The US-based footwear and apparel brand has not yet launched the shoe, called M0.0NSHOT, for purchase, but has provided key information on how design and material innovation have resulted in a net-zero shoe.
Some parts of the shoe’s lifecycle do emit carbon, such as transporting the components and the finished pair. However, as all of the key components are certified as carbon negative, Allbirds claims that the emissions which have been created are ‘inset’ across the lifecycle of the shoe.
The shoe’s upper is made using a carbon-negative merino wool from the New Zealand Merino Company, for example. The Company uses regenerative farming methods to enable the soil to draw down carbon. It has been certified as carbon-negative by Toitu Envirocare, a third-party carbon certification business, with carbon sequestration outweighing emissions.
Other carbon-negative elements of the shoe include bioplastic eyelets made using methane-based polymers and sugarcane-based foam midsoles. Allbirds has been using carbon-negative, sugarcane-based foam for soles since 2018 and calls this material SweetFoam. The new shoes include a next-generation version of this material, called .
Additionally, the shoes will be housed in sugarcane-derived, carbon-negative packaging which has been light-weighted to minimise emissions from transportation.
Allbirds’ co-founder and co-chief Tim Brown said: “Creating a net zero carbon shoe that is commercially viable and scalable is the culmination of our entire back catalogue of work. M0.0NSHOT isn’t a silver bullet for the climate crisis — it’s a proof-point that, when we take sustainability seriously and are laser-focused on carbon reduction, we can make incredible breakthroughs.”
The brand’s head of sustainability Hana Kajimura added: “We believe this will revolutionize the path to net zero, and act as rocket-fuel for the entire industry. We could spend decades debating the finer points of carbon sequestration, or we can innovate today with a common sense approach.”
Allbirds has not yet confirmed when the M0.0NSHOT shoes will go on sale and specifics like how many pairs will be available and the markets they will be sold in. However, it has pledged to open-source information relating to the design of the shoes and the carbon accounting methods used, in a bid to help other brands in the sector innovate to reduce emissions.
Allbirds’ director of materials innovation, Romesh Patel, was a guest on the edie podcast last year, discussing the brand’s ongoing work to scale lower-carbon and more circular materials. You can stream that episode here.
Fashion scorecard
The average pair of shoes comes with a life-cycle carbon footprint of 14kg of CO2e, and more than 20 billion pairs of new shoes are manufactured globally each year. Many shoe designs bear a high carbon footprint due to their use of leather and/or synthetic, fossil-based glues, foams and materials.
This week, a new scorecard from Stand.earth assessed 43 apparel and footwear companies on their work to descarbonise their value chains. None of the brands received a top grade, and two-thirds received one of the two lowest grades.
One key focus was the use of energy in supply chains, with the conclusion being that many big-name brands, despite publicly stating net-zero ambitions, are doing little to transition suppliers off of coal and on to clean energy. Stand.earth’s methodology also covered emissions from shipping, the use of low-carbon and more durable materials, and whether brands were advocating for renewable energy policies.
Brands to have scored one of the two lowest grades include Walmart, Target, Primark, Amazon, Under Armour, Armani, Guess, Chanel, Prada, Boohoo, Shein and Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing.
Allbirds only managed to secure a ‘D+ grade. It scored highly for its clean energy procurement and commitments but lost marks elsewhere. The top-scoring company overall was H&M Group, closely followed by Levi’s and Puma.
“Failure by brands to support the transition to renewables, while at the same time increasing energy consumption, will further entrench fossil fuel infrastructure in the Global South where their supply chains are focused, and lock in harmful health and climate impacts for decades to come,” warned Stand.earth campaigner Seema Joshi.
“Brands need to transition to renewable energy in their supply chains, and be more transparent about who their suppliers are and where they are located. The fashion industry has a responsibility to show progress engaging with suppliers to support a just energy transition, including through financing and training, and advocating to governments to meet the increased demand for renewable energy.”
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major contributor to climate change and a significant product of many human activities, notably industrial manufacturing. A major goal in the energy field has been to chemically convert emitted CO2 into valuable chemicals or fuels. But while CO2 is available in abundance, it has not yet been widely used to generate value-added products. Why not?
The reason is that CO2 molecules are highly stable and therefore not prone to being chemically converted to a different form. Researchers have sought materials and device designs that could help spur that conversion, but nothing has worked well enough to yield an efficient, cost-effective system.
Two years ago, Ariel Furst, the Raymond (1921) and Helen St. Laurent Career Development Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, decided to try using something different—a material that gets more attention in discussions of biology than of chemical engineering. Already, results from work in her lab suggest that her unusual approach is paying off.
The stumbling block
The challenge begins with the first step in the CO2 conversion process. Before being transformed into a useful product, CO2 must be chemically converted into carbon monoxide (CO). That conversion can be encouraged using electrochemistry, a process in which input voltage provides the extra energy needed to make the stable CO2 molecules react. The problem is that achieving the CO2-to-CO conversion requires large energy inputs—and even then, CO makes up only a small fraction of the products that are formed.
To explore opportunities for improving this process, Furst and her research group focused on the electrocatalyst, a material that enhances the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. The catalyst is key to successful operation. Inside an electrochemical device, the catalyst is often suspended in an aqueous (water-based) solution. When an electric potential (essentially a voltage) is applied to a submerged electrode, dissolved CO2 will—helped by the catalyst—be converted to CO.
But there’s one stumbling block: The catalyst and the CO2 must meet on the surface of the electrode for the reaction to occur. In some studies, the catalyst is dispersed in the solution, but that approach requires more catalyst and isn’t very efficient, according to Furst. “You have to both wait for the diffusion of CO2 to the catalyst and for the catalyst to reach the electrode before the reaction can occur,” she explains. As a result, researchers worldwide have been exploring different methods of “immobilizing” the catalyst on the electrode.
Connecting the catalyst and the electrode
Before Furst could delve into that challenge, she needed to decide which of the two types of CO2 conversion catalysts to work with: the traditional solid-state catalyst or a catalyst made up of small molecules. In examining the literature, she concluded that small-molecule catalysts held the most promise. While their conversion efficiency tends to be lower than that of solid-state versions, molecular catalysts offer one important advantage: They can be tuned to emphasize reactions and products of interest.
Two approaches are commonly used to immobilize small-molecule catalysts on an electrode. One involves linking the catalyst to the electrode by strong covalent bonds—a type of bond in which atoms share electrons; the result is a strong, essentially permanent connection. The other sets up a non-covalent attachment between the catalyst and the electrode; unlike a covalent bond, this connection can easily be broken.
