWF International
p.14
Sarah Marquet
Urban Organizations Services, ADEME
p.15
“Business will play a huge role in the transition that we need from business as usual to very significant cutting of emissions by the industrialized world. We should be doing far more.” Mary Robinson
Former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation
— Mary Robinson
CONTRIBUTORS
p.16-17
4
Dame Ellen MacArthur
Leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
p.24-25
Marie-Ange Debon
Group Senior Executive Vice-President, International Division CEO, SUEZ
p.26
Jean-Louis Chaussade Chief Executive Officer, SUEZ
p.36-37
Pierre Chabret
Anne Hidalgo
Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
p.38-39
Dominique Copin
Regional Development Division, ADEME
Senior Advisor Climate Change, TOTAL
p.47
p.48-49
Franรงois Perrot
Robin Bonsey
Head of Affordable Housing & 14Trees Ltd, LafargeHolcim
HYSTRA
p.64
Nicolas Le Berre
Founder of New CITYzens
p.66
Bo Lidegaard
Former Editor in Chief at Politiken
p.66
CONTRIBUTORS
p.56
5
Contents
FairPh Xeros
Phénix
Technopôle Angus
ForCity
LanzaTech Wattway TransActive Grid
Eco-dome
Gravalock
Wecyclers
Cold Hubs Brazil Coalition
Santiago’s subway
EDITORIAL p.3 CONTRIBUTORS p.4-5 —
CIRCULAR ECONOMY p.19
WATER MANAGEMENT p.29
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY p.9
Fairphone Phénix Wecyclers Expert view on circular economy
SanAqua Brazil Coalition Gravalock Xeros Expert view on water management
AeroState ForestFinance Group Green Bonds Expert view on environmental quality
hone Green Bonds
ESSEN AeroState ForestFinance Group
40SouthEnergy
Zhuzhou
ASB Biodiesel LC3
SanAqua
Map © Free Vector Maps.com
RENEWABLE ENERGY p.41
SMART URBAN PLANNING p.51
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT p.59
40SouthEnergy ASB Biodiesel TransActive Grid Cold Hubs LanzaTech Expert view on renewable energy
LC3 ESSEN ForCity Technopôle Angus Eco-Dome Expert view on smart urban planning
Wattway Zhuzhou Santiago’s Subway Expert view on sustainable transport — ACTORS OF CHANGE p.66 EDITORS p.67
Environm quality Innovative solutions to make cities greener and healthier while ensuring the protection of our planet’s biodiversity.
mental
IN THIS CHAPTER
p.10 ForestFinance p.11 Green Bonds p.13 AeroState p.14 Expert view: Yolanda Kakabadse p.15 Expert view: Sarah Marquet —
9
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
BY
TREES: AN ASSET CLASS WITH SKY HIGH BENEFITS ForestFinance invests in the forest for environmental sustainability, social good and financial returns. — By Nina Siegal For years, it was accepted that protecting forests was the job of charitable organizations. A German environmentalist named
WEBSITE
www.forestfinance.de/en COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Germany MATURITY LEVEL
Scaling up CONTACT
Julia Kroll, Press officer [email protected]
Harry Assenmacher came to feel that this was a faulty assumption. “To do good things for the environment you have to change the economic system,” he said. When ecologists turned their focus to reforestation as a tool to reverse climate change, Assenmacher decided that any meaningful large-scale reforestation project would need to be financed by a company, not charities. That was the seed of ForestFinance, the firm he founded in Bonn. It sells “sustainable forest products” as an investment class, akin to stocks and bonds. The firm invites investors to buy shares (i.e. trees) in forests that are ethically and sustainably managed.
E N V I R O N M E N TA L QUA L I T Y | F O R E S T F I N A N C E
In Panama, Colombia, Peru and Vietnam, the company’s partners plant new forests
10
To do good things for the environment you have to change the economic system.
on fallow grasslands that were once tropical rainforests. These are not mono-culture tree plantations, which deplete the soil, but rather mixed-species forests, designed to provide habitats for wildlife and offset CO2 emissions. ForestFinance also adds a mix of tree species to existing monoculture forests for more biodiversity. ForestFinance has competitors, but Assenmacher says they tend to do monoculture tree farming, which doesn’t focus on biodiversity or social impact. ForestFinance also guarantees fair wages and good working conditions for its employees, who are often indigenous people. The company’s projects have received certification from several bodies: the Forest Stewardship Council, the UTZ program for sustainable farming and better workers’ conditions, and the Gold Standard for carbon emission reductions.
Investment products include long-term and short-term plans. In the TreeSavings-
Plan, customers lease a parcel of land on which trees are planted. Twenty-five years later the trees are selectively harvested, leaving the forest intact; investors earn money off the sale of timber. The plan costs €396 (US$450) over one year, and anticipates annual returns of 6 percent over 25 years, for revenues of €1,740 per share (payments are not made annually).
For those who prefer not to wait so long to see returns, there’s the PureCocoa, a one-time investment of €3,250 to lease 1,000 square meters of land in Peru, for sustainable, single origin and fairly-produced cocoa. Payouts begin in as early as five years. Investing in forests is not without risk, including fire, drought and insects, so ForestFinance offers insurance for the first five years after planting, when trees are most vulnerable. But Assenmacher’s bigger risk was attempting to create a company of this kind back in the 1990s. At first, he tried it out as a private individual, investing a few thousand euros to buy and reforest land in Panama as a kind of personal pension fund. A “few very brave friends and family” members joined him, each investing a little bit. Those early investors have received small payouts for harvested wood and carbon credits, though the bulk of their returns will come in five to seven years. Meanwhile, people who invested in GreenAcacia have earned approximately 6 percent a year. Satisfied that his experiment could work, Assenmacher officially founded ForestFinance in 2005. It grew much faster than anticipated, collecting more than $100 million from 17,000 clients. More than 90 percent of them are in Germany, with newer investors elsewhere in Europe. (In 2013, ForestFinance created an offshoot in France.) Assenmacher says that any criticism of his company generally comes from the conservative investment community (since ForestFinance profits tend to be lower than those of traditional stocks) or from environmental activists who feel that trees should not be used to earn money. To the latter, he responds: “If you want to save the environment, you have to find a way of sustainable production.”
Between 1990 and 2015, the world lost some 129 million ha of forest, an area the size of South Africa. Source: WWF
129 M ha
FREEING UP GREEN MONEY FOR GREEN BONDS Green Bonds — By Cordelia Chaton Large scale green projects – from geothermal energy to wind power or environmentally responsible waste disposal - are often
WEBSITE
www.bourse.lu
1/3
cost-intensive and can struggle to attract high level investment. However, for some years now there has been one particularly favourable location for the international financial community when it comes to such projects – the Luxemburg Stock Exchange (LuxSE), which has become a leader in the area of green bonds.
Development in this area began hesitantly due to the 2008 financial crisis, but in
2014 the number of green bonds underwent a dramatic increase. Among issuers were the World Bank, the KfW, the Canadian province of Ontario, the Asian Development Bank and Gruppo Hera, from Italy. Around 26 companies have chosen to step onto the green platform at the Luxemburg Stock Exchange, which corresponds to
a value of around forty-five billion dollars, with 110 bonds. According to the Stock Exchange, the most important features that attract issuers are transparency, accountability, easy comparability, and advocacy of the highest possible standards. Those who want to list their green bond in Luxemburg have to disclose a good deal of information. “Through this process we hope to avoid so-called greenwashing”, Chiara Caprioli, Business Development Manager at the LuxSE, underlines. Behind the rapid development of these green bonds lie political developments
such as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21). “To be able to realise such political goals, we will need both public and private finance… Stock exchanges can play an important role in providing the means for financing climate change goals”, Caprioli explains.
E N V I R O N M E N TA L QUA L I T Y | G R E E N B O N D S
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
11
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
BY
WHETHER THE AIR BE FINE WEBSITE
www.aerostate.org COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Russia MATURITY LEVEL
Ongoing activities with measurable impact CONTACT
Dmitry Solomentsev, CEO [email protected]
With 2016 hitting all heat records in countries and regions worldwide, one of
the major impacts of rising temperatures and drier seasons for big cities is growing air pollution. Information about air quality is becoming as important as weather forecasts, says AeroState, a startup created by four young physicists from Moscow, which launched an online air pollution forecast system on a local level for metropolises all over the globe.
A very hot and dry summer in most regions of Russia has resulted in a higher than usual number of forest fires – most of them in
After seeing our forecasts, a mother with a child can choose another district for a walk, or a runner might change their route because air quality in big cities varies even within an area of a few kilometers.
Siberia and the Far East of Russia, far away from human settlements. Yet winds have brought the smoke from Siberian fires as far as 4500 km westwards – all the way to the capital. Greenpeace Russia and other environmental groups have expressed their concerns about the environmental effects of the rising number of forest fires, blaming both unsustainable forestry policy in Russia and consequences of climate change. “This summer we witnessed a so called temperature inversion in Moscow — when due to very hot and dry weather the temperatures were increasing with height. That phenomena along with the smog from the forest fires made air in a city with more than 15 million residents more polluted than normal – we, however, forecasted that and warned our users about the risks”, says Dmitry Solomentsev, CEO and founder of the AeroState. The startup, supported by investment from Mikhail Kokorich, the founder of Russia’s private satellite developer Dauira Aerospace, was launched last year. The idea was to give city residents very specific information about air pollution by a number of pollutants (such as CO, Co2, Nox, So2, O3, PM 2.5 and PM 10) in their neighbourhoods. “After seeing our forecasts, say, a mother with a child can choose another district for a walk, or a runner might change their route — because air quality in big cities varies even within an area of a few kilometers”, says Alexander Ganshin, one of the creators behind the project.
AeroState collects data about industrial and power plant emissions and car traffic (from OpenStreetMap and Nokia HERE), information from the air quality monitoring stations in cities, meteorological data (mainly about wind and humidity, which can seriously influence pollution level), as well as satellite data. This information is processed with a help of a mathematical model, developed by AeroState’s founders, after which forecasts for two days in particular locations all over cities appear. “We keep on back-checking if our forecasts come true — say, comparing the results with the city air quality monitoring system in Moscow, and around 95% of our air pollution forecasts are actually accurate”, says Alexander Ganshin. The startup doesn’t compete with existing (mostly public) air quality monitoring systems, with the latter providing real-time data around monitoring sites. “Official statistics can be quite good, say, in Moscow, we have a pretty decent air monitoring system, but air quality data has to be very local”, Dmitry Solomentsev argues. AeroState, as well as providing air pollution forecasts cost-free to private individuals online, also aims to develop a B2B
business, cooperating with real estate agencies, running/step-counting apps, and pharmaceutical companies. So far very detailed pollution maps are available online on the startup’s website for eight pilot cities — Moscow, London, New-York, San-Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Barcelona, with precision at 1 km² per pixel. Up till now pollution forecasts have been mostly interesting for US and European customers, but AeroState also hopes for further development in Asia, where air pollution is becoming an ever urgent environmental challenge. Globally, there are two major competitors for AeroState — a French company Plumelabs and an Israeli company Breezometer, though both of them only give pollution levels for the cities as a whole, not working at a hyper-local level.
E N V I R O N M E N TA L QUA L I T Y | A E R O S TAT E
AeroState Russian environmental startup provides forecasts of air pollution in cities worldwide — By Angelina Davydova
13
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
BIODIVERSITY POWERS NATURE, AND BUSINESSES TOO
E N V I R O N M E N TA L QUA L I T Y | Y O L A N D A K A K A B A D S E
It is time for businesses to recognize the interdependence between our demands for food, water and energy and our reliance on the Earth’s natural systems.
14
Yolanda Kakabadse is the President of WWF International (since 2010) and previously served as Minister of the Environment in the Republic of Ecuador from 1998 until 2000. She currently serves as a member of the B Team.
It would be difficult to find a company today that doesn’t keep track of the stock market index. From London and New York to Tokyo and Sao Paulo, the rise and fall of each trend is eyed with scrutiny, hypotheses and actions rapidly developed to prepare against or mitigate threats. And yet, few may have taken note of another important index that was released last week, whose trends could impact their production, practices and profits just as much, if not more. WWF’s Living Planet Report 2016 publishes data from the Living Planet Index which monitors the state of the world’s biodiversity much like the stock market index indicates the pulse of the global economy. It shows that since 1970, species populations across land, sea and freshwater have declined by 58 per cent and if current trends continue, the world could see a potential two-thirds decline in global wildlife within a span of the half-century ending in 2020. In
addition to the obvious deficit in biodiversity this would lead to, the fall-out of such a drop could also spell a loss for businesses. Biodiversity underpins the many Earth systems we take for granted, providing us with the air we breathe and the food and water we consume. It maintains the ecosystems that society and its various enterprises need to thrive, ensuring access to essential raw materials, commodities and services. And yet instead of using the long-term visionary approach the best business decisions are known for, we seem determined to let our short-sightedness get the better of us, and the planet. For the first time in Earth’s history, people are overpowering the planet using resources faster than they can be regenerated. Unsustainable agriculture, fisheries, mining and other human activities are leading to unprecedented habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation, pollution and climate change
It is time for businesses to recognize the interdependence between our demands for food, water and energy and our reliance on the Earth’s natural systems. By reforming our current ways of producing, using and consuming food and energy, they can help ensure we stop driving the planet, its biodiversity and ecosystems to the edge while improving financial stability and avoiding the cost implications of resource scarcity and environmental damage such as floods, storms and drought. Secondly, businesses can also avoid the cost burden of future regulation in markets that begin to regulate in reaction to environmental decline or to reputational disasters. Today, 4 November, marks the day of the entry into force of the Paris Agreement. It is hard to believe that less than a year ago, we were all together in Paris – governments, businesses and civil society – working tirelessly toward a global deal that would help steer the planet away from climate catastrophe. In the corridors of Le Bourget, busi-
nesses were applauded for showing the way as they come forward with innovation, investment and ambition to tackle climate change. As we look toward 2020, the year when the commitments made under the Paris climate deal will kick in, the first environmental actions under the globe’s new sustainable development plan are due and countries are supposed to meet international biodiversity targets, businesses have an opportunity yet again to be the trailblazers and protect our planet’s incredible biodiversity. We have the tools, the know-how and the technology we need to address the root causes pushing our planet to the brink. What we require now is for businesses to lead the way with visionary leadership to translate momentum into action.
