Green week – environmentally friendly tech

This week came as a breakthrough in many tech-related areas, but most noticeably in green tech development and environmentally friendly designs and additions to products and services. Even though we’ve seen designs similar to the ones below, we should keep our eyes on these ones because they stand out in their potential through cost-effectiveness and wide availability and through their developers and their popularity among tech savvy and resourceful individuals. Google, of course, came through this week with two new additions to their research:  Project Baseline and the addition of environmental sensor to its Google StreetView cameras which will be recording methane emissions in order to assess certain areas’ contributions to climate change.

The Sharifi House in Tehran also came as a surprise for those looking to save space in their houses. In the Sharifi House, you can rotate your own rooms with the help of a remote control. The semi-mobile rooms of the house were designed by Nextoffice, and they are based on a fixed main volume and lets them adapt to the functional needs of the dwellers. The design essentially implements the principle of dynamic seasonal modes of habitation, offering modern versions of living rooms designed for a specific season. The house can offer you more open space and terraces in the summer time, and minimal openings during winter time in order to save energy. The concept of this house proves that people are becoming more and more interested in sustainable energy and energy and space saving, all for the benefit of our environment  as well.

The San Francisco 49ers have also proved their interest in renewable and clean energy by moving into the new Levi’s stadium, the U.S.A.’s first LEED Gold-Certified NFL stadium fitted with enough photovoltaic panels to power all the games of the season. In the same category, the Dutch have built a farmhouse with a solar shed that provides all its energy, whilst Sainsbury’s became the first store in the U.K. to be completely powered by food waste through anaerobic digestion of food scraps. A similar project has been debuted in France by Intermarche, a major French grocer, who has decided to re-market and re-branded food that would’ve been thrown away because t does not aesthetically fit the standards of stores. The concept was presented through a series of posters and ads in the shops marketing the Ridiculous Potato, the Grotesque Apple and the Hideous Orange as perfectly healthy food with the same amount and quality of nutrients as the items that perfectly fit the aesthetic standards of shops.

Of course, these products are at a 30% discount, so the project was an immense success in France. I hope these breakthroughs will be implemented worldwide, especially the food re-purposing projects which would be well-received in the U.S. since half of the country’s food is thrown away in perfect shape.