Neither approach is ideal. In the former case, the catalyst and electrode are firmly attached, ensuring efficient reactions; but when the activity of the catalyst degrades over time (which it will), the electrode can no longer be accessed. In the latter case, a degraded catalyst can be removed; but the exact placement of the small molecules of the catalyst on the electrode can’t be controlled, leading to an inconsistent, often decreasing, catalytic efficiency—and simply increasing the amount of catalyst on the electrode surface without concern for where the molecules are placed doesn’t solve the problem.
What was needed was a way to position the small-molecule catalyst firmly and accurately on the electrode and then release it when it degrades. For that task, Furst turned to what she and her team regard as a kind of “programmable molecular Velcro”: deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
Adding DNA to the mix
Mention DNA to most people, and they think of biological functions in living things. But the members of Furst’s lab view DNA as more than just genetic code. “DNA has these really cool physical properties as a biomaterial that people don’t often think about,” she says. “DNA can be used as a molecular Velcro that can stick things together with very high precision.”
Furst knew that DNA sequences had previously been used to immobilize molecules on surfaces for other purposes. So she devised a plan to use DNA to direct the immobilization of catalysts for CO2 conversion.
Her approach depends on a well-understood behavior of DNA called hybridization. The familiar DNA structure is a double helix that forms when two complementary strands connect. When the sequence of bases (the four building blocks of DNA) in the individual strands match up, hydrogen bonds form between complementary bases, firmly linking the strands together.
Using that behavior for catalyst immobilization involves two steps. First, the researchers attach a single strand of DNA to the electrode. Then they attach a complementary strand to the catalyst that is floating in the aqueous solution. When the latter strand gets near the former, the two strands hybridize; they become linked by multiple hydrogen bonds between properly paired bases. As a result, the catalyst is firmly affixed to the electrode by means of two interlocked, self-assembled DNA strands, one connected to the electrode and the other to the catalyst.
Better still, the two strands can be detached from one another. “The connection is stable, but if we heat it up, we can remove the secondary strand that has the catalyst on it,” says Furst. “So we can de-hybridize it. That allows us to recycle our electrode surfaces—without having to disassemble the device or do any harsh chemical steps.”
Experimental investigation
To explore that idea, Furst and her team—postdocs Gang Fan and Thomas Gill, former graduate student Nathan Corbin Ph.D. ’21, and former postdoc Amruta Karbelkar—performed a series of experiments using three small-molecule catalysts based on porphyrins, a group of compounds that are biologically important for processes ranging from enzyme activity to oxygen transport. Two of the catalysts involve a synthetic porphyrin plus a metal center of either cobalt or iron. The third catalyst is hemin, a natural porphyrin compound used to treat porphyria, a set of disorders that can affect the nervous system. “So even the small-molecule catalysts we chose are kind of inspired by nature,” comments Furst.
In their experiments, the researchers first needed to modify single strands of DNA and deposit them on one of the electrodes submerged in the solution inside their electrochemical cell. Though this sounds straightforward, it did require some new chemistry. Led by Karbelkar and third-year undergraduate researcher Rachel Ahlmark, the team developed a fast, easy way to attach DNA to electrodes. For this work, the researchers’ focus was on attaching DNA, but the “tethering” chemistry they developed can also be used to attach enzymes (protein catalysts), and Furst believes it will be highly useful as a general strategy for modifying carbon electrodes.
Once the single strands of DNA were deposited on the electrode, the researchers synthesized complementary strands and attached to them one of the three catalysts. When the DNA strands with the catalyst were added to the solution in the electrochemical cell, they readily hybridized with the DNA strands on the electrode. After half-an-hour, the researchers applied a voltage to the electrode to chemically convert CO2 dissolved in the solution and used a gas chromatograph to analyze the makeup of the gases produced by the conversion.
The team found that when the DNA-linked catalysts were freely dispersed in the solution, they were highly soluble—even when they included small-molecule catalysts that don’t dissolve in water on their own. Indeed, while porphyrin-based catalysts in solution often stick together, once the DNA strands were attached, that counterproductive behavior was no longer evident.
The DNA-linked catalysts in solution were also more stable than their unmodified counterparts. They didn’t degrade at voltages that caused the unmodified catalysts to degrade. “So just attaching that single strand of DNA to the catalyst in solution makes those catalysts more stable,” says Furst. “We don’t even have to put them on the electrode surface to see improved stability.” When converting CO2 in this way, a stable catalyst will give a steady current over time. Experimental results showed that adding the DNA prevented the catalyst from degrading at voltages of interest for practical devices. Moreover, with all three catalysts in solution, the DNA modification significantly increased the production of CO per minute.
Allowing the DNA-linked catalyst to hybridize with the DNA connected to the electrode brought further improvements, even compared to the same DNA-linked catalyst in solution. For example, as a result of the DNA-directed assembly, the catalyst ended up firmly attached to the electrode, and the catalyst stability was further enhanced. Despite being highly soluble in aqueous solutions, the DNA-linked catalyst molecules remained hybridized at the surface of the electrode, even under harsh experimental conditions.
Immobilizing the DNA-linked catalyst on the electrode also significantly increased the rate of CO production. In a series of experiments, the researchers monitored the CO production rate with each of their catalysts in solution without attached DNA strands—the conventional setup—and then with them immobilized by DNA on the electrode. With all three catalysts, the amount of CO generated per minute was far higher when the DNA-linked catalyst was immobilized on the electrode.
In addition, immobilizing the DNA-linked catalyst on the electrode greatly increased the “selectivity” in terms of the products. One persistent challenge in using CO2 to generate CO in aqueous solutions is that there is an inevitable competition between the formation of CO and the formation of hydrogen. That tendency was eased by adding DNA to the catalyst in solution—and even more so when the catalyst was immobilized on the electrode using DNA. For both the cobalt-porphyrin catalyst and the hemin-based catalyst, the formation of CO relative to hydrogen was significantly higher with the DNA-linked catalyst on the electrode than in solution. With the iron-porphyrin catalyst they were about the same. “With the iron, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in solution or on the electrode,” Furst explains. “Both of them have selectivity for CO, so that’s good, too.”
Progress and plans
Furst and her team have now demonstrated that their DNA-based approach combines the advantages of the traditional solid-state catalysts and the newer small-molecule ones. In their experiments, they achieved the highly efficient chemical conversion of CO2 to CO and also were able to control the mix of products formed. And they believe that their technique should prove scalable: DNA is inexpensive and widely available, and the amount of catalyst required is several orders of magnitude lower when it’s immobilized using DNA.
Based on her work thus far, Furst hypothesizes that the structure and spacing of the small molecules on the electrode may directly impact both catalytic efficiency and product selectivity. Using DNA to control the precise positioning of her small-molecule catalysts, she plans to evaluate those impacts and then extrapolate design parameters that can be applied to other classes of energy-conversion catalysts. Ultimately, she hopes to develop a predictive algorithm that researchers can use as they design electrocatalytic systems for a wide variety of applications.