HELPING CITIES AND REGIONS BALANCE RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND QUALITY OF LIFE Sarah Marquet Engineer at the Urban Organizations Services, ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency) Cities consist of the majority of the world’s population today, and face numerous challenges. Urban planning, as well as city management, is one of the most powerful tools in making the concept of sustainable cities a reality. A multi-disciplinary, systemic approach is essential, as the issues are diverse: energy management, greenhouse gas emission reduction, climate change mitigation and adaptation, mobility, landscapes, quality of life, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, to name a few. Biodiversity provides us with goods and services worth twice the value of what we produce each year. Nature within cities can help maintain and develop urban biodiversity if correctly implemented. Examples of
this include limiting soil sealing and preserving ecological continuity, notably through plant selection, and revegetation on available surfaces, among others. Nature in urban settings can determine the quality of life a city fosters, as well as its attractiveness. Green spaces are a key criteria for more than 7 out of 10 Europeans who, when choosing their place of residence, feel that proximity to these areas is important [1]. When it comes to neighborhood upgrades and social cohesion, collective gardens, for instance, can play a role in the value of the area. Nature in urban areas contributes to better health among residents, allows for physical activity, playing areas for children, and can support better
mental health through its calming effect. There are many approaches when it comes to sustainable urban planning, with each one offering unique qualities. In France, the environmental urbanization approach (AEU2), formalized by ADEME, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency, seeks to bring the focus to the content, analysis, and prioritization of the issues at hand, the setting of objectives, and the means of implementation. Whichever approach is used, it must ensure a high quality of life and the conservation of resources.
E N V I R O N M E N TA L QUA L I T Y | S A R A H M A R Q U E T
and while their impacts are increasingly evident in the natural world, the consequences on people and businesses are real too. From food and water scarcity to growing evidence of climate-related risks faced by individuals, businesses and countries, the evidence has never been clearer. Protecting the environment alongside economic and social development is critical not just for our well-being but makes business sense. Producing better and consuming more wisely is key to establishing resilient markets that stay within our planet’s safe operating space, safeguard our natural wealth, and contribute to overall economic and social well-being. As Paul Polman, CEO at Unilever stresses: “There is no business case for exhausting our natural capital. Taking action to protect land, water, forests and communities not only helps mitigate risks in the supply chain, but also provides enormous opportunities for businesses willing to invest in the future of technologies.”
[1] Unep-Ipsos (2013) Enquête “Jardins et espaces verts, l’exception culturelle française?”
15
EXPERT VIEW
Mary Robinson is the former President of Ireland (19901997) and a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2010, she created the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, a center for thought leadership, education and advocacy on climate justice. She currently serves as a member of the B Team.
ON CLIMATE JUSTICE M A RY R O B I N S O N
Q. What makes climate change the biggest threat facing human rights? MR. It is the biggest threat to human rights
16
because it is an existential threat. It’s already undermining a whole range of human rights: rights to food and water and health and safety. But it’s also posing a threat to humanity itself. We have a short time in which to get on track for a safe world for our children and grandchildren. That, for me, is the greatest human rights issue we could be possibly facing.
Q. In your opinion, did the COP21 agreement adequately address the issue of climate justice? MR. COP21 was a very climate justice COP.
There was very good participation and a huge interest of civil society, of business, of entrepreneurs. But also obviously govern-
I often think there is too much emphasis on economic and environmental sustainability, and not enough emphasis on social sustainability.
Q. What does this inclusive transition to mitigating climate change require of businesses? MR. Business will play a huge role in the tran-
sition that we need from business as usual to very significant cutting of emissions by the industrialized world that benefited from fossil fuel. We should be doing far more. We should be focusing on energy efficiency, putting a price on carbon, having businesses that factor in a carbon price to everything they do, and also a realization by business that they can help communities to become more resilient. The B Team that I’m associated with is trying to give leadership with a commitment to have 0 carbon emissions by 2050. These are heads of big companies that have easy entry to the political leaders and can influence them.
Q. How can cities best prepare themselves for an inclusive, just and equal transition towards sustainability? MR. Cities are absolutely crucial for cli-
mate action. It was great to see at the sum-
mit in 2014 a big alliance, a compact of cities. There’s the C40 cities, there are other networks of cities, and it’s very good to see what cities are doing. But I sometimes think there’s too much emphasis on economic and the environmental sustainability, and not enough emphasis on social sustainability. It’s very important—looking at the new climate economy and the role of cities and trying to have carbon neutral buildings—to remember the poorest. About 15 percent of people in the developing world live in slums and that is an issue that needs top priority. Q. We run the Solutions&Co operation with roughly 20 economic newspapers around the world and we have a partnership with the B Team as well. What does it mean for you and the B Team to partner with an operation that tries to identify and bring to light these sustainable business initiatives that can impact the sustainability of cities? MR. One of the things that the B Team is
trying to do is to advocate and to amplify its voice, and obviously media are a great way of amplifying, particularly if media can act together. I understand that you have a day on the 4th of November and I’m very glad to say that you will be promoting the idea of sustainability in cities and what business can do. This is such an urgent issue. We do need action to be taken. It’s wonderful that the Paris agreement is being ratified so quickly. It’s very likely to come into effect this year. Even maybe at the COP itself, and that is something we didn’t imagine could happen. So we’re changing and we have a lot of change to do. We cannot have business as usual.
M A RY R O B I N S O N
ments. And because we had a lot of ministerial informal meetings, ministries listened to each other and they listened to the small island states and the least developed countries and they heard them. There was a high-ambition coalition formed and that was how we got the new target for where the world has to go to be safe. That is well below 2°C, and working for 1.5°C. We also have a commitment now to be carbon neutral by the second half of the century. We have a whole article on loss and damage. And we have much more emphasis on adaptation, and the preamble is full of human rights.
17
Circular economy Innovative solutions for cities to tackle urban challenges and generate new opportunities for regenerative growth.
y
IN THIS CHAPTER
p.20 Phénix p.21 Wecyclers p.22 FairPhone p.24 Expert view: Dame Ellen MacArthur p.26 Expert view: Marie-Ange Debon —
19
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
BY
SAVING EXCESS FOOD FROM THE ASHES Phénix Founded in 2014, French start-up Phénix is working to connect large supermarkets and smaller associations to give unsold products, especially food, a second chance. — By Julie Chauveau Under the glass roof of a modern converted warehouse , around a dozen young
WEBSITE
www.wearephenix.com COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
France MATURITY LEVEL
Ongoing activities with measurable impact CONTACT
Nicolas Piffeteau Project Manager [email protected]
professionals share an office space with a foosball table. This is Phénix: an innovative start-up company created in March 2014 by two friends, Jean Moreau and Baptiste Corval. At the core of their company lies the understanding that food waste is an untapped market like any other resource. Phénix – the French word for the bird that rises triumphantly from the ashes – wants to reduce food waste by serving as a link between large supermarkets and various charitable associations; putting the circular economy into action.
Phénix is also the result of co-founder Jean Moreau’s personal search for meaning in life. The 33-year-old former invest-
CIRCULAR ECONOMY | PHENIX
ment banker retrained after realising that he did not want to “compile Excel spread sheets for the rest of his life to end his career at 50 with lots of money in an account.”
20
If all the supermarkets gave away their unsold food, there would be a greater supply than we need.
In supermarkets, products deemed unfit for consumption – whether because they
have exceeded their sell-by dates or are somehow damaged – are generally piled in stock rooms before being thrown out covered in bleach or reduced to ashes. “Destroying these products incurs a cost for the companies,” Moreau explains as he scrolls through slide after slide of graphics showing the many ways in which supermarkets run up costs from the storage and transport of surplus products, in addition to an incineration tax. Phénix is seeking to reach agreements with large companies to help them stop was-
ting money – or even earn some back – by donating unwanted items. Thanks to French legislation on donations to charitable associations, Phénix can ensure companies take a tax deduction equal to 66 percent of their value. The start-up then gets a slice of the savings through a 30 percent commission. Any and every product is suitable for donation as long as it still has a carrying value, which includes food items, dented tins of paint, outdated board games or last season’s clothes.
Phénix’s platform provides large supermarkets with an easy means of scanning in the products they want to donate and providing the expiry date. A link is then made between the distributor and the association, like a match on a dating website. To increase the participation of smaller, local shops, Phénix does the legwork, providing collectors to pick up goods and deliver them to associations on eco-scooters. Phénix’s staff also help train shop employees to sort products and raise their awareness on the issues surrounding food waste. Phénix’s principal target is the food industry – the start-up has already partnered
with 220 companies, including Carrefour, Franprix, Leclerc and Système U. Products not meant for human consumption (around a quarter of all donations), go to circuses, zoos and aquariums.
In 2015, the start-up reported a one million euro turnover. It is now working in French
cities beyond Paris, such as Montpellier, Rennes and Lyon, and plans to add around 40 people to its team. At the same time, it is opening to the international market, starting with Spain and Portugal, whose taxation rules on donations are similar to those in France. Of course, Phénix’s co-founders fear that any changes in French tax laws would put a spanner in the works of their corporate donation system. Moreau has also considered the implications of a potential saturation of the market, “If all the supermarkets gave away their unsold food, there would be a greater supply than we need.”
One third of the food produced globally is wasted throughout the process of production or consumption. Source: UNEP
1/3
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
CYCLING TO RECYCLE
Cities around the world struggle with waste management. Lagos is one where the
WEBSITE
www.wecyclers.com COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Nigeria
situation is particularly dire—an estimated two-thirds of the population live in slums, many without access to reliable trash collection, and recycling is minimal at best. Now a four-year-old eco startup called Wecyclers is determined to make recycling a popular practice in Lagos and across the African continent by helping people to see trash as a valuable resource. Wecyclers runs on teamwork, using an incentive-based program in the megacity’s low-income areas (where municipal services often don’t reach) and empowering local citizens to help solve Lagos’s waste problem. It’s an “everyone wins” business model.
A fleet of cyclists pedal custom-made cargo tricycles door to door every week, down narrow, unpaved streets where trucks can’t easily go, weighing and collecting recyclable waste
from registered households. Members receive points for every kilogram of waste recycled, which they can exchange for goods. “We help our subscribers save, using their waste for things they aspire to have. This could be a TV set, a sewing machine or even much-needed cash to fund a wedding,” said Wecyclers’ CEO and founder, Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola. Once Wecyclers collects the recyclable rubbish, the items are sorted, bagged and sold
to recycling factories in Nigeria that use the material to make new products such as pillow stuffing. Lagos generates more than 17,000 tonnes of waste daily, according to the city’s waste management authority, creating major health and environmental hazards in many communities. Since 2012, Wecyclers has picked up
CIRCULAR ECONOM Y | WEC YCLERS
Wecyclers A Nigerian entrepreneur has found a low-tech way to encourage citizens to recycle their trash, clean up their city and make money, too.— By Jessica Ellis
1,000 tonnes of household waste, signed up more than 11,000 households and created 103 jobs.
21
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
BY
MAKING A FAIRER PHONE WEBSITE
www.fairphone.com/en COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
The Netherlands
Fairphone A Dutch startup makes a worker-friendly, easily reparable, ethically-sourced smartphone that can hold its own in a competitive field. — By Nina Siegal
MATURITY LEVEL
Ongoing activities with measurable impact CONTACT
Laura Gerritsen Value Chain Manager [email protected]
C I R C U L A R E C O N O M Y | FA I R P H O N E
The aim is to inspire other companies and to cooperate with other companies to help them follow our lead.
22
There are lots of reasons not to buy a mobile phone, at least from an ethical perspective. A typical smartphone is made up of
about 40 different minerals, many sourced from poor countries where mining is conducted using exploitative practices, and where profits sometimes finance local conflicts. Phones are usually manufactured in factories where low-wage workers are employed under sub-optimal conditions. And because the average life cycle of a smartphone is one to two years and parts are difficult to replace, they create a lot of electronic garbage. In a spacious former warehouse in Amsterdam’s eastern docklands, about 50 young entrepreneurs are working to perfect the world’s first socially-conscious smartphone, the Fairphone.
