Green Tech Innovations – Sustainable Solutions in Hardware and Software

Green tech innovations address this challenge by minimising greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging sustainability – the ability to produce what society needs without reliance on nonrenewable natural resources that might get depleted or damaged over time.

More and more hardware startups in particular are incorporating sustainability into their products, such as through green supply chains and circular economies.

Energy Storage

Firms are seeking out green devices and software in order to edge out the competition as well as demonstrate their eco-consciousness. This episode of Business Lab takes a look at some new green technology that is transforming the global economy by helping to transition to renewable energy away from fossil fuels.

Among green technologies, energy storage is perhaps the brightest spot, with batteries providing massive long-term storage for renewable energies such as solar and wind generation, and smoothing out peak pricing of the grid, which causes reported spikes in price during periods of high demand (such as heat waves).

Thermal energy storage can assist with the decarbonisation of the built environment, through heating and cooling needs, and generating hot water, thus significantly reducing energy bills. Carbon capture technology, meanwhile, removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it underground.

Carbon Capture

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) describes the process of collecting CO2 before it enters the atmosphere and storing it underground for long-term utilisation. This enhances mitigation of climate change, while reducing emissions from areas such as refining, chemicals, cement production and power generation.

Various hardware startups are now taking action by incorporating materials from responsibly-sourced sources, optimising production to avoid waste, committing to working only with green suppliers and designing hardware to be easy to repair or reuse.

This is just a fraction of electricity consumption: the operation of data centres is equivalent to 2 per cent of global electricity usage, while ICT equipment accounts for 14 per cent. A popular topic in Silicon Valley these days is the creation of ‘green hardware’, ranging from software upgrades to industrial design. Naturally, with tech companies up against most big polluters, they are galvanised by the urgency of averting a climate catastrophe. But I believe their claims go even further than concerns about climate change. If the companies are able to decrease the embedded energy of their products, they would become a major force in limiting electronic waste, reducing the destruction of natural ecosystems, saving consumers money through longer life spans and higher energy savings of their appliances, and thus protecting natural habitats.

Mimicking Plants

While our current global environmental crisis is placing ever-increasing pressure on finding technical solutions to everyday activities, Green Tech has developed answers that assit with everything ranging from cleaner transport methods to second-generation farming techniques, and from ways to create renewable energy to resources that facilitate lowering our carbon print, or reducing water waste.

The hardware and software design work of the tech industry consumes a massive amount of energy, 2-3 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, making sustainable innovation in both critical.

Computer technicians will ensure every byte of energy possible is used and nothing is wasted in IT infrastructure by implementing recycling, virtualisation, remote support and e-waste recycling solutions that reduce energy costs, emissions and contribute to bridging the digital divide so that all people have access to and benefit from green-tech solutions such as renewable energy sources, smart precision agriculture systems, and smart city systems.

Salt as a Heat Storage Material

Manufacturing things like smartphones involves extracting metals and plastics from the earth under poor working conditions, with severe environmental degradation occurring as a result. Disposing of those devices has become one of the largest contributors to waste pollution; fortunately, there are innovative hardware startups that are creating new recycling processes to mitigate waste and improve recovery of materials.

By using energy-saving and other green-friendly features in their products, hardware suppliers such as Nuvoton and Winbond help businesses save costs by decreasing their ecological footprints and enabling them to adhere to environmental regulations more easily. At the same time, their use of green technologies to develop electronic components turns such companies into more viable marketing targets for customers who care about the environment.

Mimicking the Effects of Photosynthesis

As global citizens ,we need to change the way we use energy and conserve natural resources throug the application of green technology ,this is of great significance.

Green tech innovations are helping to make the world a greener place when it comes to everything from data centres to vehicles that are more energy-efficient At the same time, our green tech innovations are going further, from sustainable materials that help offset the effects of carbon dioxide emissions to more environmentally friendly ways of transporting goods and services. Where will green tech innovations go from here?

Machine learning is already being used to improve the output of renewable energy sources, and to optimise waste disposal. And blockchain could help to set up sustainable energy projects faster.

Green technology innovations often take time to implement, especially in larger organisations with multiple stakeholders, but Business Lab is here to help. In this episode, find out what you can do to overcome resistance to implementation. This is the third installment in the Business Lab series.