The tech giant first announced an intention to source carbon removal solutions from Climeworks in January 2021, a year after pledging to achieve carbon-negative operations and supply chains by 2030. To achieve this 2030 goal, Microsoft – which is already carbon-neutral in operations – intends to halve emissions this decade and invest to offset and remove more carbon than it emits annually.
This week, Climeworks confirmed that it has entered into a ten-year purchase agreement with Microsoft. The investment in the deal has not been disclosed at this stage, but Climeworks claims it is “one of the largest” in the DAC space and will support the removal of “tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere”.
“Microsoft’s multi-year offtake agreement with Climeworks is an important step towards realizing the ‘net’ in net zero,” said Microsoft’s chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa. “Our experience in purchasing renewable energy shows that long-term agreements can provide an essential foundation for society’s race to scale new decarbonisation technologies.”
Pictured: Climeworks’ Orca DAC plant in Iceland. Image: Climeworks
Other corporate supporters of Climeworks include Ocado, Swiss RE, Audi, LGT and Stripe, the latter of which is spearheading a collaborative private sector commitment on scaling carbon capture technologies. Called ‘Frontier’, the collaboration is backed by $925m of commitments to purchase carbon removals using man-made technologies this decade.
Technology scale-up
Climeworks currently operates 17 DAC plants, including one, Orca, which is operating on a commercial basis. Orca came online in September 2021 and is based in Hellisheiði, Iceland. Its CO2 removal capacity is 4,000 tonnes per year.
Last month, Climeworks confirmed plans for its 18th and largest plant to date – Mammoth, also in the same Icelandic region. The plant is expected to begin operations in either late 2023 or early 2024. In the first instance, it will have a CO2 capture capacity of 36,000 tonnes per year. Climeworks is aiming to scale to two megatonnes of capacity by 2030, laying the foundations for scaling to a gigatonne of capture capacity by 2050.
Climeworks’ technology works by drawing air into a collector with a fan. Inside the collector, CO2 is filtered out. When the filter is full, the collector is closed and heated to release the CO2, ready for concentration and storage by storage partner Carbfix. The carbon associated with developing and operating the DAC facilities, Climeworks claims, is typically equivalent to 10% of the carbon that will be captured. This calculation considers the fact that the facilities are powered by renewable energy.
Microsoft’s Joppa has called DAC “a nascent but crucial industry” to achieve the halving of net global emissions by 2030 and bringing them to net-zero by 2050 – the levels recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for giving humanity the best chance to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5C.
Indeed, some climate scientists have concluded that large-scale carbon capture – whether man-made or nature-based – is needed at scale to avert the worst physical impacts of climate change due to historic and continuing emissions. The IPCC itself has stated that, by 2050, the world’s air-based carbon removal capacity should be 3-12 billion tonnes in a net-zero world.
However, as Joppa acknowledged, man-made systems are in their relative infancy commercially. Critics are concerned that they may not deliver their promised benefits and could be used as a means for businesses to avoid reducing their emissions in the first instance.
ETC report
In related news, the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) has this week published a new report outlining its recommendations for scaling carbon capture, storage and utilisation (CCUS) technologies while ensuring that efforts around zero-carbon electricity and emissions reductions are not de-prioritised.
That report forecasts that, in 2050, the world will need 7-10 gigatonnes of CO2 capture. This is at the higher end of the levels recommended by the IPCC. Reaching this scale, the ETC argues, cannot be dependent on action in the mid or long-term – concerted efforts are needed this decade, with the backing of both public and private finance.
Overall, the ETC sees a “vital but limited” role for CCUS. Its report sets out how the carbon removals provided by these technologies should be prioritised for sectors which are hard to decarbonise, such as heavy industry, and should be scaled most rapidly in the sectors and locations where CCUS has an economic advantage over other decarbonisation solutions.
The ETC has been a vocal supporter of CCUS in recent years. In March, it released a separate report recommending that the global CCUS capacity reaches 3.5 billion tonnes annually by 2030.
Singapore will be renewing the 10 voluntary commitments previously submitted at the first United Nations Oceans Conference (UNOC), and undertaking nine new ones for marine protection.
Three of the island state’s new commitments involve environmental research projects. These are related to sustainable management of marine fish populations, the use of solar energy to facilitate coral growth, and a Marine Climate Change Science programme.
Other new commitments seek to spearhead the shipping industry’s green transition, for example by incentivising ship owners to become more sustainable. The country wants to lead the charge on the maritime industry’s transition to energy efficient technologies and low or zero carbon fuels, said its foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan, delivering an official statement at the UNOC in Lisbon, Portugal, this week.
“The challenges facing the ocean have increased with each passing year. We need to urgently scale up actions to collectively protect the ocean, and mitigate the impacts of climate change,” Dr Balakrishnan told member states.
What are voluntary commitments?
At the first UN Ocean Conference which took place in New York in 2017, member states agreed to create a list of commitments to further the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14, “Life Below Water”.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan delivering Singapore’s National Statement at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon on 28 June 2022. Image: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore.
Ocean governance experts that Eco-Business spoke to, however, have expressed doubts about the efficacy of the voluntary commitments. The non-binding nature of these commitments raises questions about their ability to drive ambitious action for marine protection, in Singapore and beyond.
Dr Michelle Voyer, a researcher on ocean governance at Australia’s University of Wollongong, said that there can be problems evaluating whether the commitments have been implemented as planned, or if countries are succeeding in meeting their objectives.
“There is no mechanism that I am aware of at present which tracks the performance over time,” she said.
While submitters can update their commitments with a progress report on the Registry, this is not mandatory.
Globally, over 1900 voluntary commitments have been registered on the Ocean Conference Registry. These have primarily been made by governments and non-governmental organisations, but also include other stakeholders like United Nations entities, academic institutions, and the scientific community.
Based on the registry data, the Singapore government has submitted a total of 33 commitments since 2017, including the nine new ones. A check by Eco-Business found that progress updates have been submitted for at least 23 commitments, and seven commitments have been completed to date.
Ho Xiang Tian, co-founder of environmental advocacy group Lepak in SG, is confident that implementation would not be an issue for Singapore.
“The real question is whether the voluntary commitments can fulfill the needs of what the oceans require to thrive,” he said. “There is a global target to protect 30 per cent of Earth’s oceans by 2030, but I don’t think we are anywhere close to that.”
The 30 by 30 initiative seeks to designate 30 per cent of the world’s land and ocean as protected areas by 2030. More than 100 countries have publicly committed to this goal to date.
Land reclamation and dredging practices need better management: youth activists Kathy Xu, a marine conservationist from Singapore and founder of social enterprise The Dorsal Effect, said she was happy to see the focus on research on ocean species and sustainability in Singapore’s new commitments.
“The areas of the research sound promising, and I’m all for science based methods,” she said.