Founder Bas van Abel and co-founders Miquel Ballester and Tessa Wernink had
no prior experience making phones, but they believed that the best way to have an impact on the industry was from within. Bas van Abel and Miquel Ballester met in 2011 while researching the prospective market for fair electronics at the Open Design Lab at the nonprofit Waag Society. Tessa Wernink was a marketing and communications professional. To understand the scope of the challenge, the team went on a fact-finding mission
to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where many minerals are mined, and to China, where most phones are manufactured. They conducted extensive research into smartphone technology. And together, they figured out how to improve practices along the entire value chain of the industry, from raw materials to recycling. In 2013, Fairphone received an initial investment of €400K (US$450K and mounted a crowdfunding campaign, surpassing its goal and selling 25,000 phones before production even began. “All of a sudden we had 8 million euros in our bank account,” said Ms. Wernink, “and we hadn’t even made a single phone.” Partnering with a small factory in China, Fairphone sold 60,000 of the first model. A
more complex model, the Fairphone 2, is modular, with parts that someone using a small screwdriver can replace if they break (and, in the future, with upgrades. More than 50,000 have sold since July 2016, at about €525 per phone. As for the Fairphone 2’s desirability, Wired magazine called it “a decent phone with an exciting internal design and a boring exterior design.” The company is looking to update the case design, and plans to let people customize the look. The challenges Fairphone faces include setting up distribution channels—it is com-
plicated to sell outside of Europe for reasons including technical specifications in different markets. Also, it’s not possible for the company to verify that the supply chain for every mineral is clean, although it promises that at least four of its components — tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold — are sourced from conflict-free certified mines. “It’s important at this point to say there is no such thing as a fair phone yet, because no one can trace back exactly where each of the materials comes from,” said Wernink. “But by making this phone, at least, we can start making that possible.” Right now, the company earns €9 in profit for each phone it sells. All of its income is fully transparent via its website. Beyond working with factories that promote fair working conditions, Fairphone puts aside funds for a worker welfare program. It also addresses e-waste: €3 from the sale of each FairPhone is earmarked for recycling junk phones in Ghana, Rwanda, Cameroon and Uganda, through a partnership with the Dutch recycling organization Closing the Loop.
The aim this year is to sell 100,000 phones, which allow it to remain financially sustainable. Whether or not that happens, Fair-
phone’s goal has been achieved. “It’s not the aim to dominate the market,” spokesman Fabian Hühne said. “The aim is to inspire other companies and to cooperate with other companies to help them follow our lead.
23
C I R C U L A R E C O N O M Y | FA I R F P H O N E
CIRCULAR ECONOMY | ELLEN MAC ARTHUR
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
24
CIRCULAR ECONOMY IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR CITIES Dame Ellen MacArthur is a world-renowned sailor, and now leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity that works with business and education to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
Already generating a staggering 85% of global GDP, cities are at the heart of the economic transformation we’re starting to see emerge. With a balance of power that is gradually shifting, large urban centres are taking the main stage, almost becoming autonomous entities with the ability to experiment and shape their own future. The figures are compelling, and the last decade saw for the first time in history a bigger proportion of city dwellers than people living in rural areas on a planetary scale. That naturally does not go without challenges, and the sheer volume of resources necessary to fuel this unprecedented development raises some serious questions in the mid to long term. The fact is that cities tend to act as concentrators of materials and nutrients: ‘stuff’ flows to them, but apart from copious quantities of waste and sewage, hardly anything comes out. Cities are not, in our current linear “take, make, dispose” economy, regenerative in the slightest. Think for instance that over the course of the 20th century, the recycling rate of food-derived nitrogen dropped from 40 to 5% in Paris (1).
Yet metropolitan clusters also concentrate what arguably will provide their stepping stone towards positive growth and development: considerable amounts of creativity and knowledge, pervasive connectivity, reverse logistic chains, precision small-scale agriculture, decentralized (re)manufacturing, multiple use buildings, multi-modal transport systems featuring autonomous vehicles… All of which are key enabling factors for a circular economy. By maximising the utilisation rate of assets such as cars or buildings, through sharing platforms, the need for virgin finite resources is greatly reduced: it’s about having access to the service rather than owning the product itself, and as a growing body of evidence shows, savings in terms of materials, energy and negative impacts avoided are huge. But the circular economy potential is not limited to technical materials, and latest trends in architecture as well as urban planning erode the traditional divide between town and country. Look at Singapore’s Skygreen urban farming venture, Milan’s Bosco Verticale or Haarlemmermeer’s Park 2020 and you’ll see this
‘whole system design’ effort at work. Making sense of stocks, flows and regeneration is essential to achieve a resilient circular economy able to provide positive growth and societal benefits in the long term. The industrial model, with its very centralised production and one-way mechanisms, is increasingly challenged and nowhere is that more visible than in cities: think for example of the uptake of maker labs, repair cafés and incubators for startups. With 60% of the urban infrastructure needed by 2050 still to be built, there is a fabulous opportunity to design the system for circularity from the outset. The fact that many internationally significant cities have chosen to go down that path can only be seen as an encouraging sign. (1) Prof. Stéphane Guilbert SupAgro Montpellier - INRA
CIRCULAR ECONOMY | ELLEN MAC ARTHUR
Many internationally significant cities have chosen to go down the path of circular economy. It can only be seen as an encouraging sign.
25
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
WHY SHOULD WASTE MANAGEMENT BE AT THE TOP OF GLOBAL LEADERS’ CONCERNS?
CIRCULAR ECONOMY | MARIE- ANGE DEBON
Marie-Ange Debon Group Senior Executive Vice President, International Division CEO, SUEZ
26
Waste management may not yet be at the top of Global Leaders’ concerns when speaking about climate change and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. There is a good reason for it: most emissions come from countries where waste is managed under very high environmental and sanitary standards, and GHG emissions from waste management activities are maintained at low levels (2 to 3 % of national emissions). In these developed countries, it is much more important to reduce GHG emissions from energy production and transportation than from waste. And these priorities are applied uniformly to the entire world. This biased focus overshadows a looming waste crisis in emerging economies, where investments in waste management infrastructure are lagging behind and most collected waste is disposed in open dumps or sub-standard landfills. There, waste management activities currently account for 5% of GHG emissions, but are expected to rise up to 8-10% of global emissions in 2025 (1), a rate which would rank this sector close behind energy production (50-57%), transportation (22-27%) and agriculture. Waste production in fast-growing urban areas is expected to nearly triple by 2025. It is critical to address this imminent crisis; solutions exist to reduce GHG emissions from waste at a much lower cost than in the energy and transportation sectors, whilst improving living conditions for local populations by reducing their exposure to hazardous air and water pollutions. Advanced Solutions for Integrated Waste Management Simple and affordable solutions can be implemented to address this major public health and environmental issue, and prevent significant GHG emissions. SUEZ has developed an effective integrated approach, which combines the building of sanitary landfills with complimentary
recovery solutions that allow the transformation of waste into new resources such as fuel, fertilizer and biogas, thus maximizing landfill diversion. In addition to reducing health hazards and GHG emissions, these solutions are a way to support local economic and social development, and to help tackle other pressing issues such as marine litter in oceans. To meet local needs and specificities, these innovative waste management solutions are implemented through tailor-made approaches and dialogues with local stakeholders. In the historical city of Meknes, Morocco, SUEZ rehabilitated an uncontrolled dumpsite of 22 hectares, which posed serious threats to the local environment and population. A waste disposal and recovery center was then constructed on the rehabilitated site to serve an area of 650 000 inhabitants, treating and recovering up to 300 000 tons of domestic waste per year. The center is the first of its kind in Morocco and Africa: it is equipped with modern technology and includes a sorting center, a platform to produce compost for nearby farmland, and a leachate treatment system designed to minimize GHG emissions from landfill gas. Other than its advanced recovery solutions, the project is unique in its social angle. In partnership with local authorities, 150 former informal waste pickers were organized in a sorters’ cooperative to operate the new sorting center, giving them a formal job and improving their quality of life. There is an opportunity to address this waste crisis by deploying advanced waste management solutions that promote the circular economy. Based on first analyses, it is estimated that the implementation of these solutions would allow to avoid GHG emissions at a cost inferior to 15 USD/ton of CO2eq avoided, depending on the initial situation. In this framework, significant potential with carbon financing could be leveraged with International Financial institutions, such as the Green Climate Fund or the World Bank Group. (1) ISWA, “The tragic case of dumpsites” 2015
Waste management activities currently account for 5% of GHG emissions, but are expected to rise up to 8-10% of global emissions in 2025
Water managem Solutions that reduce cities’ vulnerability to the consequences of climate change on water supply and that ensure access to abundant and clean drinking water.
ment
IN THIS CHAPTER
p.30 Brazil Coalition p.32 Xeros p.33 SanAqua p.34 Gravalock p.36 Expert view: Jean-Louis Chaussade —
29
WATER MANAGEMENT
BY
BRAZIL COALITION A Brazilian water coalition is working with large cities to preserve riparian forests for improved water security — By Andrea Vialli COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | B R A Z I L C O A L I T I O N
Brazil
30
In 2014, an unprecedented water crisis caused historically low water levels in the
largest reservoir of the Cantareira system, which supplies water to São Paulo. A combination of climatic factors, an extremely dry summer and an increase in consumption over many years left thousands of people in the city without water. This event signalled a warning on how the large Brazilian cities were managing their water resources. Although twelve per cent of the planet’s fresh water is located in Brazil, the country faces problems in supplying its most populous regions, which also suffer from a lack of investment in basic sanitation – only forty per cent of sewage is treated in Brazil. “While there are regional differences, the metropolitan regions suffer from a combination of factors such as the degradation of water sources, the disorganised growth of cities – which has increased water consumption – and lack of investment over many years,” said Samuel Barrêto, a specialist in water resources and manager of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). In 2015 his NGO coordinated a movement to bring together both city councils and companies from the principal metropolitan regions of the country to deal with water risks. Today the Coalizão Cidades Pela Água involves six metropolitan regions (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Vitória, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia and Curitiba) and multinational companies, such as Ambev, Coca Cola, Klabin and Unilever.
One of the group’s challenges is raising awareness among public authorities on the
need to invest in green infrastructure – which involves restoring the degraded forests around the water sources. The Coalizão has already raised R$ 18 million, with the financial support of the companies, which will be used over the coming five years to restore forests alongside the rivers that supply the Cantareira and Alto Tietê systems in São Paulo, and the Guandu system in Rio de Janeiro. “The plan is to extend the restoration action to a further six metropolitan regions, to bring water security to more than sixty million people”, said Barrêto.
The metropolitan regions face a second major water management issue: significant losses occurring in the distribution network. According to the Instituto Trata Brasil, a non-profit organisation specialised in sanitation, Brazil loses thirty-seven per cent of its treated water. In some regions, such as the North, this level is as high as seventy per cent. Market opportunities are open for technology companies developing viable solutions. Optimale in Campo Grande is one example. Founded in 2009, by engineer and researcher Peter Cheung, the company offers remote sensing, data analysis and cloud computing to monitor losses in real time. In addition to measuring physical losses (the quantity of water leaking from pipework), the system enables financial losses, caused by fraud and clandestine connections, to be quantified. “For the sanitation companies, investing in this type of technology brings a better financial return than putting teams in the field”, said Cheung. The system is being used by the water utility company Águas Guariroba, in Campo Grande, which was able to reduce losses from fifty-six per cent in 2006 to less than twenty per cent today. Northeast Brazil is dealing with a different challenge: coping with the scarcity of water
in its semi-arid regions. Programa Água Doce is one project aimed at increasing access to potable water, implemented in partnership with the Federal Government and noteworthy for bringing two innovative technologies together: desalinating water by means of membranes using nanotechnology in a system powered by solar energy. “We are also studying the use of wind energy to expand the programme to other communities,” said José Mairton França, Environmental and Water Resources Secretary for Rio Grande do Norte. A pilot project in a rural settlement of João Câmara is already benefiting more than 220 inhabitants, and the programme aims to roll out 120 desalination systems across Rio Grande do Norte by June 2017, an investment of R$ 20 million that will benefit 12,000 people.
WATER MANAGEMENT
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
REINVENTING THE WASHING MACHINE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | X E R O S
Great Britain
32
Replacing much of the water used in a washing machine with Xeros beads means water use can be cut by up to 80 per cent, says Westwater.
Xeros The UK firm believes other sectors could benefit from its technology too. — By Pilita Clark It is not every day you come across a sebum cloth or, to be precise, a piece of cloth soaked in artificial sebum, the body oil that causes irksome dark smears on the inside of a shirt collar. But here inside Xeros, the nine-year-old English company reinventing the washing machine, there are yards of the stuff, along with more fabric deliberately stained with blood, wine and other laundry disasters. “Body oil is the vast majority of soiling in a load,” explains Frazer Kennedy, the company’s technical services manager, as he pulls out an array of carefully filthied cloth that Xeros buys in to test how well its machines can clean, at its headquarters in a quiet hightech manufacturing park in Catcliffe, near Sheffield. “You can see the difference,” says Kennedy, rolling out a piece of stained cloth that has been through the Xeros machine behind him, and another bit washed in a conventional machine across the room. And you can. The stains on the Xeros-washed cloth are clearly far fainter than those on the other, even though both machines look pretty much the same to the naked eye. The Xeros one is not like any of its rivals, however, as Kennedy demonstrates by turning one on. It is a big stainless steel machine, the sort used in commercial laundries, and is the only type in Xeros’s range as yet. At first the machine behaves normally enough: a little water is squirted on to a load of white laundry, to which detergent has been added. Then it does something peculiar: it pours a slurry of water mixed with hundreds of thousands of small, hard, white nylon beads over the clothes and tumbles the lot around in the drum.
