CleanTechnica

Marks & Spencer (M&S) may not be a familiar company to those outside of Britain or Europe, but it is no small business. It sells clothing, home and furniture goods, electronics, and food in 30 countries. It has 560 stores in the UK and 130 more worldwide.

Why would you care about this?

Well, M&S is on track to start one of the most innovative recycling systems in the world. It will fund a new curbside (kerbside, if you are British) recycling program and will use the recycled materials for its own food products. Closed-loop — that’s what this kind of full-cycle system is called.

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Suniva, Inc., a solar manufacturer based in Georgia, is aiming to bring a commercial, grid-connected, stored solar energy system to the state for the first time.  The company has just announced a partnership with Georgia-based GS Battery USA Inc., that will combine Suniva’s solar modules with high tech batteries on a 30 kilowatt solar plant at GS Battery’s headquarters in Roswell, Georgia.

To make it a trifecta, a third Georgia-based company, First Century Energy of Atlanta, is the designer of the solar array.  It’s an interesting sustainable energy threesome given that GS Battery is a subsidiary of GS Yuasa Group of Japan, which is a global battery technology leader that has just contracted with NASA to assemble lithium ion battery cells in Roswell — and there’s a couple of other U.S. government connections, too.

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A team of Harvard scientists has discovered that gold nanoparticles could be used to produce fabrics and fragrances.  The process is cheaper and more energy efficient, and it emits fewer pollutants than conventional production methods.  The breakthrough is more proof that sustainable manufacturing methods can achieve bottom line benefits along with improvements in public health and environmental safety.

Headed by Professor Cynthia Friend, the team found that gold nanoparticles can oxidize alcohols and aldehydes (formaldehyde is a familiar example of an aldehyde) at room temperature.  The process uses less energy than the high heat required by conventional methods.  If the process can be scaled up for commercial use, it could significantly reduce the carbon footprint involved in manufacturing synthetic fabrics, fragrances, essential oils, and perhaps other products as well.

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Greenhouse gas-sucking rubber ducks could be in the future.  Myriant Technologies LLC has just won U.S. Department of Energy funding of up to $50 million to construct a new plant that will produce Succinic Acid from sorghum, using a biobased process that is more energy efficient than conventional methods, and also absorbs more carbon dioxide than it produces.

Until now, petroleum has been the feedstock of choice to manufacture Succinic Acid.  If commercially successful, a more sustainable biobased process like Myriant’s could have a significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions, because Succinic Acid is used in a fantastic variety of materials from non-toxic diesel fuel additives, pharmaceuticals and food to plastic car parts, computer casings, and shoe soles.

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Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is getting $34.7 million to find ways to make cars lighter by improving carbon fiber manufacturing and processing. Though used in race cars and high-performance “supercars,” current carbon fiber composites cost too much for mass market vehicles.

Lightweight, strong carbon fiber will raise fuel efficiency, whether that fuel of the future is the natural biogas that you’ll surely one day tap from the compost in your backyard; or biodiesel (made from drought-resistant weeds of course), or the electrons off your shiny new solar roof.

The new Carbon Fiber Technology Center will try new feedstocks and new ways to create them, with the idea of reducing the cost of carbon fiber to under $5 a pound. Currently it is between $10 and $20 per pound.
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Laura Kurgan, Chris Jordan, Lorrie Vogel and Assaf Biderman – Pop!Tech 2009 – Camden, ME

In Part One, Lorrie Vogel explained some of the work Nike is doing to increase recycled and organic content in their products. Our conversation continues with discussing how Nike designers are encouraged to use sustainable principles in their work.

SS: You mentioned something about rewarding designers for innovating around sustainability, how does that work?

LV: As with any company centered on innovation, the process begins with Nike’s designers. To influence the designers to make responsible choices, Nike designers are scored against the Considered Index. In order to get new Considered innovations adopted faster, Nike gives innovation points to designers who come up with a brand new idea, as well as to teams who adopt considered innovations in the first year.

SS: And how are employees outside of the design department scored against the Considered Index?

LV: At Nike, there are so many different groups in different matrices, a lot of them are expected to calculate their CO2 footprint. But the Considered Index is primarily for designers.

SS: Sustainability 101 and Step by Natural Step (mentioned in this press release)- are they teaching personal sustainability practices, or teaching employees how to spot opportunities to be more responsible in the choices they make in their jobs?

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This impressive footprint is Nike’s Considered Air Jordan XX3, their first basketball shoe designed using the Considered Ethos.

Lorrie Vogel is the general manager of Nike Considered, Nike’s in-house sustainability think tank. She holds a degree in Industrial Design from Syracuse, and numerous patents. Her work in innovating around sustainability has helped put Nike on Fast Company’s Fast 50 list multiple times. Considering how aggressive Nike’s sustainability goals have been, it’s even more impressive that they are on track to meet their targets.

Sustainability is second only to performance when ranking the critical factors of a product. Nike is committed to making their entire collection as environmentally responsible as possible. Lorrie Vogel spoke at the Opportunity Green conference in Los Angeles, explaining some of the ways Nike is meeting these targets. In this phone interview, Lorrie expands on some of the points she touched on in her presentation. The conversation is split into two articles, in order to go deeper into the many changes that need to happen to increase use of recycled and organic materials in apparel and footwear. We begin with a discussion about materials, and conclude with the human element needed to ensure these changes occur in a timely manner.

From Nike: The long-term vision for Considered is to design products that are fully closed loop: produced using the fewest possible materials, designed for easy disassembly while allowing them to be recycled into new product or safely returned to nature at the end of their life. By 2011, 100 percent of footwear will meet baseline Considered standards, apparel by 2015 and equipment by 2020 – creating better performing products while minimizing environmental impact by reducing waste, using environmentally preferred materials and eliminate toxins.

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Researcher Susan Sun of Kansas State University has an answer for all those hungry cows out there:  let them eat barrels.  Sun’s work on sustainable biomass adhesives has already lead to an edible barrel for cattle feed made with straw and soy adhesive.  More products are on the horizon, including a new formula that improves the flowability and strength of raw bioplastic, making it easier to pour and mold.

The edible barrels replace oil drums, which cost approximately $6 per barrel to clean for re-use as feed containers in addition to the cost of the barrel.  Sun’s elegant waste reduction solution relieves farmers of this expense while practically eliminating the risk of oil-contaminated feed from poorly cleaned barrels.  It also eliminates waste or water pollution associated with the cleaning process, and it eliminates the cost (and carbon footprint) of returning used barrels for re-use.

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Nano carbon Graphene is already being produced in decidedly non-nano quantities by Ohio-based Angstron. Yet the atom-thick nano-material was discovered so recently that researchers are still in the process of discovering what to use it for.

Graphene is an extremely low density material, almost an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. It has been the focus of much research because of its exceptional electrical, mechanical and optical properties. It holds great promise in renewable energies.

Among the so far underutilized advantages Graphene offers are that it is fifty times stronger than steel, and it has five times the conductivity of copper, with only one quarter of the density.
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A-Power Energy Generation Systems won one aspect of the clean energy race and made history, as it will become the first Chinese manufacturer to export wind turbines to the United States. A-Power Energy Generation Systems and a consortium of Chinese and American companies — U.S. Renewable Energy Group, Cielo Wind Power, and the Shenyang Power Group — are planning to build a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas.

The project, which could power as many as 180,000 homes, will require 240 2.5-megawatt turbines and the farm will occupy 36,000 acres of land in West Texas. Nearly shovel ready, the construction effort is projected to create about 30 permanent jobs and 300 temporary ones. Ground-breaking on the wind farm is slated for March of 2010. Read the rest of this entry »