“However, the devil is in the details that we do not have,” Ms Xu noted. She added that she hopes the government will tap on the diversity of marine expertise in Singapore, including civil society stakeholders, “not just academic ocean conservationists”.
Alice Soewito, a member of environmental group Singapore Youth for Climate Action, said that while Singapore has made advances in the maritime shipping industry, the government could better manage land reclamation and dredging practices.
“These practices can result in chronic sedimentation that harm and kill corals, thereby impacting the rest of the marine ecosystem,” she said.
Since the 1960s, Singapore has adopted an aggressive approach of land reclamation to accommodate industrial activities and a growing population. The island’s land area has expanded by nearly 25 per cent over the last two centuries. The National University of Singapore’s Reef Ecology Lab has said that many coral reef ecosystems were “smothered” by past reclamation practices.
These environmental impacts extend beyond Singapore’s borders. A 2010 report by international NGO Global Witness claimed that sand mining practices in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province, from which Singapore imported sand up till 2016, severely depleted local fish and crab stocks.
Malaysia and Indonesia banned sand exports to Singapore in 1997 and 2007 respectively due to environmental concerns.
On a global scale, Dr Voyer pointed out that many current commitments have a strong emphasis on research and science, as well as capacity development.
“Of course we always need to be improving the knowledge base,” she said. “But I would like to see greater emphasis on recognising the existing capacity within many coastal communities and amongst ocean stakeholders.”
“This includes engaging with local knowledge, and being bold in trying ideas put forward by the communities,” said Dr Voyer.
Negotations underway for new global ocean treaty
This year’s Ocean Conference, which took place from 27 June to 1 July, sought to scale up ocean action with a specific focus on science and innovation. Member states adopted a political declaration reaffirming their commitment to ocean conservation.
While this declaration is not binding, it lays the political foundation for an upcoming legally binding instrument — the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, colloquially known as the BBNJ Treaty. Singapore serves as the current president of the Intergovernmental Conference and will help to facilitate the fifth round of negotiations taking place in August this year.
In his speech, Dr Balakrishnan called on all delegations to “work towards the conclusion of an ambitious and future-proof BBNJ treaty as soon as possible”.
There were 131 billion parcels shipped worldwide in 2020 — a figure that is predicted to double in the next five years. Asia represents a huge market for global trade and logistics with the continent expected to account for 57 per cent of the growth of the global e-commerce logistics markets between 2020 and 2025.
But getting things from A to B creates an enormous carbon footprint.
Transportation was responsible for 8.26 gigatons, or about 26 per cent, of CO2 emissions globally in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Freight, the transport of goods, accounts for more than 7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Transport Forum.
Slashing planet-warming gases produced by transport and logistics will be instrumental in helping nations and corporates hit their climate goals.
A raft of corporate net-zero commitments has largely led to rapid efforts to drive down direct Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions. More organisations are pledging to reduce Scope 3 emissions generated upstream and downstream of the value chain and those embodied in transport and distribution.
Supply chains have become longer, more complex as logistics networks link more economic centres together and consumer preferences change leading to more regular, smaller freight shipments and rapid delivery by energy-intensive transport such as air freight.
While Europe and North America dominate historic transport emissions, much of the projected growth in emissions is in Asia, according to the World Economic Forum which reckons that highly ambitious policies could cut emissions by 70 per cent – but not to zero.
Operating in 220 countries and territories, Germany-headquartered Deutsche Post DHL Group is one of the largest logistics firms in the world. It also produced 33.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020.
The organisation has pegged its pathway to decarbonisation on reducing annual group carbon dioxide emissions to below 29 million tonnes by 2030 as it attempts to hit zero emissions by 2050. An investment of US$7.6 billion until 2030 will be funnelled into alternative aviation fuels, the expansion of electric vehicles and climate-neutral buildings, the group announced on 22 March.
“Logistics is a key contributor to the global carbon footprint. DHL occupies a big share of global logistics,” said Amrita Khadilkar, regional director, Operations Development, Digitalisation and GoGreen, APAC.
“In order to accelerate the move towards net zero carbon logistics, more work needs to be done to develop solutions within transport,” Khadilkar said. Private sector efforts alone are not enough, governments and policymakers must also buoy decarbonisation efforts.
From burning less, to burning clean
The S-curve charts the firm’s path to net zero logistics emissions.
The early climb on the solid S-curve represents carbon reduction strategies through supply chain efficiencies using existing technology that will enable the firm to burn fewer fossil fuels.
Carbon offsets are used to compensate for the hard-to-abate emissions and bridge the leap to the second dotted line S-curve—which represents the impending usage of new and currently less familiar types of technologies and approaches for carbon reduction—the final leg to net zero.
On this ‘burn clean’ pathway, the company sees the removal of carbon through sustainable fuels and alternative technologies, such as electric vehicles.
The S-curve framework – used to illustrate the typical pattern of start, rapid growth and maturity of technology diffusion as well as the corresponding efficiency improvements across an industry or economy – is one way to guide carbon reduction in logistics. This is achieved by reducing, compensating and removing. [Click to enlarge]. Image: DHL
However, there are several roadblocks to getting transport and logistics firms to burn clean fuels and move closer to net zero. Initial efforts show that firms find it challenging to navigate this road alone without meaningful collaboration.
“Most logistics firms have the know-how for reducing their carbon footprint using their existing technologies and familiar ways of working. But that will only take them so far as per the solid S-curve,” said Professor Emeritus Steven Miller, former vice provost (Research), Singapore Management University.
“To make the required progress in carbon reduction, companies need to jump to the next-generation (dotted line) S-curve enabled by new technology and new ways of working which will enable far greater opportunities for carbon footprint reduction,” he added.
Transport is still largely dependent on fossil fuels and is likely to remain so in the coming decades. Long-distance road freight (large trucks), aviation and shipping are areas from which carbon is particularly difficult to eliminate.
The potential for hydrogen as a fuel, or battery electricity to run planes, ships and large trucks is limited by the range and power required; the size and weight of batteries or hydrogen fuel tanks would be much larger and heavier than current combustion engines.
Currently, the logistics sector has low clean-technology maturity and high costs for such, such as new energy vehicles (NEVs), sustainable fuels, according to DHL. Supporting infrastructure like charging ports for EVs and access to renewable energy is currently lacking in some markets, driving up the cost of sustainable alternatives further. Meanwhile, aviation is still grappling with hitting on a viable low-carbon strategy.
“Some of the sustainable technologies and solutions in the early stages may not be commercially viable or operationally scalable,” acknowledged Khadilkar.
The IEA says that there needs to be deep cuts in fossil fuels to reach the mid-century target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest grouping of investors representing US$65 trillion in assets, warned in March that the aviation industry needed to take “urgent action” to align with the world’s climate goal. Its report highlighted the need for a “substantial” increase in sustainable aviation fuel between now and 2030.