Each bead is approximately the size of a large grain of rice. The mechanical action of the beads swirling around the clothes gently loosens dirt, much like the oldest form of washing — whacking wet clothes on a rock by a river. The molecular structure of the deceptively simple-looking beads — the product of years of research — means they also absorb stains. All this gets done without the clothes being left soaking in dirtied suds, as they are in most normal machines. “It’s like having a shower, whereas a conventional washing machine is like a bath,” says Kennedy. That is part of the reason why clothes come out cleaner explains his boss, Xeros chief executive Bill Westwater, a former brand management executive who has worked at companies such as Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods group, where he was responsible for Ariel detergent in China. Replacing much of the water used in a washing machine with Xeros beads means water use can be cut by up to 80 per cent, says Westwater. That is important in places where water is expensive, he adds, pointing to figures on dozens of countries where water costs more than $1 per cubic metre. The technology also allows laundry to be washed with less detergent at lower temperatures, which cuts energy bills The beads can be used for hundreds of washes before they need to be replaced and Xeros says it has a system to collect the beads and sell them to manufacturers of other goods, such as car interior components.
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
San Aqua — By Charlotte Mathews Erratic rainfall, urbanisation, ageing infrastructure and a combination of shortage of
WEBSITE
www.sanaqua.net
funds and technical skills in municipalities are contributing to a gradual deterioration in South Africa’s drinking water quality. Drinking water is sourced from rivers and streams, into which waste water treatment plants, particularly in rural areas, are emitting millions of litres a day of partially-treated or untreated water. With rainfall patterns changing as a result of global warming, there is less fresh water available to dilute contaminants. One of the companies that sees this issue as an opportunity is Cape Town-based San Aqua HCA, which has designed and patented a solution called HydroChemical Activation (HCA). HCA is an improvement on an existing process called electrochemical activation, in which an electrical charge is applied to water to sterilise it. The system can also incorporate sensors feeding information on
the quality of the water and system performance to a central computer.
San Aqua HCA co-founder Pamela Alborough said HCA was designed to be an add-
on to an existing municipal waste water treatment plant of between 0.1 and 50 megalitres/day. HCA does not replace the existing infrastructure needed for a municipal plant, but it can double capacity because it enabled contaminants to be removed faster and more effectively.
Alborough added that HCA required no special skills to operate. It needs a power source, but uses only the equivalent of eight
light bulbs of electricity at a flow rate of one megalitre a day. To treat one megalitre, the equipment consisted of an electronic power supply (in a small box) and two mini reactor units, about 16 centimetres in diameter. The reactors can be doubled in size and quantity as volumes increase, making the system scalable.
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | S A N A Q U A
A COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTION FOR SOUTH AFRICA’S WASTEWATER TREATMENT
33
WATER MANAGEMENT
BY
RECYCLED CONSTRUCTION, A PERMEABLE SOLUTION FOR THE CONCRETE JUNGLE Gravalock creates a system of permeable floors to replace concrete. — By Angélica Pineda According to the municipal Water System of Mexico City (SACM), an average of 750
WEBSITE
www.gravalock.com.mx COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Mexico MATURITY LEVEL
Early stage CONTACT
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | G R AVA LO C K
Lic. Gerardo Domínguez G. Commercial Director, [email protected]
34
While the authorities are expanding the drainage system, initiatives like Gravalock have emerged from the local population. The company’s solution is a system of permeable floor grids made from recycled plastic, that last 25 years and can hold up to 60 tons in weight per square meter.
millimeters of water falls in 45 days during the period June to October in the city. This is the equivalent of 1,100 million cubic meters; a volume 300 million higher than the total capacity of the Cutzamala System, which provides drinking water to the Valley of Mexico’s metropolitan area. Of that total, 20% runs through the streets and fills the drains, causing flooding and a build up of debris. These floods are a serious problem for the city of nearly 20 million people. [While the authorities are expanding the drainage system, initiatives like Gravalock have emerged from the local population. The company’s solution is a system of permeable floor grids made from recycled plastic, that last 25 years and can hold up to 60 tons in weight per square meter. Gerardo Dominguez, co-founder and commercial director of Gravalock, says
their grids have replaced cement in 40,000 square meters of industrial parks, housing complexes, sidewalks, pedestrian walkways, and parking lots in at least five states. Their clients are from both the government and the private sector. “The main application is for parking lots, the idea being that the rainwater filters into the ground, rather than going into the drains and ending up contaminated,” explains the entrepreneur. Dominguez stresses the importance of reducing the use of cement. According to reports cited by UNEP, cement manufacture is responsible for around 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is manufactured at temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius, which produces 0.8 tons of CO² for each unit of cement.
In addition to the emission of pollutants, due to its ability to hold high volumes of heat, concrete contributes to the “heat island”
phenomenon, which has been felt in Mexico City since 2010, where the local government has reported an increase in temperature of 3 degrees.
Gravalock’s expertise lies in permeable pavements, and business opportunities are significant for the company. In Mexico City, 40,000 parking spaces will be built in the next few years. Parking spaces also make up 42% of the area occupied by real estate projects built between 2009 and 2013, a total of 16 million square meters, as reported by the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO). Gravalock is the brainchild of the Dominguez brothers, who made plastic parts for
other companies. When the market began to decline, they developed and patented the grid system. They currently have 30 employees and are already working on complementary products to this solution. In 2015, Gravalock participated in Cleantech Challenge Mexico, coming in third. The exposure they received opened the doors to new markets, such as Costa Rica and Colombia. To produce their grids, Gravalock uses waste plastic from the automotive and domestic appliance industries, which is collected by other companies. Gerardo Dominguez explains that once they have purchased this material, it gets crushed and manufactured into the grids at their plant in Iztapalapa. Each grid is four centimeters high and weighs 940 grams. Nine pieces form a section of 1.44 square meters. The material is 100% recycled polypropylene and ultraviolet (UV) resistant. Due to the weight of the gravel used to fill it, there is no need to anchor it to the ground. One of the greatest challenges for Gerardo Dominguez as he looks to drive his product,
is the cost of inputs, which is only compounded by the rising dollar. However, “having exports helps us, because we receive revenue in dollars. Our current business strategy is to achieve more exports” he concludes.
35
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | G R AVA LO C K
WATER MANAGEMENT
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | J E A N - LO U I S C H A U S S A D E
Jean-Louis Chaussade Chief Executive Oicer, SUEZ
36
CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY: TWO INTRINSICALLY-LINKED GLOBAL ISSUES As the population of our planet grows and the urban explosion continues, climate change represents a new challenge for our existing food production systems. (...) Climate change is not simply a matter of energy. Water resources are amongst the first ecosystems to be impacted by climate change. How can we guarantee food security and access to drinking water for all, in a world that could have 9 billion inhabitants by 2035, and where pessimistic forecasts predict a temperature rise of over 2 degrees Celsius? These challenges demand concrete actions and answers from all in our societies, from public authorities to businesses, NGOs and citizens.
Protecting food security, promoting sustainable agriculture and guaranteeing access to water for all, under equitable conditions‌ These are objectives that were made a top priority by the UN when listing them in their Sustainable Development Goals adopted a few weeks before COP21. Conflicting uses, water shortages and the pollution of resources all threaten the stability of food and drinking water production systems. These threats already exist today, but they will considerably worsen in the future due to the impact of climate change. We have already observed a multiplication of droughts across the world, from California to the Mediterranean basin. We already
It is now more important than ever before that we optimise the management of our resources and change our production models into something more sober and sustainable, if we are to rise to the challenges facing us. The mobilisation of everyone, and the combination of political, economic, social and societal expertise, will help our leaders forge the new, climatically-responsible alliances we need today, for the sake of future generations.
We no longer have the means to pay the environmental cost of all this waste.
WAT E R M A NA G E M E N T | J E A N - LO U I S C H A U S S A D E
know that, by 2035, 40% of the world’s population will inhabit regions suffering from water stress, that food production will have to rise by 70% within the next 35 years in order to feed the world’s population, and that 600 million people could be undernourished by 2050. In view of these facts, we must all fulfil our roles, inventing and implementing new production models. Agriculture, which currently consumes 70% of water supplies worldwide, must adapt and produce using less water. This change can be supported by the deployment of smart irrigation systems, delivering the right water to the right place at the right time; by the development of tools to monitor water table levels; by the implementation of solutions to manage underground water assets or call upon alternative water production means, such as reuse, etc. The management of wastewater and waste is also crucial in addressing these issues. By reducing the proportion of untreated wastewater discharged into natural ecosystems; by combating the burial and disposal of waste in natural ecosystems that, all too often, lead to the ocean, we can help protect the biodiversity that is essential to the security of our food production. There is no shortage of technical solutions, and more will continue to be developed. We should rejoice in the wealth of solutions and innovations across the world. But these technical solutions will not suffice unless we change the way we behave and act. The reduction of food waste is another key issue when it comes to the production of foodstuffs. Estimates claim that one third of the food produced worldwide every year goes to waste, because of storage and transportation problems higher up the supply chain, or due to waste by consumers. In other words, 30% of farming land is used to grow food that is simply thrown away. A fact that represents a waste of water and a proliferation of waste, which then produces large quantities of greenhouse gases as it deteriorates. If food waste were a State, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. We no longer have the means to pay the environmental cost of all this waste.
37
EXPERT VIEW
Anne Hidalgo is the current Mayor of Paris and the first woman to hold the office. She currently serves as Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change.
ANNE HIDALGO
CITIES ARE CENTRAL TO CLIMATE ISSUES
38
Less than twelve months have passed since U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, Mike Bloomberg and I welcomed 1,000 mayors at Paris City Hall, at the height of the COP21 Climate negotiations. The progress made in those months to tackle the global threat of climate change has been amazing to watch. The collective voice of cities was essential in showing the way to national leaders to deliver the bold Paris Agreement on climate change. Having waited 20 years for such a global commitment to tackle climate change, it is inspiring to see that it will come into force less than a year after it was agreed. This is a genuinely ambitious agreement that offers the best possible hope of averting climate change. Just as they were key to securing the Paris Agreement, cities will be central to
Let’s also consider something instrumental: cities are uniquely adept at sharing ideas and data that works, which is at the heart of the success of the C40 network. Since Paris introduced the Velib cycle hire scheme, 43 C40 cities have now launched cycle hire programmes. But cities cannot tackle climate change alone. Several barriers to effective action are highly relevant to the interaction of cities with the media and the private sector, including the challenge of securing investment for sustainable projects and the challenge of communicating their benefits to our citizens. Paris is proud to be amongst the most welcoming cities in the world for start-ups and innovation and we recognise the pivotal role that organisations have to play in helping us secure a sustainable future. Chinese cities such as Wuhan and Nanjing have some of the largest electric bus fleets anywhere in the world. I am determined to share our lessons with cities across the C40 as well as learn from others. The financial media and the private sector have a crucial role to play in holding national governments and international financial organisations to account for their assurances to empower city authorities. Cities, particularly in the global south, often struggle to secure financial investment for sustainable infrastructure that is crucial in securing low carbon development. C40 recently launched a call to finance urban projects, calling for six urgent reforms that if implemented would help create a sustai-
nable future for millions of citizens. These include reforms to development banks and direct access for cities to international climate funds. The media also has a key role to play in reframing climate change as an issue that affects every aspect of life in cities. It is increasingly clear that action on climate change is also directly linked to social equity, public health and economic growth. The most successful cities of the future will be those that transition first to low carbon development. And those stories have not yet been properly told. These issues will be central to the C40 Mayors Summit in Mexico City from November 30th to December 2nd. The summit will bring together the world’s most influential mayors, with business leaders, international media and climate experts to present their common goals for a sustainable future.
Just as they were key to securing the Paris Agreement, cities will be central to the efforts to deliver it.
ANNE HIDALGO
the efforts to deliver it. For more than a decade, mayors have been providing global leadership on climate change through common platforms and networks for declaring commitments and joining action like the C40 and the Global Covenant of Mayors. This year I was honoured to be elected chair of C40 and you can count on me to do everything in my power to deliver this agreement that is key for our future. We know that cities are responsible for more than 70% of global emissions. By 2050, more than two thirds of the world population will live in cities. C40, representing 86 of the world’s greatest cities such as London, New York, Tokyo, Mexico and Beijing, and more than 650 million citizens, is the right network to lead the effort to tackle climate change. C40 cities have already taken more than 10,000 actions since 2009 and by continuing on a low carbon path, can avoid locking in 45 GtCO2 by 2030. That is equivalent to the annual emissions of the United Kingdom! From flooding to heatwaves, mayors are responding to the effects of climate change every day. This is why mayors are such crucial leaders. As mayors, we understand what actions need to be taken to deliver a sustainable, equitable and healthy future for our citizens. In Paris, we are banning the most polluting cars from the city and we have pedestrianised the banks of the river Seine as part of our bold plans to tackle air pollution. Paris is building on its world famous cycle hire scheme to further creating a city that prioritises sustainable transports.
