Noteworthy. (2016). Solutions 7(6): 6-9.
Idea Lab Noteworthy Germany Goes Electric: All Cars Must be Emissions-free by 2030 by Devin Windelspecht
Germany’s ambitions aren’t small when it comes to combating the threat of climate change. By 2050, the European country hopes to cut up to 95 percent of its current CO2 emissions, and to do so it has decided on a bold new plan: to ensure that all newly made cars are emissions-free by the year 2030. This decision follows on the heels of a recent cash-incentive program, announced in April of this year, to
put more electric and hybrid cars onto German roads. The program, financed by a €600 million investment by the federal government, will give car buyers €4,000 when they choose to buy a purely electric vehicle and €3,000 when purchasing a plug-in hybrid. Germany also plans to invest €100 million into replacing its government fleet with electric cars, and a final €300 million towards improving the infrastructure and availability of electric-car recharging stations. According to Germany’s Environmental Industry, this plan will help to put up to 500,000 more
electric cars on the road by 2020— a year that also serves as Germany’s self-imposed deadline for cutting the nation’s emissions by 40 percent. So far, German car manufacturers Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW have signed on to the plan, which remains open to all foreign and national car brands. Germany has already proven itself to be a world leader in battling climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with renewable energy sources accounting for a third of the country’s electricity consumption last year. Yet while the reduction of emissions from electric power has
Michael Movchin
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Idea Lab Noteworthy been substantial, this same level of success has not yet been met in the transportation industry. Today, only 130,000 cars in Germany are hybrids, and a mere 25,000 are fully electric, compared to the 30 million gasoline cars and 14.5 million diesel vehicles currently found on the country’s roads. Altogether, electric cars make up only one percent of vehicles registered in Germany. By placing an estimated 400,000 commercial and 100,000 governmental electric vehicles on the road, German Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel plans to make electric cars finally, as quoted by The Guardian, “mass market capable”—a goal that has eluded electric and hybrid car manufacturers for years. While Germany’s plan to tackle the problem of greenhouse gas emissions is ambitious, it isn’t the only nation pushing for these changes. In August of 2015, against the backdrop of the Paris Climate Change Conference, seven U.S. states, four countries, and one Canadian province—among them California, Oregon, New York, Norway, the UK, and Quebec—agreed to the Zero-emissions Vehicle Mandate, a commitment to only allow automakers to sell zero-emissions vehicles by the year 2050. The Netherlands has gone even one step further. In June, four major political parties agreed to put forward a proposal to ban gas-fueled vehicles by 2025. While Dutch politicians do not unanimously agree upon the goal, the proposal nevertheless shows a strong desire to take meaningful legislative action in the fight against climate change, a desire that finally seems to be turning into concrete plans in continental Europe.
Toymakers Take the Lead on Sustainable Plastics by Kevin Ireland
Plastics are seemingly the ideal raw material for toys. They’re relatively inexpensive, easy to clean, durable, and can be molded into just about anything a child’s imagination is capable of cooking up. While wood, textiles, and metals can no doubt still be found in your average toy box, these materials have largely been supplanted by the now-ubiquitous plastic toy. Teethers, rattlers, stack toys, and other early childhood toys especially are all reliably made from plastics these days. But the mass production made feasible by the qualities above has created its own set of problems. As will surprise no one familiar with mass consumption and its green backlash, the products we make—plastics in this case—are prone to unintended consequences. Environmental degradation, exposure to harmful chemicals, and waste plague all industries. But given the ubiquity of plastic toys in stores, classrooms, and nurseries, the toy manufacturing industry faces the twin prospects of having a uniquely massive carbon footprint and the severest consequences for a vulnerable userbase if it neglects to make a change to more sustainable plastics. Many of the chemicals used to give plastic their flexibility have been shown to be endocrine disruptors and linked to the development of tumors, birth defects, and developmental disorders. Both the United States and the European Union have had a ban on the use of certain types of phthalates for years. Especially for young children, there is a fear that chewing on or heating the toys can exacerbate the harmful effects of exposure to chemicals like phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA),
Green Dot Bioplastic
A toy truck designed by Luke’s Toy Factory and made from Green Dot Bioplastic Terratek WC, a material made from wood and recycled plastic.
and heavy metals. Removing these chemicals, as well as others like PVC, should be a major thrust for toymakers looking to avoid exposing children to potentially harmful substances during the important period of early childhood development. Luckily, toymakers are in fact exploring options for using more sustainable plastics over petroleum-based incumbents. The following are some of the most promising spins on an old material, both from a sustainability and performance perspective, that toymakers are exploring with some success: • Bio-based plastics like PLA, PHA, and starch polymers made with renewable feedstocks instead of petroleum-based feedstocks used in traditional plastics for toys that do not deplete our finite natural resources. • Biocomposite plastics combine natural fibers or wood flour with recycled, biodegradable, or biobased plastics to create durable, weather-resistant toys.