Collaboration is key
In a bid to cut the reliance on fossil fuels in its air freight, DHL has set an ambitious goal of using 30 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for all air transport by 2030.
Last month, DHL announced one of the largest SAF deals with bp and Neste which have committed to provide 800 million litres until 2026. DHL expects its strategic collaborations to save about two million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the aviation fuel lifecycle – equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of about 400,000 passenger cars.
Tackling emissions created on land, DHL teamed up with Swedish firm, Volvo Trucks to introduce heavy duty electric delivery trucks for regional transport in Europe. The initiative is buoyed with funding from the country’s innovation agency, Vinnova and energy agency.
The adoption of new fuel technologies, essential to helping firms complete the journey to zero carbon emissions, requires partnering with governments to fund research and development efforts. Public investment in higher-risk programmes can also lead to the development of potentially disruptive technologies for energy applications.
“Government support can improve the rate of adoption of such technologies or solutions,” said Khadilkar. “Government incentives can also enable more research in green technologies and speed up any efforts to bring them to market.”
This would also reduce the cost. While companies like DHL and its industry peers can pilot new green technologies into freight, the cost will have to be shouldered by the consumer to some extent. Customers and companies say they want to live more sustainably but not all are willing to pay a premium to enable it.
Firms can only edge closer to net zero through trial and error. “Governments need to help through more research and development support, staging and coordinating larger scale domestic and international field trials, and by providing incentives for relevant business investments in new technology and capital, as well as in the related needs for human learning and training to work with these new technologies,” Miller said.
The adoption of sustainable alternatives has accelerated in countries where governments are offering financial support. This includes subsides and incentives through tax relief. Government subsidies have helped China become the world’s largest market for EVs. It is expected to exceed the government 2025 target and hit 20 per cent nationwide penetration this year.
“Investing or promoting green infrastructure can enable local businesses’ operations to be greener—through available and affordable renewable energy or developed local EV charging infrastructure, for example. A regulatory push such as inner city emissions regulation, or incentives like tax breaks, subsidies, are other ways we have seen help accelerate sustainability efforts,” said Kevin Jungnitsch, project manager & APAC sustainability lead, DHL Consulting APAC office.
Governments have also proven that they can help reduce emissions created by last-mile delivery.
In Singapore, a nationwide parcel delivery locker network spearheaded by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore allows e-commerce platforms and their customers collect and return online purchases using parcel lockers scattered across the city. It is expected to reduce the distance travelled for delivery purposes by 44 per cent daily and the city state’s CO2 emissions by up to 50 tonnes a year.
Waste also needs to be addressed. Out of the 1.56 million tonnes of household waste generated in Singapore in 2018, approximately one-third was packaging, according to a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature and DHL Consulting published in November. About 2000,000 e-commerce parcels are delivered daily in the city state, and this is expected to grow by about 50 per cent in the next three years.
In a bid to stem the tide of waste, a six-month pilot scheme was launched last month in Singapore to encourage shoppers to return packaging from their online purchases and encourage retailers to adopt a circular waste model. The pilot is an attempt to tackle the mountains of waste caused by the high volume of online shopping.
Navigating the decarbonisation road map
Supply chains are coming under greater scrutiny as firms and countries accelerate efforts to decarbonise. If the transport and logistics industry fails to respond effectively, it is likely to face significant and rapid regulatory tightening, and ever greater scrutiny from capital markets.
Strong public-private partnerships are needed to accelerate the necessary transition to the new generation of technology and new supporting business processes and ways of working in order to get supply chains to net zero carbon emissions, Miller added.
The private sector and government institutions could follow a simple framework to prompt deeper discussion and action surrounding the acceleration of adopting decarbonising logistics. This begins with a discovery phase where current infrastructure, resources and technologies are evaluated, sustainability challenges assessed, and key areas of focus are prioritised.
Embedding sustainability into corporate governance could help influence the decision-making that flows into the supply chain. This includes measures such as introducing mandatory sustainability requirements around reporting and transparency.
The challenge for governments will be to encourage companies to form robust decarbonisation plans with supporting incentives so that no single player is penalised for taking the harder path to sustainability.
Lastly, companies on the path to net zero need to examine each aspect of decarbonisation and identify where they can follow, share or lead on aspects of the net zero journey. While some firms will be able to distinguish themselves as sustainable leaders in some areas, they will also need to make alliances with public and private stakeholders.
But time is of the essence as capping the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a target key to avoiding the worst climate impacts — is slipping further out of reach.
“Climate promises and plans must be turned into reality and action now,” said Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, following a clarion call by hundreds of scientists last month to take action against climate change. “It is time to stop burning our planet, and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us.”
Home to 171 nationalities, the historic city of Leuven in Belgium has become one of Europe’s most climate-conscious destinations.
Winner of the European Capital of Innovation Award in 2020, the mayor’s office has been investing the €1 million prize money wisely, as it strives to make Leuven carbon neutral by 2050.
“We believe that Leuven is ready to take up an important role and become one of the most green and caring cities of Europe,” says the city’s Mayor Mohamed Ridouani.
We believe that Leuven is ready to take up an important role and become one of the most green and caring cities of Europe. – Mayor of Leuven
So how does this small Belgian city – most famous as the birthplace of Stella Artois – plan to do this?
Leuven 2030: A roadmap to carbon neutrality
Launched in 2013, Leuven2030 is an ambitious roadmap to help the town meet its climate goals.
The movement, which was formed with just 60 founding members, including the historic university – KU Leuven – and the City of Leuven, now has 600 members signed up to its climate pledges.
These include local businesses, civic bodies, citizen scientists and charities, all committed to making the city greener and cleaner for future generations.
The groot begjinhof, LeuvenCanva
“When we were founded, there was a debate about whether we should be Leuven 2030 or Leuven 2050, but we have a very important intermediate milestone, so it matters whether you go slowly towards climate neutrality or fast,” explains Katrien Rycken, Director of Leuven2030.
We want to be in the fast lane and I think we are getting there more and more. We hope to become carbon neutral way before 2050. We’re not a follower city, we’re a frontrunner city. – Katrien Rycken, Director of Leuven2030
“We want to be in the fast lane and I think we are getting there more and more. We hope to become carbon neutral way before 2050. We’re not a follower city, we’re a frontrunner city.”
In order to hit their targets, there’s a 12 step plan in place, with schemes ranging from retrofitting 1,000 homes a year, to investing in solar power and depaving vast swathes of concrete.
Global events are accelerating the retrofitting scheme too, says Ridouani. “People, I think, are more sensitive to this [retrofitting] because of the energy crisis. There’s an openness to see what people can do because they think ‘okay if the city and the government can help me to make this investment, that means that my energy bill will go down.’”
To ensure no one is left behind in the push for more efficient homes, poverty organisations and social housing companies also sit on the board of Leuven2030, guaranteeing everyone has equal access to resources.