39
Renewab energy Systems and technologies that provide cities with affordable, clean energy in an efficient and sustainable way.
ble
IN THIS CHAPTER
p.42 Cold Hubs p.43 ASB Biodiesel p.44 TransActive Grid p.45 40SouthEnergy p.46 LanzaTech p.47 Expert view: Pierre Chabret —
41
RENEWABLE ENERGY
BY
WALK-IN SOLAR FRIDGES COMBAT NIGERIAN FOOD SHORTAGES Cold Hubs — By David Thomas WEBSITE & CONTACT
www.coldhubs.com COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Nigeria MATURITY LEVEL
Ongoing activities with measurable impact CONTACT
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, CEO [email protected]
For millions of Nigerians in rural Kaduna state, a trip to an outdoor food market provides cheap and ready access to the staples of
a traditional diet. In a normal week, dozens of wicker baskets overflow with ripe tomatoes, an essential ingredient in the rich stews favoured by locals. Yet over the summer, market-goers were dismayed by the spiralling costs of a fruit that has come to be seen as a national necessity. After a moth epidemic ravaged some 80% of the region’s tomato farms in May, forcing the price of a basket from $1.20 to more than $40, Kaduna’s authorities were forced to declare a state of emergency.
Kaduna’s ‘tomato emergency’ is part of a national dip in food production that is
It’s an affordable and eco-friendly model freed of expensive
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | C O L D H U B S
infrastructure that the
42
company believes could be quickly rolled out across the continent.
concerning Nigeria’s food security experts. In the north-east, production in large parts of the country has been all but abandoned in the face of continued attacks by Boko Haram militants, putting millions at risk of famine. Yet even in areas where food production remains strong, poor handling, storage and delivery methods mean that much of Nigeria’s food is spoiled before reaching those in need. In a bid to minimise post-harvest losses - which government estimates could be higher than 50% for some fruits and vegetables - businesses are beginning to develop new technologies to assist farmers. For one entrepreneur, the causes of post-harvest losses are obvious. “Most of the spoilage starts on the farms because farmers don’t receive visits from delivery trucks every day,” says Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, chief executive of Cold Hubs. “Sometimes it takes 3 to 4 days for trucks to come to the farm. So these farmers keep the food in a shed or try and cover it, and by the time the truck comes in the food is already spoiled. The trucks take a long trip to the market, and spoilage accelerates.”
That’s a problem common to farms across the continent. In 2011, the UN World Food
Programme estimated that annual food losses in Sub-Saharan Africa exceeded 30% of total crop production and cost farmers some $4bn in value every year.
Cold Hubs offers a simple solution. The firm installs walk-in refrigeration units near
both farms and markets in a bid to preserve valuable crops in the crucial period before they reach consumers. Tomatoes which would have rotted near the vine are swiftly dispatched to a nearby unit, where farmers are charged around 50¢ per crate per day to cool the produce. It’s a pay-as-you-go model which allows farmers to dodge pricey storage agreements that tie them to excessive payments regardless of production. Perhaps even more convenient - in a country where 95m are estimated to have no access to electricity - is that the refrigera-
tion hubs are entirely solar powered. Whether the units are installed in remote rural villages or bustling urban markets, the power of the sun can be harvested to save, rather than spoil, produce. It’s an affordable and eco-friendly model freed of expensive infrastructure that the company believes could be quickly rolled out across the continent, beginning with further expansion in Nigeria and a potential franchising scheme in Kenya. “In five years we want to have 1000 installed in Nigeria, and in the future, there could be 1 million units all over Africa,” says Ikegwuonu. “We’re very ambitious because there’s lots of market opportunity - you can use them in schools, hospitals, airports - anywhere you need to store food.” For the hawkers and worried consumers of the markets in Kaduna, it may be the first step to ensuring that 2016’s tomato emer-
gency remains little more than an unpleasant memory.
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
ASB Biodiesel — By Jeff Pao ASB Biodiesel, the largest used oil refiner in Hong Kong, converts used cooking oil or
WEBSITE
www.asb-biodiesel.com
waste oil from vegetable and animal fat into biodiesel that can be blended with regular diesel and used in conventional engines, without modification. The company claims to have a maximum annual production capacity of 100,000 tonnes of low-carbon transport fuel, enough to fuel every diesel engine on Hong Kong’s roads with B10 (a 10 percent blend) and offset 257,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The company now seeks to expand its production to the Pearl River Delta region in southern China. Due to its vast population and high ratio of used cooking oil per capita, “China has a lot of waste oil and has a big potential for us,” said Roberto Vázquez, chief executive of ASB Biodiesel. Vásquez said that the company collects
waste oil from restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Guangdong province. Hong Kong is a good source because it’s a high-density city with strong law enforcement in the treatment of used oil. Any city in China with a population of at least 20 million and strong law enforcement in the treatment of waste oil can be considered for ASB’s expansion plans. The final product is mainly sold to Europe and China. Only a small amount is sold in
Hong Kong, since the city’s levy on traditional diesel was lifted in 2009 and buyers pay a premium for biodiesel. Vázquez hopes the Hong Kong government will launch a mandate program that would require fuel suppliers to have their products blended with biodiesel. He said European countries now have mandates of 4 to 8 percent blend while the United States has a similar quota system.
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | A S B B I O D I E S E L
ASB BIODIESEL EYES OPPORTUNITIES IN PEARL RIVER DELTA REGION
43
RENEWABLE ENERGY
BY
NEW GRID ON THE BLOCK TransActive Grid harnesses blockchain technology to make peer-topeer energy exchange possible — By Laura Shin WEBSITE
transactivegrid.net COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
United States MATURITY LEVEL
Ongoing activities with measurable impact CONTACT
transactivegrid.net/#contact
In the spring of 2015, Bob Sauchelli answered a knock at his door on President Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn: Did he want to buy
solar energy from his neighbor? Sauchelli, 68, is retired but spent the last two decades of his career working as a program manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Buildings program and had even written a book on energy efficiency for buildings and how it could mitigate climate change.
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | T R A N S A C T I V E G R I D
He was already paying for green energy, but it was not being generated nearby. He
44
By switching to a local provider, which turns out to be my neighbor, the money is saved in the community, the environmental benefits are actually experienced here, and I can empower other neighbors to put solar panels on their roofs.
signed on to participate in a pilot created by TransActive Grid that combines a “microgrid” with blockchain, the technology that gave rise to Bitcoin, to create a local market for renewable energy credits. Soon, he was buying solar power from across the street. “I was attracted to the benefits that could be simulated here in Brooklyn,” he said. “By switching to a local provider, which turns out to be my neighbor across the street, the money is saved in the community, the environmental benefits are actually experienced here, and by buying green power from my neighbor, I can empower other neighbors to put solar panels on their roofs.” Renewable energy accounts for only 2 percent of total U.S. electricity sales, but community solar projects are the fastestgrowing segment of the market, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
TransActive Grid, a joint venture by LO3 Energy and blockchain app incubator
Consensus Systems, uses a special meter that runs blockchain technology, giving it capabilities not currently available in energy markets. First, it shows solar panel owners how much energy they’re producing, rather than having them trust the local utility to calculate the amount. The blockchain also enables the direct trading of energy credits, such as between Sauchelli and his neighbor, and dramatically reduces the costs of such transactions. “[Blockchain] really doesn’t care if it’s transacting the value of one solar panel or a 500 MgW solar plant. It literally costs the system the same amount of energy and overhead,” said Lawrence Orsini, founder and principal of LO3. That could get institutional investors to back local renewable energy production. “With blockchain, it’s just as easy to make
micro investments in projects as it is to make larger ones,” said Orsini.
Also, the solar producer can earn more. Utilities charge more to consumers that
purchase green energy, but they pay solar producers the wholesale rate. “When you buy green energy, you’re actually not taking energy from some wind farm and piping it via a special cable into your house,” explained ConsenSys’s Christian Lundkvist. “You’re still drawing power from the grid as you normally would, but you’re paying a premium because you’re paying for the act of producing this green energy.” By selling directly to Sauchelli, a solar producer on President Street can charge the premium rate, which is what Sauchelli was paying the national green energy provider anyway. (His monthly electricity bill is about $80 and he pays $15-$20 extra a month for green electricity.) The project is part of Orsini’s vision to help solve a problem that became apparent when Hurricane Sandy knocked power out in New York City in 2012. Then, even owners of solar panels were out of luck since they needed to be connected to the larger grid. “When the next super storm comes through, should the utility go down, this portion of the grid should be able to stay up so the community can continue to use it,” said Orsini.
TransActive Grid is now jumping through the regulatory hoops required to become a
legal energy service company (ESCO) and serve the 230 people waiting to participate. Eventually, it will have two footprints — the physical 10-block microgrid itself and the virtual community of market participants which could someday expand to all of Brooklyn. It’s also in discussions for similar projects in Europe, Africa and Australia. As it grows, TransActive Grid will learn how much interest there is in local renewable energy. Orsini said, “We’ll see if people are willing to pay more, and decide how important local, free-range, Brooklyn organic electrons are in the community.”
Urban areas are responsible for 70% of the world’s energy consumption and the related greenhouse gas emissions. Source: World Resources Institute
70%
SUSTAINABLE ISLANDS: ENERGY FROM WAVES 40SouthEnergy — By Elena Comelli Sun, sea and wind: beautiful to experience, but also useful for generating emission-free energy, if used intelligently. The
Italian islands have plenty of these raw materials to put to use.
The island of Elba is focusing on wave energy. It’s here that the first commercial
WEBSITE
www.40southenergy.com
machine produced by 40SouthEnergy was installed. Founded by the Italian Michele Grassi, this innovative company, which has offices in both London and Pisa, has received support in different phases from the Italian multinational renewable-energy corporation, Enel Green Power. Grassi’s company is the only one to test out devices that, rather than
capturing energy on the surface, intercept energy from the depths. The smallest of his machines, the 50 kilowatt H24, consists of a stationary guiding part that rests on the sea floor and another part mounded upon it, which moves back and forth with the waves or tides. The reason for seeking energy where there is little is clear: the water’s surface may have more energy, but floating devices are often destroyed by storms, while those deployed on the seafloor are much more resistant. With an energy cost that is already competitive with the electricity network, wave energy could prove to be the trump card for small Italian islands.
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | 4 0 S O U T H E N E R G Y
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
45
RENEWABLE ENERGY
BY
FERMENTING FACTORY WASTE INTO FUEL LanzaTech’s revolutionary technology uses bacteria to turn industrial waste gases into biofuels and chemicals — By Brandon Smith
WEBSITE
www.lanzatech.com COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
United States CONTACT
Freya Burton, Chief Sustainability and People Officer [email protected]
In the LanzaTech laboratory, at the company’s headquarters outside Chicago, a milky liquid churns inside a steel and plastic cylinder. It contains millions of bacteria that can turn industrial waste gas into biofuels to power cars or even airplanes.
Until now, ethanol and other traditional biofuels have come primarily from plants such as corn or soybeans, which requires
valuable farmland and water while displacing crops for food. Looking for an alternative source, LanzaTech came up with naturally-occurring microbes that grow on gases rather than sugars. The company attaches large fermenters to factories, recycling waste gas—which would normally be emitted as greenhouse gases—into fuel instead. “Our first slogan was: ‘there is no such thing as waste,’” said Dr. Sean Simpson, a biologist who co-founded the company in New Zealand in 2005. He compares the process to putting a brewery on a steel mill.
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | L A N Z AT E C H
Carbon still gets released into the atmosphere further down the line when the etha-
46
By replacing oil as a fuel source, the biofuel releases at least 60 percent less CO2 into the air than gasoline.
nol is burned as fuel for powering vehicles. But Simpson said that by replacing oil as a fuel source, the biofuel releases at least 60 percent less CO2 into the air than gasoline. LanzaTech’s technology can even gasify landfill waste and use the resulting synthesis gas to make fuels to power garbage trucks—the circular economy in action. The company’s CEO, Jennifer Holmgren, added, “At a steel mill, a functioning fermenter can make enough fuel to power 100,000 cars a year, with the emissions equivalent of 20,000 cars. If these were at all the steel mills in China, that’s the equivalent of taking 11 million cars off the road.” Beyond reducing the carbon footprint of a factory, LanzaTech’s technology cuts down on noxious pollutants it would have spewed into the air, such as Nitrogen Oxide and Sulphur Oxide.
As land transport turns increasingly electric, LanzaTech has been working on tech-
nology to make low-carbon aviation fuel. In 2011 the company signed a high-profile
partnership with the airliner Virgin Atlantic to develop ways to produce jet fuel from steel mill waste, and in 2014 the British bank HSBC agreed to help fund its production. A test flight with the fuel is planned for 2017. Though LanzaTech has yet to be profitable, it has raised over $200M in venture capital over four rounds of funding. Its game-changing potential was recognized at Davos, where it won the Young Global Leader Award for Circular Economy Entrepreneur as part of the 2016 Circulars Awards program. LanzaTech works with industries that typically produce carbon-rich gases—steel
manufacture, oil refining, chemical production. Rather than own the fermenters, which cost upwards of $50M apiece, it licenses the technology and helps businesses install it. The company has more than 200 global patents to protect its technology and offer investors a form of insurance. Its first focus was China, where 50 percent of the world’s steel is made; commercial plants are going up now in China with Shougang and in Taiwan with China Steel. In Belgium, the world’s largest steel company, ArcelorMittal has invested €87M (US$98M) in a LanzaTech system. Earlier this year, the industrial biotech company Aemetis became the first North American licensee, securing 12 years of exclusive rights to the technology in California The company is also looking to make a variety of chemicals with the same tech-
nology, and has partnered with a number of chemical producers. In China it constructed a demonstration plant that co-produced 2,3 Butanediol, a precursor to nylon and rubber— which means that in the future, the tires on that garbage truck might also be made from carbon emissions. Holmgren thinks her company will shake up the system by showing that economics and environment do not need to be mutually exclusive. “If you can sell what you make, maybe people will be more excited about reusing or capturing carbon.”