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Idea Lab Noteworthy • Biodegradable plastics like PLA, PHA, or compostable soft plastic elastomer can be used to make toys that can be returned to nature when their useful life has ended. Once toymakers begin exploring options for less toxic materials, they often also find an unexpected marriage between sustainability and performance. Biocomposite materials, which utilize natural fibers such as wood pulp, flax, and starch, can bring performance characteristics such as durability, natural feel, and even buoyancy to the fore. Exploring sustainable plastics made with biocomposite materials gives toymakers a degree of flexibility and chance for creativity that’s lacking even with already versatile traditional plastic formulations. Green Dot Bioplastic, based in Kansas, is one manufacturer of bioplastics and biocomposites working with toymakers to utilize more sustainable plastics. Recently, Green Dot Bioplastic partnered with toy manufacturers Luke’s Toy Factory. The company was looking for a biocomposite material for toy trucks and trains. They wanted something with a natural wood look and feel that could also be injectionmolded to make the parts of the vehicle. They needed a material that could be colored to avoid the problem of peeling paint and also wanted a material that would be durable, even if left outside. In response, Green Dot Bioplastic provided Terratek WC, a material that meets all of these requirements. The wood–plastic composite combines wood and recycled plastic in a small pellet form, which is ideal for injection molding. Green Dot Bioplastic is working with a number of other toy manufacturers on similar products, in an effort to produce our favorite toys from materials that are friendlier to the environment and safer for children.
Douglas Scortegagna
Working shorter hours will leave employees more time to enjoy that which their reduced working hours serve to protect- the environment.
It’s Not Just a Headline— Working Shorter Hours Does Help the Environment Working shorter hours may save the environment. This recommendation from the UN International Resource Panel’s most recent report, published on July 20, made headlines around the world. Academic research and experts back it up. “Reducing average hours of work can reduce a country’s ecological impacts, including its demand for energy and material resources, as well as emission of pollutants. International organizations such as UNEP are beginning to pay attention to that evidence,” says Anders Hayden, an assistant professor at Dalhousie University and author of a book on work time, consumption, and ecology.
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The UN report notes that the amount of raw materials extracted from the Earth has tripled over the last 40 years, and that if the current trends continue by 2050, the planet will need 180 billion tons of material every year. This will consequently intensify climate change and pollution and exhaust the Earth’s natural resources. Working shorter hours will presumably help limit the expansion of economic output, which will in turn help reduce demand for energy and other material resources. One shortcoming with this solution is that it only affects affluent nations. “It could have indirect benefits for lower-income countries by helping to reduce the global resource demands and environmental impacts of the affluent, leaving more ‘ecological space’ for increased output and poverty reduction in the global South,” explains Hayden.
Idea Lab Noteworthy
Better Shelter
Better Shelter supports UNHCR in a shelter assembly training program at Karatepe transit camp in Mytilini, Lesvos, Greece.
What Design Can Do for Refugees An unprecedented 65.3 million people around the world are currently displaced, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. More than half of these people live in urban areas. Others are jammed into refugee camps, waiting desperately to go back home one day. Now, designers are working on solutions to improve their lives. In February, UNHCR, the Ikea Foundation, and the organization What Design Can Do launched a global competition for ideas that would accommodate and integrate refugees. Among the finalists announced in July was AGRIshelter, a 35-square
meter durable, biodegradable shelter unit that can be erected in just a few hours. Second place went to The Welcome Card, which stores all of the essential information for an asylum seeker in one digital card. Similarly, in the Netherlands, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers announced the winners of their ‘A Home Away From Home’ competition in June. One of the winners was The SolarCabin. The cabins have large, visible solar panels to generate electricity and are designed to feed the surplus energy back into the local community. This isn’t the first time that design has been instrumental in finding solutions for refugees. In 2015, Ikea and
UNHCR came together to design Better Shelter. The waterproof units for five are designed to last at least three years. Recyclable panels “were designed to withstand the strong winds yet be light enough to be shipped halfway around the globe in flat-packed boxes,” according to the official website. They are now used in Botswana, Niger, Greece, and Iraq, among other places. “The issue [of refugees] is too big for national governments, too big for NGOs, and too big for the divided European Union,” says Richard Van Der Laken, founder of the international platform What Design Can Do. “And although it’s certainly too big for designers, we can offer something that others cannot.”
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