How the pandemic has pushed Leuven’s green policies forward
Elected in 2019, Ridouani’s premiership could have been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But far from being a stumbling block, in many ways the global crisis has further accelerated Leuven’s green ambitions.
A cyclist rides in a cycle laneCanva
Covid pushed us to implement a couple of our policies faster, actually. We had in mind to make the entire city centre a bicycle zone, meaning that if you ride a bicycle, a car should always stay behind you. – Mohamed Ridouani, Mayor of Leuven
“It pushed us to implement a couple of our policies faster, actually. We had in mind to make the entire city centre a bicycle zone, meaning that if you ride a bicycle, a car should always stay behind you,” he says.
“We thought, this should be prepared very well, step-by-step, we will need to have a lot of debate, but in fact, because of covid we implemented it overnight.”
And luckily for Ridouani and his team, there was no backlash. “People just accepted it, because there was already that use of public space. So this is one of those examples where a crisis can be a moment where you rethink things and actually push through policies much faster.”
Leuven’s green aspirations have kept the awards flowing it too. The city has been named one of Europe’s best destinations for 2022 by the European Best Destinations (EBD) and EDEN Network.
The EBD dubbed Leuven a ‘Belgian miracle’ and went on to name it the most ‘open-minded destination in Europe’ – ahead of the usual frontrunners Amsterdam and London. While this is partly thanks to the 51,000 students that call Leuven home during their university years, the city also has a history of nurturing original thinkers.
Thomas More’s Utopia had its first print run here back in 1516, while his Humanist peer Erasmus was a professor at the university. Founded in 1425, the institution has been an innovative catalyst in the city ever since.
Leuven is a cycling paradise
Perhaps Leuven’s most successful – and noticeable – green policy though is its car reduction scheme.
As a result, Leuven is a cycler’s paradise. In fact, the metropole is the only city in Belgium where cycling is actually the preferred mode of transit, with public transport coming in second and cars in third.
In order to achieve such a striking statistic, the city implemented a radical mobility plan, as Ridouani explains.
“There was a time when you could cross everywhere with your car and park almost everywhere. So the city hall, the church, the great market. The church was a roundabout and you could park just in front of the city hall and the walls were all black because of the emissions,” he says.
“So over the years we’ve pushed that back and five years ago there was a new mobility plan, a circulation plan which was implemented where in fact we divided the city into pieces like a cake and you cannot go from one piece to another.”
In the four years following its implementation, cycling increased by an astounding 40 per cent. The mayor’s office is now aiming to reduce use by a further 20 per cent and introduce a 30 km speed limit on smaller roads too.
As a result of the mobility plan, the town centre lacks the constant hum of traffic that plagues most cities in Europe, replaced by the tinkle of bicycle bells and the gentle chatter of its diverse student population.
We captured beautiful and very striking stories of children, who, thanks to the circulation plan, were allowed by their parents to go on their own by bike to school. – Katrien Rycken, Director of Leuven2030
“We captured beautiful and very striking stories of children, for example, who thanks to the circulation plan, were allowed by their parents to go on their own by bike to school,” says Rycken.
If you don’t fancy travelling on two wheels, thanks to the lack of cars, walking is also easy here, with most amenities no more than a 15-20 minute stroll away.
The wider region also boasts four cycling loops, taking you out of the centre and into the Flemish Brabant. If you must drive though, there are still ways to do it while maintaining your eco-credentials, as Leuven is the number one car sharing city in Belgium too.
How else is the city going green?
In order to reach its climate targets, Leuven is also investing in solar power and the reuse of raw materials – including concrete.
Leuven2030 is not just blindly imposing policies though, as Rycken explains, all of their work is the result of multi-layered analysis.
“Together with the university we are measuring the heat island effect of the warmer summers due to climate disruption,” she explains.
“We’re joining the layer of the heat island measurements with the layer of where there are green areas in the city already, and then a final layer of where vulnerable inhabitants are,” she says.
“Where are our elderly homes, where are our creches, where are those inhabitants that are more vulnerable to heat.”
This layering method ensures that their policies are precisely targeted, and helps the project reach those most in need of help.
Beyond infrastructure and climate science, the people of Leuven are investing in their green futures too. At Park Abbey, a 13th century heritage site on the edge of the city, a new urban farm is giving locals the chance to invest.
“There you have one example of community supported agriculture,” says Rycken.
“You can buy a share as a citizen and then you go there and get your own vegetables and sustainable meat and milk. It’s a very beautiful example, we have several of them around Leuven.”
Encouraging sustainable, healthy eating and expanding participation in local agriculture is one of the 12 pillars of Leuven2030 and just another example of how this unique city is shaping itself.
“There’s a lot of culture, a lot of heritage and I also believe a lot of future,” says Ridouani, “it’s a really forward-leaning city.”
The workplace as we know it has evolved dramatically during the Covid-19 pandemic, expanding into our homes and complex digital-physical spaces. As organisations and their employees continue to navigate hybrid working arrangements this year, how can technology help to shape green and conducive workplaces of the future?
Many new innovations are aimed at helping workplaces save energy. While energy efficiency may not be the snazziest of climate solutions, it remains a potent and cost-effective way to slash emissions without major reworks of existing infrastructure. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has projected that low-cost measures, such as better ventilation and LED lighting, if implemented globally, could slash 3.5 gigatonnes worth of carbon emissions a year.
The savings would amount to 40 per cent of the emissions that need to be abated to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. With the increased focus on climate mitigation, energy efficiency solutions for the built sector is now a US$340 billion market globally that is set to grow by over 8 per cent through 2027.
In addition, in Singapore, energy efficiency incentives like the Green Mark Incentive Scheme are encouraging companies to pursue smart, sustainable and predictive solutions in the workplace. Companies are paying closer attention to their carbon footprint to support sustainability goals, and this requires more tools to monitor and optimise utilities consumption.
These tools usually come in the form of building intelligence systems, such as SP Digital’s GET Control. The system uses AI and IoT to optimise and regulate air-conditioning and maximise energy efficiency in real-time, based on changes in occupancy, current weather conditions and forecast data. The smart damper system, for example, divides large open-plan office spaces into micro-zones to enable better air-flow distribution and control. With predictive intelligence working together with all the sensors and smart dampers, data is sent wirelessly to a central control unit that recommends and adjusts the dampers dynamically such that the desired temperatures are met, making the office energy efficient and comfortable.
GET Control’s Dynamic Airflow Balancing in real-time is suitable for brownfield and greenfield projects. Image: SP Digital
These heat maps show how air temperature is regulated by GET Control. Left: Before implementation, there are hot and cold spots in the office. Right: After implentation, the office is evenly cooled. Image: SP Digital
Clement Cheong, SP Digital’s vice president of sales and customer operations, says that GET Control responds to the needs of corporate real estate owners and commercial landlords in Singapore.