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY TRANSITION
Pierre Chabret Engineer, Regional Development Division, ADEME
Regulation alone cannot allow for the change required to tackle current issues.
Reducing energy consumption, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving resources, cutting waste, promoting a circular economy, creating jobs… The issues related to the environmental and energy transition are numerous, urgent, and closely connected. Today’s environmental and energy policies require a new approach, in which decentralization goes hand in hand with globalization and regional integration. Regions play a central role in this. In France, after decades of centralizing public policies, a shift toward regional action began ten years ago with the voluntary implementation of environmental and energy programs driven by local communities. The energy transition law favoring green growth sped up the involvement of local governments in requiring public inter-municipal cooperation institutions representing more than 20 000 inhabitants to put in place a regional «climate-air-en-
ergy» strategy. Over the past two years, the decentralization movement has intensified. Could regulation alone allow for the change required to tackle current issues? The answer is no. In the future, the emergence of voluntary regional approaches that incorporate the whole range of issues and players involved in the energy and environmental transition will be essential. ADEME, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency, supports these regional players in helping innovators, solidifying local action, and developing new initiatives, all while providing assistance in bringing together various financial tools. Our resource center for climate regional action gathers many examples of energy transition initiatives launched by local governments, such as a community wind farm in the Northeast of France.
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | P I E R R E C H A B R E T
A MAJOR ISSUE AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL
47
RENEWABLE ENERGY
CO2 CAPTURE, UTILISATION AND STORAGE
A PROMISING CONTRIBUTOR TO CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | D O M I N I Q U E C O P I N
Dominique Copin Senior Advisor Climate Change, TOTAL
48
Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is an indispensable solution for managing climate change in the mediumand long-term, even though its development remains hampered by major technical and cost constraints. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen sharply over the past decades and passed the limit of 400 parts per million last September, contributing to global warming. Facing this reality, CCUS technologies aim to capture carbon dioxide that is produced by industrial facilities, such as fossil fuel power plants, cement, steel, refining and petrochemical plants. The CO2 will then be compressed and stored in underground formations or converted into molecules for use in industries such as plastics, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. By 2050, the oil and gas used in the energy mix must have a low carbon impact. This will not be possible without the development of CCUS technologies. The scenario drawn up by the International Energy Agency (IEA), whereby global warming is limited to 2°C, is based on significant developments in the field of CCUS. To meet this goal, the industry would have to attain a capacity of 6 billion metric tons a year by
technology needs to consume 30% more coal than a standard plant to produce the same amount of electricity). Total is working on technologies that would entail smaller energy penalty or capital expenditures. One of the most promising techniques is Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC), which could reduce the energy penalty of carbon capture. The company is also working on technologies for converting CO2, particularly into feedstocks for the chemicals industry. In addition to these technical considerations, other questions must be answered regarding market mechanisms, such as who will operate the capture and storage facilities and how financial rewards will be divided among the different players in the value chain. Other questions relate to regulations, such as how responsibility for storage operations will be allocated over time, and how to gain the public support for this technology. These are crucial issues given the projected size of the CCUS industry (among the biggest) and its importance in combating climate change.
The high costs associated with the most mature CO2 capture technologies need to be reduced.
R E N E WA B L E E N E R G Y | D O M I N I Q U E C O P I N
2050, a volume comparable to current oil and gas production: in which case, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will eventually become a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. In 2010, Total set up a pilot project in Lacq in the French Pyrenees, for an investment of ₏60 million. Lacq was the first integrated CCS chain that involved capturing carbon as it exits an industrial boiler, transporting it to a storage site and injecting it into a depleted natural gas reservoir 4,500 meters underground. To produce steam out of natural gas, Total implemented oxy-combustion technology, which eliminates all nitrogen from the flue gas by replacing the air in the boiler with oxygen, leaving only steam and CO2. As of mid-March 2013, when injection for the pilot project ceased, 51’000 metric tons of carbon had been captured and stored. The high costs associated with the most mature CO2 capture technologies need to be reduced, as must the high energy penalties (a plant equipped with carbon capture
49
Smart urb planning Innovative technologies and methods to construct greener, smarter buildings and shape more sustainable territories.
ban g
IN THIS CHAPTER
p.52 LC3 p.54 Essen p.55 Technopôle Angus p.56 Expert view: François Perrot p.57 Eco-Dome —
51
SMART URBAN PLANNING
BY
CEMENTING A REVOLUTION LC3 A viable, sustainable alternative to heavily polluting cement lowers greenhouse gas emissions during the production process. — By Preeti Mehra WEBSITE
www.lc3.ch COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
India and Switzerland MATURITY LEVEL
Early Stage CONTACT
Dr. Soumen Maity Senior General Manager [email protected]
As a $2-trillion-plus economy growing at above 7 percent a year, India has a gargan-
tuan appetite for a variety of commodities. As borne out by the construction boom that is manifest across the country, it is also the world’s second-largest manufacturer and consumer of cement, next only to China. The cement production process releases greenhouse gas emissions, both directly and indirectly. “A lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted from burning fuel and the conversion of limestone to oxide during cement production,” notes Ravindra Gettu, Professor of Civil Engineering and Associate Dean of Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. From a climate change perspective, this is a disaster waiting to happen. The search
S M A RT U R B A N P L A N N I N G | LC 3
for alternatives has led to the pathbreaking technology for the development of Limestone Calcined Clay Cement (LC3), an alternative building material that lowers CO2 emissions and energy consumption. It is cheaper to produce, requires low capital investment and has the potential to become the best sustainable substitute for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) or the fly ash-based Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC).
52
In India, pilot production of LC3 was completed in January 2015. Today, two buil-
dings constructed with LC3 and LC3-based building materials bear testimony to the technology: the Swiss embassy in New Delhi, and TARAgram Orchha near Jhansi in central India, which houses an office of Development Alternatives (DA), one of India’s oldest social enterprises that focusses on sustainable development. DA collaborated on an LC3 technology development project with Switzerland-based École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), which conducted the initial research. “LC3 is now about to be certified, standardised and produced commercially – in India and in countries across South America, Africa and Asia,” says Vaibhav Rathi, Deputy Manager – Environmental Management, at DA. But what exactly is LC3, and why does it
have anyone concerned about climate change excited? LC3’s unique selling point is its composition: 50 per cent clinker; 30 per cent calcined clay, 15 per cent limestone and 5 per cent gypsum. The clinker content is about half as much as in OPC (which has 95 per cent clinker), but the ‘secret sauce’ is calcined clay, which is waste china clay abandoned by mine owners for its poor quality.
To produce LC3 cement, this waste is calcined at 750-850 degrees Centigrade; a pro-
cess which requires half the energy used for clinker production and can be carried out using existing rotary kilns. The limestone used is again of low grade, and can be substituted by waste material from marble and kota stone, a fine-grained variety. DA and IIT Delhi are carrying out extensive research, which, if successful, will make productive use of the 7 million tonnes of marble sludge waste generated every year in Rajasthan alone. Produced in a similar manner as commercial cement, LC3 is stronger than both OPC and PPC. Its production process accounts for
30 percent less CO2 emissions than OPC and 11 percent less than PPC. The research team has conducted LC3 life-cycle analyses at two large cement plants. “We have moved from the lab stage to the pilot stage, and the feedback from companies is good,” says Rathi. “This is an important material, but it will take time to perfect,” says Shashank Bishnoi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT-Delhi. As part of its research, the LC3 team has resource-mapped china clay availability in
Rajasthan and Gujarat. An interactive GISbased map provides details of the mine, its owner and the quality of raw material available. This could provide crucial information for Indian cement firms looking to turn to cleaner technology. As a sustainable, viable alternative to cement, LC3 has enormous potential. “It can be easily replicated anywhere in the world, wherever china clay is available in abundance,” notes Rathi.
The building sector contributes up to 30% of global annual green house gas emissions.
30%
S M A RT U R B A N P L A N N I N G | LC 3
Source: United Nations Environment Programme
53
SMART URBAN PLANNING
BY
FROM A COAL INDUSTRY STRONGHOLD TO A GREEN OASIS Essen Dusty air, polluted rivers and contaminated soil are now a thing of the past in Essen. Since the decline of the coal and steel industry, the Ruhr metropolis has converted itself into a model ecological city with plenty to teach other regions. — By Franz Hubik WEBSITE
www.essen.de COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
S M A RT U R B A N P L A N N I N G | E S S E N
Germany
54
Simone Raskob’s green wonder extends over twenty-one kilometres and is fully
paved. Along the former tracks of the Rhineland’s railway, the woman heading the city of Essen’s environmental department is building something resembling a bicycle motorway. Along the junction-free route, which, when completed, will run from Duisburg through Essen all the way to Dortmund, bicycle enthusiasts can pedal freely – with no cars to bother them. “Everyone should be able to get to work in an environmentally-friendly way,” explains Raskob. The vivacious politician hopes her bicycle fast lane will encourage commuters to leave their cars at home, eliminating the endless traffic jams found in Germany’s most heavily populated region. It is typical of Essen that the cycle route is being built in the exact same place that trains, fully-laden with coal and heavy metals, once chugged along on their way to the Phönix ironworks or the Zeche Carl coal mine. “It’s a symbol of our city’s capacity for transformation,” says Raskob. Industrial wastelands like the old railway tracks are being resolutely revitalised all over the Ruhr metropolis. The city discarded its image of smoking chimneys and coal miners long ago, and is now characterised by office blocks and landscape gardeners. The former industrial hub can almost be described as an ecological oasis. This successful transformation is being used as a model for other cities still struggling with structural upheavals. For 150 years, Essen was completely absorbed by the coal and steel industry.
When the coal crisis happened in 1958, and cheap crude oil ousted expensive Ruhr coal for the first time, tens of thousands of workers
lost their jobs. Anyone able to leave Essen left. The city has been losing inhabitants for fifty years, but in the last four years more people have moved to the city than away from it. The cliché that Essen has nothing to offer besides rusting factories and high debt is proving to be false. The city will be out of the red in 2017, for the first time in twenty-five years. The city’s last coke plant, the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, shut its doors in 1986. Today the coal relic has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site and welcomes thousands of visitors drawn by its concerts, museums and restaurants. But it’s not just the cultural impetus that is making Essen a better place to live. A good fifty-four per cent of the city is green. That makes Essen the third greenest city in Germany, after Magdeburg and Hanover. And there are new economic prospects too.
Some of the greenest companies in Germany are based in Essen. The energy giants
Eon, RWE and Steag have their headquarters here, as well as the industry giant ThyssenKrupp, the chemical company Evonik and the supermarket chain Aldi Nord. In the last few years, around 14,000 jobs have also been created in the environmental technology sphere. “For historical reasons, there is an enormous amount of expertise to be found here, such as how to dispose of old contaminated waste in an environmentally-friendly way, or how polluted water can be treated,” explains Rudolf Juchelka. The economic geographer at the University of Duisburg-Essen remembers how Essen’s coal and steel industry deposited toxic waste from factories in big dumps. Over the decades, heavy metals seeped into the soil and contaminated the ground water. There are
already dozens of firms specialising in cleaning this old contaminated waste. “These are skills that Essen can usefully export,” says Juchelka. In this city of around 600,000 inhabitants, the ecological baggage of mining and heavy industry is not seen as a burden, but as an opportunity.
This approach has recently been commended by the EU Commission. Essen has
been awarded the title of ‘European Green Capital’ for 2017. The authorities in Brussels praised the Ruhr metropolis for having worked to improve its environmental standards over many years. For the Commission, it was Essen’s plans for the future that made an impression. The Emscher, the second largest river in Essen after the Ruhr, is planned to be fully restored to its natural state by 2020. For decades the Emscher was the sewer of the Ruhr area, an above-ground drain. “Every-
thing flowed into it – all the industrial grime and the residential sewage,” explains Raskob. With the restoration of the Emscher, Essen and the Ruhr area are now getting a modern canal system. It should help to reduce the smell and increase quality of life. “We’re giving people their city back, piece by piece,” says Raskob. The politician even wants to prove how green and clean the Ruhr metropolis is with a daring personal test next year.
Right on time for the start of the 2017 swimming season, Raskob plans to jump
into the Baldeneysee, the largest of the six Ruhr reservoirs. Swimming has been forbidden there for decades, as the water’s bacteria level is extremely high. But Raskob is convinced she can improve water quality enough to make the Baldeneysee swimmable in the future. And there’s a sure sign that Raskob is serious – she’s already working on her bikini body.
We’re giving people their city back, piece by piece.
THE URBAN REVITALISATION PROJECT LEADING THE WAY IN MONTRÉAL Technopôle Angus — By Anne Gaignaire After the closure of the Canada Pacific Railway shops in the Montréal neighbourhood of Rosemont (where trains were repaired and
maintained between 1902 and 1992), the land became an industrial fallow that lasted around ten years. Recently, however, the area was given a new lease of life: the site was reconverted into a business and residential area that incorporates all of the latest environmental construction standards. Angus Development Company (Société de Développement Angus), bought a plot of the industrial land in Rosemont and designed plans for the space, taking into account the need for sustainable development while at the same time aiming to revitalise the neighbourhood by accommodating both residential and business units.
Today the converted space hosts a shopping centre, restaurants and convenience stores as well as media, IT and health-rela-
ted services, all working side by side. Several Montréal businesses have signed on to join
the project, while around 60 SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), with around 2,300 people on their roster, are now happily settled into the 13 buildings on the site. This has been the first phase in the Technopôle Angus project. The site, which has a surface area of around 580,000 square feet, contains several
open green spaces, whilst all of the buildings have been constructed to LEED environmental standards. A recycling and composting system has been launched on site, as well as a carpooling initiative. The second phase of sustainable development at Technopôle Angus is currently underway. One million square feet of both business and residential space has been planned. The company is looking to host around 40 new enterprises with the hope of creating 1,500 jobs. The space will also include 350 to 400 housing units, of which 20% will be designated for social housing.
WEBSITE
technopoleangus.com/en
S M A RT U R B A N P L A N N I N G | T E C H N O P Ô L E A N G U S
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
55
SMART URBAN PLANNING
MAKING SUSTAINABLE BUILDING ACCESSIBLE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID François Perrot Head of Affordable Housing & 14Trees Ltd, LafargeHolcim
S M A RT U R B A N P L A N N I N G | F R A N Ç O I S P E R R OT
Q. What are the key trends in the construction sector today? FP. To better understand the issues related
56
to the construction sector, it’s important to be aware of the statistics related to urbanization: more than 50% of the global population now lives in cities and nearly four billion people in the world lack access to adequate housing. Around one billion people today live in slums—a figure that will climb to two billion by 2030. In order to help these low-income populations gain access to housing at the most affordable price possible, LafargeHolcim has put in place the Affordable Housing Program. Q. What is the sustainable response to the “bottom of the pyramid”’s growing housing demand? FP. The diversity of the urban issues at hand
requires a wide range of responses that are both innovative and adapted to each country. Our Affordable Housing program, which helped 440,000 people improve their housing conditions in 2015 and yielded an EBITDA of 15 million Swiss francs (15.1 million in USD), is in place in 25 countries, each with a different context. We have identified
four large types of projects: the first group includes projects that fund living improvements through microfinance, with support from local partners. Next is a group of projects based on distribution networks that respond to logistical problems. For instance, we adapt our concrete transportation and packaging in order to channel construction materials to informal settlements. The third group of projects relate to partnerships with social housing builders to optimize the organization and management of the building sites and the construction quality, notably in Nigeria. Finally, the last category is comprised of Durabric, a solution that replaces traditional burnt clay brick with one that is produced from a mixture of dirt and naturally hardened cement. This eliminates the firing stage which requires the cutting of trees, contributing to deforestation. This process can divide CO2 emissions by 10 for each square meter of material. The testing phases in Malawi have proven that the demand exists. To accelerate the production and promotion of Durabric, we’ve created 14Trees, a joint-venture between LafargeHolcim and the British development agency, CDC.
Q. Is collaboration a key to success? FP. The issue of access to housing is multi
dimensional. We have to work on our own solution, integrating it with those of local partners in order to make the ecosystem evolve as a whole. The microfinance example illustrates this well: each housing microloan client is put in contact with a technical advisor, and we’re putting in place adequate distribution networks so that the client can go look for construction materials from the retailer directly, without requiring a monetary transaction. All of this allows for building complete solutions within an ecosystem that needs to be strengthened. In Nigeria, for instance, we’re working with the World Bank and The French Development Agency to develop the Housing Microfinance Academy program, which trains Nigerian banks so they will be ready to offer housing microloans.
Q. What about collaborations between cities? FP. This is an extremely important dimen-
sion. Whether it be rural areas or densely populated areas, including informal settlements, city officials must be involved. This helps identify areas in need of permanent affordable housing. Cities are the builders of these sustainable solutions.
The diversity of the urban issues at hand requires a wide range of responses that are both innovative and adapted to each country.
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
Eco-Dome — By Stéphanie Jacob At first glance, it does not seem like EcoDome’s technique is doing anything new.
Actually, you could say that using earth to raise the walls of your house is an ancient tradition and a tried and tested technique. However, this Moroccan startup has a few new tricks up their sleeve.
Their alterations are simple: Eco-Dome builds houses made from 90% earth and 10% cement, and forms them into domes
WEBSITE
www.facebook.com/ecodome.maroc/
rather than constructing four walls and a roof. As basic as this sounds, the resulting domed house has astounding qualities: both the materials used and the construction method are ecological. Equally, the round shape of the building is a self-stabilising mechanism, which makes it resistant to natural disasters such as cyclones, floods and earthquakes, without any need for structural reinforcement. The materials used can even withstand house fires. By sourcing natural building materials
from local areas, this startup has produced a sustainable cheap housing alternative.
For local residents, the main appeal of Eco-Dome might be the incredible 45% cost
reduction per m² when switching from reinforced concrete to this start-up’s more natural building method. Or it might be because this method also cuts the required construction time in half. Or because these earthy domed shaped houses provide both sound and heat insulation for their occupants, allowing the rooms to stay cool in the summer and to remain warm in the winter. With a reduction in CO² emissions of up to 64% throughout the building process, it is equally hard to overlook the houses’ environmental attributes.
A 72m² Eco-Dome with four rooms, electricity and running water, sanitation and
S M A RT U R B A N P L A N N I N G | E C O - D O M E
BUILDING ECOLOGICAL ‘HOUSES OF TOMORROW’ IN RURAL MOROCCO
electrical installations included costs around 140,000 DH (US$ 38,000).
57
Sustainab transport Ecological solutions for efficient transportation systems that meet the increasing demand for mobility within cities and between them.
ble t
IN THIS CHAPTER
p.60 Wattway p.61 Zhuzhou p.62 Santiago’s subway p.63 ForCity p.64 Expert view: Robin Bonsey —
59
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT BY
THE FRENCH SOLAR ROAD PAVING THE WAY FOR CLEAN ENERGY Wattway — By Myriam Chauvot Innovations in construction very rarely spark the interest of the French population, with one recent exception. Conceived
WEBSITE
wattwaybycolas.com COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
France MATURITY LEVEL
Early Stage CONTACT
S U S TA I NA B L E T R A N S P O RT | W AT T W AY
Delphine Lombard Deputy Director for Communication [email protected]
60
Conceived in France, and emerging as the first of its kind worldwide, the solar road is already making waves throughout the energy sector
in France, and emerging as the first of its kind worldwide, the solar road is already making waves throughout the energy sector. The photovoltaic road (or parking lot) is the fruit of a 5-year joint research project between Colas – a subsidiary of the Bouygues road works group – and the National Institute of Solar Energy. Their combined effort has created Wattway: a road surface that comes in the form of photovoltaic tiles covered in a resistant resin. This strong tar promises to withstand the heavy traffic of trucks weighing around 13 tonnes per axel. “In Chambéry and Grenoble, we successfully tested Wattway using one million vehicles-worth of traffic, and the surface didn’t move,” explained Hervé Le Bouc, the director of Colas, during the initial presentation for this new technology in October 2015. “All of Colas’s expertise –protected by two patents – has culminated in the creation of this clear coating, which is designed to protect the fragile photovoltaic cells.” With Wattway there is no need to rip up and relay existing roads, as the tiles are
easily installed over the original surface. Connectors then transfer the electricity produced from the tiles either directly to points of use – such as street lights or traffic lights – or to energy transport and storage systems. According to estimates from the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe), four metres of Wattway road (or 20m²) are able to supply enough electricity to run a home, minus the heating. They also claim that 15m² can power the traffic lights at an intersection, and one kilometre of road can light up a town with 5,000 inhabitants. There are already many possible applications of this technology, and we have yet to
see what other interesting ideas lie in store. However, there are groups of sceptics that need convincing. Firstly, there are the energy companies who doubt that the cost of energy
production can rival that of conventional solar farms. Or then there are the road transport professionals, who have reservations about the resistance of the tiles. “In any case, Wattway is clearly not intended for heavy traffic as Colas only tested its tiles with a million truck crossings. On a motorway with heavy traffic at a rate of 80,000 vehicles per day including 15,000 trucks, the one-million mark is reached in less than three months,” remarks an expert. This would be a short life span indeed for the Wattway road. “By 2018, we will have tested the different uses of Wattway with various partner clients from both the public and the private sector, across one hundred different application sites both in France and internationally. This includes thirty this year,” states Pascal Tebibel, director of strategic foresight at Colas. “The tests will be done under realistic conditions, covering areas ranging from 20 to 100m² (maximum).” Following an announcement in June, the first of these tests is currently being conducted with the department of Vendée and will
see the creation of a 50m² parking lot in a sports complex. The energy generated will power a charging station for electric cars. The plan for the second test site has not yet been revealed. The French Minister of Ecology, Ségolène Royal, is already steaming ahead with the plans. In January, Royal stated that she wanted to install 1,000km of solar roads within 5 years, before announcing in March that she wanted to make 5 million euros available for the project (although this has not yet materialised). Royal then visited the SNA factory in Tourouvre (Orne) on 26 July, which is where 5,000m² of tiles are being made for the application sites. If Wattway is still on the right track once the testing phase is over, “SNA has a production line capable of producing 150,000m²,” explains Pascal Tebibel. “In 2018, we can then move onto commercialisation.”
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
Zhuzhou — By Chen Juan As China has become the world’s largest producer of vehicles, motor vehicle exhaust
WEBSITE
www.crrcgc.cc
is now one of the country’s worst sources of air pollution. Faced with worsening climate and environmental conditions, many Chinese cities have started to promote low-carbon travel. This year, CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co., China’s biggest electric locomotive maker, launched two new low-carbon transport products. The new supercapacitor tram is a streetcar that does not use overhead power cables, can reach speeds of 70 km per hour
and can carry up to 380 passengers. It can be fully charged in 30 seconds and run for three to five km, according to Suo Jianguo, chief engineer at CRRC Zhuzhou. In addition, 85 percent of the streetcar’s braking energy is recycled and stored in the supercapacitor. Its super-fast charging and discharging make the streetcar ideal for mass transport. In May, the first medium- and low-speed
maglev passenger train designed by CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co. was put into operation on an 18.5 km-long track running from the Changsha High-speed Railway Station to the Changsha Huanghua International Airport.
The maglev train has several advantages compared with light rail, subway and other
forms of rail transport, such as low noise levels, high grade ability and low cost. Because the maglev train is suspended above the rail track and does not have wheels, it is able to climb slopes and cross low-lying barriers on the ground. It can climb the equivalent of three stories, whereas the average light rail train can only climb several meters over a long distance. The Changsha maglev track cost CNY 230 million (US$ 34.5 million) per km. The cost
for conventional subway construction can reach more than three times that amount, making the tram an appealing alternative to underground transport.
S U S TA I NA B L E T R A N S P O RT | Z H UZ H O U
TOWARD GREEN TRANSIT IN CHINA
61
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT BY
SANTIAGO’S SUBWAY TO RUN ON SUN AND WIND POWER Santiago’s subway The construction of a solar power plant and a wind farm began earlier this year with the objective of powering the underground rail network of the Chilean capital for the next 15 years. — By Daniel Fajardo
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
S U S TA I NA B L E T R A N S P O RT | S A N T I A G O ’ S S U B W AY
Chile
62
In mid-June, the Chilean president Michelle Bachelet signed the Paris Agreement, which promises a 30% reduction in
Chile’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020. To achieve this, the public sector has initiated several projects, one of which was announced by President Bachelet in May this year. Santiago Metro has signed an agreement with both the solar plant El Pelícano and the wind farm San Juan, which will be fully operational by 2018. The agreement will meet all the energy requirements for Santiago Metro through the Central Interconnected System (SIC). The two projects combined involve a state investment of more than US $500 million. The issue is key in several respects. While the commitments of the Paris Agreement are
currently in focus, the Chilean capital is midway through constructing two new subway lines, which will be ready between 2017 and 2018. In addition, one of the election pledges of the current administration is decongestion and reducing pollution in the city. In recent years, Chile has become one of the countries with the greatest potential for
solar energy in the world. Wind power also seems to be an increasingly strong option. Several multinational players in the solar industry have established operations in the famous Atacama Desert, due to the high levels of solar radiation (over 1,200 w/m2). It is estimated that in Chile there is 1.3 GW of electrical capacity in solar panels on a
large scale (mostly in the north), generating a boom in the use of this technology. According to the National Energy Commission (CNE), in January this year, plans for the construction of solar power plants in the Northern Interconnected System (SING) accounted for 37% of all power plant initiatives, followed by carbon (33%) and natural gas (20%). “Both the Government and the private sector were excited by the initial goal of generating 25% of energy from NCRE (non-conventional renewable energy) sources by 2025 and we are working towards this quota very qui-
ckly”, says Peter Horn, CEO of Heliplast, a Chilean-German solar solutions company with more than three decades in the field.