“Landlords are seeing more occupants coming into work and at different times,” he says. “They need to adapt their buildings and systems to cope with this change dynamically. For example, they do not need as much cooling or fresh air supply at non-peak or low occupancy periods.”
Moreover, he adds that the pandemic has also made employees even more conscious of indoor environmental quality. “They want to have visibility into IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) and the building’s measures to monitor and improve IAQ. Even though occupants may spend less time in the office, they want a better, healthier indoor experience.”
He explains that currently, building owners or tenants have limited visibility into indoor air quality in offices and limited ability to intelligently control it. Traditional air side control and management technologies tend to be “reactive”, that is, facility managers make adjustments when occupants complain of any indoor thermal discomfort. Because such technologies do not take into account dynamic changes in ambient temperatures, they are not as energy efficient as a system with real-time tracking capabilities like GET Control.
He shares a case study from an educational institution in Singapore, where facility managers were faced with frequent occupant complaints about hot and cold spots in the office. Besides the fact that facility managers had to make time-consuming manual adjustments, the building’s cooling efficiency was poor, resulting in high energy use and carbon emissions. When SP Digital’s GET Control was deployed, the site saw more than 30 per cent airside cooling energy savings, enhanced thermal comfort and indoor air quality for employees, and improved operations and productivity.
On a larger scale, some multinational corporations are leading the way in greening their offices, and their examples might provide insights into the future of the sustainable workplace. One of them is Meta, which operates the social media platform Facebook and aims to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in carbon by 2030. At its 260,000 square-feet office in Singapore, spread over four floors at Marina One Tower, this target has translated into environmental control systems that use the latest in automated sensor technology, which can optimise even the smallest indicators of energy efficiency. Numerous sensors are in place to measure temperature, air, light and motion open spaces, meeting rooms and lifts.
Apart from office management, Meta Singapore also uses technology to assist employees to adopt carbon reducing behaviours, and, while in the workplace, to holistically analyse their carbon footprint across the product supply chain, recycling, water and waste management.
Looking ahead globally, the journey to make buildings more sustainable will be a long one. Currently, the built environment is responsible for nearly 40 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world. According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the 2020 pandemic caused a drop in the buildings sector carbon emissions, followed by a moderate rebound in 2021, but buildings are not on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
In Singapore, energy efficiency remains a core tenet of the city-state’s decarbonisation pathway, even as longer-term solutions such as carbon capture and clean energy imports are being considered for the next few decades. Power generation firms are provided subsidies to upgrade their turbines and software; a similar fund is in place for building owners to buy more efficient air-conditioning systems and install motion sensors that automatically switch off appliances when not needed. Buildings contribute close to 15 per cent of Singapore’s national emissions — the high fraction resulting from the almost complete urbanisation of the island-state.
As part of its efforts to reach net-zero emissions around 2050, the government wants 80 per cent of buildings in Singapore – both old and new – to adopt energy efficiency measures by 2030, up from 50 per cent today.
There is growing awareness among businesses that greening their offices makes economic and environmental sense. The Singapore Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Incentive for Existing Buildings – a $100 million fund started to co-sponsor the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in existing buildings – has been fully committed, as has a separate $50 million fund which does the same for small and medium enterprises.
This suggests that more landlords in Singapore understand that the initial outlays of such green investments may be high, but returns in the long run justify the cost, given the changes in expectations of workplace experience, energy efficiency and sustainability in post-pandemic times.
One of Asia’s first specialist sustainability recruitment firms has opened for business in Singapore as demand for jobs in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space grows in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Acre, which was founded in London by British zoology graduate Andy Cartland in 2003, will use Singapore as its Asia Pacific base as it looks to service clients around the region.
Cartland said the time was right to launch in Asia, as the region is experiencing rapid growth in demand for sustainability talent and skills.
Acre posts candidates working in sustainability, impact investing, health and safety, and energy and clean technology, and will be compete with other firms that offer ESG recruitment services, such as NextWave, Formative Search, and Odgers Berndtson.
“Asia is arguably behind Europe and the United States when it comes to sustainability. But the region is moving at light speed to catch up. We want to be part of this transition,” Cartland told Eco-Business.
He noted that the business took a 20 percent revenue hit in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, but 2021 saw the business rebound and revenue and headcount grow by 100 percent, which has enabled the company to expand to Asia.
“We are on track for similar growth this year as well,” he said.
Singapore will be Acre’s third overseas launch, with it having established a European operation in Amsterdam and a North American hub in New York in recent years.
Acre’s Singapore launch will enable the company to service existing multinational clients with operations in the region, and also local companies in the global supply chain.
The company’s past work in Asia includes recruiting a leadership team for the Bangladesh Accord, a coalition of global brands, retailers and trade unions set up in 2013 to improve health and safety in Bangladesh’s garment industry.
Among the candidates Acre has placed recently include the global environment, health and safety director at Amazon, and the executive director of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a Swiss non-profit working to tackle child labour in the cocoa sector.
Cartland, who will move from London to Singapore in August to oversee the launch, has appointed an executive director for the Singapore office, who has yet to resign from his current job and will relocate from Hong Kong.
Acre’s Asia launch comes a month after a report by business social network LinkedIn showed 30 percent growth in hiring for green jobs between 2016 and 2021, with a spike in sustainability recruitment between 2020 and 2021.
The report also highlighted a shortage of talent for ESG roles in the region.
Cartland said that while there is a large talent pool of sustainability professionals in London, candidates in Asia, where the sustainability sector is less developed, are harder to find.
“Asia faces a different candidate sourcing challenge, and we will need to help clients navigate the [ESG] skills gap,” he said. “Our role is to find people where they’re tough to find.”
This will may involve thinking creatively about transitioning people out of non-sustainability roles, he said.
Acre is aiming to double its Asia operation by its second year, following the growth trajectories of its European and American businesses, Cartland said.
Local scientists have invented a cheap, rechargeable, and a fully biodegradable paper battery that can someday be used to power wearables of the future.
This battery is made by screen printing an ink layer of manganese on one side of a sheet of strengthened paper, and a layer of zinc and conductive carbon on the other.
Developed by a team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), it can hold a substantial amount of charge. For instance, a 4cm by 4cm printed paper battery about 0.4mm thick can power a small electric fan for at least 45 minutes.
Bending or twisting the paper battery does not interrupt the power supply.PHOTO: NTU
Bending or twisting the battery does not interrupt the power supply, and larger battery sheets can be printed and cut up and used as individual, smaller batteries of different sizes and shapes for different uses.
Professor Fan Hongjin from the NTU School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the study’s co-lead author, said: “(The versatility of use, durability and efficacy of these batteries) make our paper batteries ideal for integration in the sorts of flexible electronics that are gradually being developed.”