In this context, El Pelícano (run by SunPower), located between the regions of Coquimbo y Atacama, will have a capa-
city of 110 MWp, which is equivalent to the electricity generation required to supply an average of 100,000 Chilean households. All of the energy generated by this plant will go to Santiago Metro. “In association with Total, SunPower is committed to the continual growth of the local solar industry, especially with the demand for solar renewable energy at a competitive cost”, assured Manuel Tagle, general manager of SunPower Chile. For its part, the wind farm San Juan de Aceituno (owned by Latin American Power), to be built in the Freirina district of the Atacama region, will have a capacity of 185 MWp, and will allocate 15% of the energy it generates to the subway.
As a result, from 2018 the energy matrix of Santiago Metro will consist of 40% conventional energy (Chilectra), around 42% solar
energy (El Pelícano) and 18% wind energy (San Juan Wind Farm). “While international experience has shown that several metro systems in the world have incorporated NCREs into their production process, Santiago Metro is a pioneer in incorporating such a magnitude of clean energy in its consumption matrix”, explained the state-owned metro. Furthermore, in terms of actual impact, it is estimated that from 2018, the two new contracts will provide a countrywide emissions reduction of 130,000 tons of CO² per year, the equivalent of planting 7.8 million trees. “Together, these contracts will enhance the sustainable development of the company from an environmental perspective. This will allow Santiago Metro to provide a stable and competitive price, which on average, considering 100% of the energy matrix, will remain below $100USD/MWh”, added Santiago Metro.
EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE BY
ForCity A Lyonnais startup uses 3D modeling and big data to prepare cities for a more livable, sustainable future — By Nicholas LeQuesne With a plethora of corporate headquarters and logistics hubs, daily road traffic in excess
WEBSITE
www.forcity.com
of 195,000 vehicles and the lion’s share of France’s international arrivals and departures, the airport corridor north of Paris has the most polluted air anywhere in the French capital. To counter the problem, the local administration has set itself an ambitious target: reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of four between now and 2050. To accomplish it, local planners have joined forces with a startup from Lyon called ForCity to create a brand new way of preparing for the future. ForCity’s solution—named R’City— uses 3D modeling and big data technology to simulate the combined effects of multiform changes in the urban environment, and will be up and running in 2017. “It enables us to model the impact of initiatives by both public bodies and individual actors, and to share that data with every potential player in the territory,” said ForCity’s President François Grosse. “We
can plot the effects on sustainable mobility of a new train line, inter-corporate carpooling or a new bike-sharing station. It’s a way of revealing things that will only become visible in the future, and planning for them today.”
Their system crunches numbers from a vast array of data to show clients the various
ways their initiatives could pan out over time. Accessed remotely on any computer using a login and password, it supplies an immersive 3D model of any given environment. By changing its characteristics and entering future developments on a timeline, clients can create a range of alternative scenarios and visualize the potential consequences of their decisions.
Although only in existence for two years, ForCity is already involved in a number of large-scale international projects. One
of them is being carried out for Veolia in Hong Kong using a tool to support the development of the Kowloon East district.
S U S TA I NA B L E T R A N S P O RT | F O R C I T Y
SIMULATING THE CITY
63
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT
Robin Bonsey Consultant, HYSTRA
MOBILITY IN DEVELOPING CITIES S U S TA I NA B L E T R A N S P O RT | R O B I N B O N S E Y
(1)
64
The strong demand for mobility in developing cities must be met with inclusive and sustainable solutions Demand for mobility is growing strongly in emerging countries, nearly twice as rapidly as their GDP(2). In the next 40 years, passenger transportation in non-OECD countries is expected to grow by a factor of four, and freight transportation by a factor of six. Simultaneously, rapid urbanisation means most of that demand will appear in cities. However the pressure that the growth of traditional transportation solutions lays on infrastructure, as well as their environmental consequences, are clearly unsustainable: a car in Bangkok already spends 1,100 hours a year stuck in traffic; yet more than 300 new vehicles are added to the flow every single day(3). The individual car ownership model cannot be sustainably replicated in the already vast and rapidly growing cities of the developing world. It must be replaced by pooling or sharing individual transportation solutions, and improving collective transportation solutions. Mobility must also become more socially inclusive: lack of mobility is both a factor and a consequence of poverty, as low-income classes are both too poor to access efficient transportation means, and impoverished by their lack of access to jobs or markets.
A wealth of innovative solutions are emerging locally In response to these needs, a proliferation of innovative solutions has appeared all over the world, not least in the cities of emerging economies. A large part of these innovations has focused on improving the performance and efficiency of existing transportation through digital tools. App-based innovations in dispatch services that met with tremendous success in developed markets (e.g. Uber) have been transposed to developing countries, with considerable benefits for both customers and drivers. In India in the last few years, start-ups such as mGaadi, Autowale or Jugnoo transposed the Uber application model to bring efficiency and convenience to the chaotic three-wheeled world of auto-rickshaws, offering reliable rides with transparent pricing. This also represented a considerable social impact by allowing low-income rickshaw drivers to significantly improve their livelihoods(4). Technology-based ventures have also been helping cities shift to less polluting or more economical modes of transportation. Global Electric Transport is a Filipino-American social enterprise in Manila, set up to replace the polluting and cramped Jeepneys, which are the main public transport
Incumbents need to step in and help them reach scale Like in any field, most innovations in mobility have emerged from small, flexible and disruptive players. Most are still local and have not yet scaled up country-wide or internationally, for lack of financial and technical resources. The incumbent mobility providers (i.e. energy providers, equipment manufacturers, and network operators) that today provide the vast majority of mobility services also control the assets and master the processes which would allow such innovations to reach scale: but they have so far been slow in harnessing them. However, traditional competitive borders are shifting as these mobility incumbents are becoming increasingly threatened by more agile new entrants (e.g. IT firms such as Google developing driver-less cars). Tapping into the wealth of innovation happening on the ground, and scaling up efficient, clean and inclusive mobility solutions would certainly help incumbent players stay ahead of the curve.
(1) This article is based on a 2014 research assignment on inclusive mobility by Hystra for TOTAL (2) Source: International Transport, Forum Transport Outlook (2012). (3) Source: World Bank & DFID, Poverty and Transport (2000) (4) Recently, most of these efforts to improve the efficiency or rickshaws have had to consolidate, shut down or be bought up, mainly because of the price war currently being waged between providers of app-based taxi fares such as Uber or Ola
S U S TA I NA B L E T R A N S P O RT | R O B I N B O N S E Y
vehicle in the Philippines. GET has developed a business model that will allow to transition from Jeepneys to clean and comfortable electric COMET vehicles, while offering enhanced opportunities for Jeepney drivers and owners, and keeping prices stable for end-users. GET has launched its first route in Manila and is hoping to replace some 20,000 of the 60,000 Manila Jeepneys by 2020. Lastly, new enterprises enable consumers to avoid the need for mobility altogether, by bringing products and services closer to them. This is best done by leveraging existing infrastructure: for instance, the small retail corner shops (“mom and pop shops�) that are ubiquitous in many developing cities. Several organisations have successfully equipped such shops with tablets providing low-cost telecommunications, financial transactions, and other services to their consumers. In the poor districts of Mexico City, companies like Barared and Virtual Market have enabled entire neighbourhoods to place long-distance calls, withdraw cash, or pay their utility bills around their block, without having to travel to the city centre and queue for hours in front of crowded phone booths, ATMs or utility offices.
65
ACTORS OF CHANGE
ACTORS OF CHANGE
BUILDING A NEW CITY WITH PEOPLE
66
“Cities have entered a new era in their evolution: a period in which residents not only consume the urban space around them, but positively contribute to its transformation. From urban agriculture to shared transport, the revolution is underway and a large part of it is driven by a new generation of enthusiastic citizens, coming together to reinvent their cities. After her studies, Albina decided to tackle waste management in Lima. She launched Ciudad Saludable in 2001 to engage local communities in adopting recycling habits. 15 years later, the social enterprise has raised awareness among 9 million people, empowering 6,000 recyclers in more than 200 municipalities. Raul, who uses a wheelchair, didn’t know which cafes were accessible for him in Berlin. He decided to design and develop a crowdsourced online map to provide this crucial information to wheelchair users. In six years, more than 680,000 locations have been marked worldwide. These stories are countless and show that initiatives that were considered as isolated actually represent a global movement that redefines the very notion of “citizenship” in cities. This form of citizenship is more oriented towards creation and contribution rather than just votes and thoughts. In 2011 we created New CITYzens, an international community whose goal is to unite and speed up this movement by finding, showcasing, and connecting initiatives through a digital platform. They are then shared with other citizens, municipalities and businesses. By spreading knowledge and tools, we enable similar citizen-led projects to take root city by city. And this movement of cities “for and by the people” spreads beyond local governments to reach companies that realize that citizens are valuable partners in tackling local issues. Understanding one another, finding unity and designing projects for the benefit of the community — these are the necessary ingredients for the positive collaboration that will be the key to prepare our cities for the future. An exciting new urban chapter is starting and the people will have an important role to play.” Nicolas Le Berre is the founder of New CITYzens, an organization working to empower people to build more positive cities.
THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE ISSUES When it comes to climate negotiations, like the COP, Bo Lidegaard has sat on both sides of the table. He spent a significant part of his career working as a diplomat, later heading the Climate Change Secretariat, before becoming the editor in chief of Politiken in 2011. Given your involvement in COP15 in Copenhagen back in 2009, could you tell us about how journalism has evolved in the way it addresses climate issues today? Part of what makes this area particular is that we’re dealing with very complex problems, which requires journalists that are familiar with the topics and dynamics, and who have the in-depth knowledge to ask the right questions and make sure to have balanced sources. Though it’s no different from other fields of journalism – business, political, economics, etc. – all areas of reporting require a high level of rigor. As this [climate] is a newer issue area, it’s still being developed in some papers, but it’s moving in the right direction. Could you tell us about your thoughts on solutions journalism adds value to stories around climate? I think it’s absolutely imperative that we move away from the [former] scary kind of journalism and over to a solutions agenda. And I also think this is a generally shared view throughout the press. I’m of the view that the media has an extremely important role in establishing the agenda and pursuing issues that we find important, without being shy about it. Solutions journalism is fundamentally no different from all other forms of journalism. You have to find a fascinating story and tell it in a way that will move and grip the reader. It’s a question of finding the right angle, applying good journalism, and turning the story in the right direction. This kind of journalism needs to be given the priority it deserves - time and opportunities to develop. Looking forward, do you believe the media can help shape the way businesses move towards climate-friendly practices? If we as the media can get into the heart of corporations and companies that are actually moving their business in the direction of the sustainable development goals and are trying to get ahead of the curve, these stories can have a great impact on other companies wanting to move in the same direction. It’s an area where a big impact can happen.
SOLUTIONS&CO
Sparknews presents this publication as part of Solutions&Co, our editorial operation involving leading economic media from around the world. solutions for climate issues with around five million readers worldwide. These operations follow a collaborative model: Each paper writes three pieces, which are shared within our pool of media partners and published as a supplement on the same day, furthering the impact of each solution through reaching a global readership. The 2016 edition of Solutions&Co focuses on business solutions to climate issues within cities. More than 40 articles dedicated to innovative solutions will be shared by 20 leading economic newspapers. This publication features articles published in the Solutions&Co supplement this year.
S O LU T I O N S & C O
Our mission is to share proven solutions to climate issues in order to inspire action, accelerating positive change on a global scale. Our network includes: media, social entrepreneurs (or other project leaders), and international corporations. Since our creation in 2012 we’ve worked to empower newsrooms to implement solutions based journalism through our two media operations: — Impact Journalism Day, (launched in 2013), which now gathers 55 acclaimed media worldwide to share positive innovations — Solutions&Co, introduced in 2015, in which 20 leading economic newspapers share business
67
ART DIRECTION Oriane
GRAPHIC DESIGN Anaïs
—
Juster de Sousa
Pictograms: StockVector / Shutterstock Mosaïc p.2: Unsplash / Contributors: Yolanda Kakabase, photo WWF. Nicolas Le Berre, photo New CITYzens. Mary Robinson, photo Sparknews. Marie-Ange Debon, photo SUEZ / Julien Lutt CAPA Pictures. Jean-Louis Chaussade, photo SUEZ / Denis Félix / Planisphère p.6-7: FreeVectorMaps, retouche Oriane Juster — In articles: ForestFinance p.10: photos ForestFinance / Green Bonds p.11: photo Didier Sylvestre / AeroState p.13: Pixabay / Phénix p.20: photos Phénix / Wecyclers p.21: photos Wecyclers / FairPhone p.23: photos FairPhone / p.31: Unsplash / Xeros p.33: photo Pixabay / San Aqua p.33: photo Pixabay / Gravalock p. 34-35: top left, photo Gravalock. Right, photo Hugo Salazar for El Economista / Cold Hubs p. 42-43: photo Unsplash / ASB Biodiesel p. 43: photo Pixabay / TransActive Grids p.44-45: photo Kristian Buus / 40SouthEnergy p.45: photo Porfirio / LanzaTech p.46-47: top left, BaoSteel Shanghai, photo LanzaTech. Right: photo LanzaTech / LC3 p.52-53: photo Development Alternatives / Essen p.54: photo Christof Nolden / Eco-dome p.57: photo Eco-Dome Maroc / Wattway p.60: photo WattWay / ZhuZhou p.61: photo Denys Nevozhai / Santiago’s subway p.62: photo Pixabay / ForCity p.63: image ForCity —
PHOTO & IMAGE CREDITS
EDITED BY
www.solutionsandco.org