Beyond the potential ergonomics of these batteries, the researchers said these batteries cost at least 10 times less to manufacture in the lab as compared with lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, the world’s standard for rechargeable batteries.
The paper batteries are made up of electrodes screen-printed on to both sides of a piece of cellulose paper reinforced with hydrogel.PHOTO: NTU
This is because the primary electrodes use manganese and zinc, which are much cheaper and more common metals than lithium.
The entire battery can be safely degraded underground within a month, with the metals contributing to the mineral culture in the soil.
Assistant Professor Lee Seok Woo from the NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the study’s co-lead author said: “We believe the paper battery we have developed could potentially help with the electronic waste problem, given that our printed paper battery is non-toxic and does not require aluminum or plastic casings to encapsulate the battery components.”
These batteries serve as an improvement over current Li-ion batteries that are commonly used.
Li-ion batteries contain toxic substances that when crushed, may leak and contaminate water sources. Furthermore, exhausted Li-ion batteries need to be disposed of safely because they can cause fires in the event of a leak.
The team is now focused on optimising the battery, which is in its early stages of development and sees the battery is integrated with printed-on sensors at scale.
The scientists from NTU who developed the batteries are (from left) Dr Li Jia, Assistant Professor Lee Seok Woo, Professor Fan Hongjin and Dr Yang Peihua. PHOTO: NTU
Prof Fan said: “As we move towards the future of the Internet of Things, many more of our everyday objects will need to be embedded with sensors that need to be powered in order to communicate with other objects.
“We believe that our battery is contributing to that future.”
Three devices that may benefit from paper batteries
1. Electronic medical skin patches
Sufferers of chronic health conditions can wear a skin patch with sensors to measure vital signs or a drug delivery system that supplies medication when necessary.
For instance, an asthma patient’s breathing patterns can be monitored round the clock by a medical patch that keeps track of wheezing. The patch can inform its wearer that they are about to get an asthma attack and remind them to use their inhaler.
Other uses might be insulin patches that can administer insulin at regular intervals based on blood glucose levels measured. Paper batteries can keep these patches thin and unobtrusive to wear.
2. GPS-tracking stickers
Although tracking devices, such as Tile and Apple’s Airtags, are becoming more mainstream, they are relatively bulky additions and can trace only objects large enough to hold them, such as bags or wallets.
In the future, small GPS-tracking stickers integrated with thin paper batteries can be stuck onto small items – such as pens.
3. Thinner wearables
Most smartwatches today are relatively bulky as they require higher-capacity rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that can be the size of an SD memory card or bigger.
If powered by thin, flexible paper batteries, smartwatches can have more creative configurations, such as batteries fitted into watch straps.
And as the metaverse, a 3D virtual environment, becomes increasingly important, demand for thinner and lighter virtual reality headsets and augmented reality glasses for everyday use will rise.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been touted, again and again, as one of the critical technologies that could help Australia reach its climate targets, and features heavily in the federal government’s plan for net-zero emissions by 2050.
CCS is generally when emissions are captured at the source, such as from a coal-fired power station, trucked to a remote location and stored underground.
But critics say investing in CCS means betting on technology that’s not yet proven to work at scale. Indeed, technology-wise, the design of effective carbon-capturing materials, both solid and liquid, has historically been a challenging task.
So could it ever be a viable solution to the fossil fuel industry’s carbon dioxide emissions?
Emerging overseas research shows “liquid marbles”—tiny droplets coated with nanoparticles—could possibly address current challenges in materials used to capture carbon. And our modelling research, published yesterday, brings us a big step closer to making this futuristic technology a reality.
But the efficacy and efficiency of CCS has long been controversial due to its high-operational costs and scaling-up issues for a wider application.
An ongoing problem, more specifically, is the effectiveness of materials used to capture the CO₂, such as absorbents. One example is called “amine scrubbing“, a method used since 1930 to separate, for instance, CO₂ from natural gas and hydrogen.
The problems with amine scrubbing include its high costs, corrosion-related issues and high losses in materials and energy. Liquid marbles can overcome some of these challenges.
This technology can be almost invisible to the naked eye, with some marbles under 1 millimetre in diameter. The liquid it holds—most commonly water or alcohol—is on the scale of microlitres (a microlitre is one thousandth of a millilitre).
The marbles have an outer layer of nanoparticles that form a flexible and porous shell, preventing the liquid within from leaking out. Thanks to this armour, they can behave like flexible, stretchable and soft solids, with a liquid core.
What do marbles have to do with CCS?
Liquid marbles have many unique abilities: they can float, they roll smoothly, and they can be stacked on top of each other.
Other desirable properties include resistance to contamination, low-friction and flexible manipulation, making them appealing for applications such as gas capture, drug delivery and even as miniature bio-reactors.
In the context of CO₂ capture, their ability to selectively interact with gases, liquids and solids is most crucial. A key advantage of using liquid marbles is their size and shape, because thousands of spherical particles only millimetres in size can directly be installed in large reactors.
Gas from the reactor hits the marbles, where it clings to the nanoparticle outer shell (in a process called “adsorption”). The gas then reacts with the liquid within, separating the CO₂ and capturing it inside the marble. Later, we can take out this CO₂ and store it underground, and then recycle the liquid for future processing.
This process can be a more time and cost-efficient way of capturing CO₂ due to, for example, the liquid (and potentially solid) recycling, as well as the marbles’ high mechanical strength, reactivity, sorption rates and long-term stability.
So what’s stopping us?
Despite recent progress, many properties of liquid marbles remain elusive. What’s more, the only way to test liquid marbles is currently through physical experiments conducted in a laboratory.
Physical experiments have their limitations, such as the difficulty to measure the surface tension and surface area, which are important indicators of the marble’s reactivity and stability.
In this context, our new computational modelling can improve our understanding of these properties, and can help overcome the use of costly and time-intensive experiment-only procedures.
Another challenge is developing practical, rigorous and large-scale approaches to manipulate liquid marble arrays within the reactor. Further computational modelling we’re currently working on will aim to analyse the three-dimensional changes in the shapes and dynamics of liquid marbles, with better convenience and accuracy.
This will open up new horizons for a myriad of engineering applications, including CO₂ capture.
Beyond carbon capture
Research on liquid marbles started off as just an inquisitive topic around 20 years ago and, since then, ongoing research has made it a sought-after platform with applications beyond carbon capture.
This cutting-edge technology could not only change how we solve climate problems, but environmental and medical problems, too.
Magnetic liquid marbles, for example, have demonstrated their potential in biomedical procedures, such as drug delivery, due to their ability to be opened and closed using magnets outside the body. Other applications of liquid marbles include gas sensing, acidity sensing and pollution detection.
With more modelling and experiments, the next logical step would be to scale up this technology for mainstream use.
