Greetings, fellow Terran!

This is the (belated) sixth edition of Greenwhile, a periodical highlighting some of the people, projects and companies concerned with one of the most complex challenges we've ever faced: how to get our shit together before the planet "shakes us off like a bad case of fleas".

I'll be very honest with you: keeping up with the news has been rough lately. Some would argue that it's been this rough since 2016, a particularly shitty year for purveyors of truth and unity, while others would simply say: “Suck it up, kiddo, it's always been rough”.

From the reestablishment of dictatorship in Myanmar and unimaginable suffering in India to yet another escalation of violence in the Middle East, and the constant fear of Vladimir Putin’s Russia... sometimes I wish for a bit of Irish in my morning coffee.

But then I get all sorts of feelgood messages from friends and family, folks who learn something new from Greenwhile – enough to even change their approach towards sustainability at times. I've learned a lot too, no doubt about it. Case in point: Nutella jars are the requeijão glasses of Canada, Ireland and Italy, and grape jelly jars were the equivalent in the US. 😉

Thanks to your moral support I was able to indeed suck it up, comb through this bad-hair-day newscycle of ours, and find the unexpected: good reasons to be hopeful about carbon pricing.

So take a deep breath and hold my sanitised hand as we explore the world of emissions trading, learn how it compares to a carbon tax, and find out if there’s anyone taking any of these approaches seriously.

#LessIncentive

Although it may sound like a relatively new concept, emissions trading (aka cap and trade) was introduced in the 1960s by two North American economists: John Dales, from Canada, and Thomas Crocker, from the United States. However, the original argument in favour of making companies and customers pay for “externality problems” was made in 1920 by English economist Arthur Cecil Pigou, in his book The Economics of Welfare.

The idea behind cap and trade is straightforward. Let’s say that you own a steel mill and I own an oil refinery, and none of us takes any precautions to minimise the pollution caused by our economic activity because, well, we’re shameless bastards. One day the government of the country where our companies are based sets a limit to how much we can pollute, forcing us to clean up our acts. This is the cap.

One doesn’t simply stop polluting, though. More often than not, it’s a costly and laborious process – one that already developed countries barely bothered with on their path to industrialisation. So what the government does is allow us to buy emissions credits if we’re above the limit, or sell them if we’re emitting less greenhouse gases than our quota permits. This is the trade.

To prevent us from budgeting for this extra cost, this system includes two mechanisms: the cap gets stricter, as in, as time goes by our pollution allowance decreases; and the credits get more expensive, therefore buying them eventually becomes dearer than ‘going green’.

If I figure out a way to capture enough of my emissions to keep me well below the cap and you’re struggling to clean up your steel mill, I can sell whatever credits I have to you. The end result? My revenue increases (perhaps allowing me to prepare for those inevitable stricter limits), you buy some time, and none of us has financial incentives to continue acting like shameless bastards.

It’s by no means a miraculous solution, but it’s worked before. If you’re old enough to remember that acid rain used to be a big issue in regions such as North America and Europe, you may know how it was tackled: emissions trading.

#LessPolitics

An arguably stricter way of dealing with emissions is to impose a carbon tax. Instead of being given (or sold) permits to pollute up to a certain limit, companies and, in some cases, households pay according to how much they pollute.

While researching this topic, I read about how the US is calculating the social cost of carbon, why Australia became the first country to ban a carbon tax, what sort of price Singapore charges… and then I read about Canada.

In what’s probably an attempt to not offend anyone, Canada’s current approach to carbon pricing is a bit messy. According to energyhub.org, a social enterprise focused on sustainable energy, as of 2020 there were “14 different carbon-pricing mechanisms in Canada (plus two more planned). This includes six carbon-tax programmes, six baseline-and-credit systems, and two cap-and-trade systems.” Eh?

In order to ensure that all provinces and territories were subject to an effective set of regulations, rather than toothless schemes or none at all, prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party introduced the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA) in 2018. Among other things, this federal law established that all Canadian pricing mechanisms must meet the minimum of CA$40 per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2), which increases yearly up to CA$170 per tonne by 2030.

Unsurprisingly, not every province was on board with it – including Saskatchewan, where mining, oil and gas are major players. The GGPPA’s constitutionality was challenged in provincial courts, and ended up in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2019. Reason prevailed, though, and the GGPPA was ruled constitutional two months ago. 🙌

Normally I would have seen no need to include the following statement by Chief Justice Richard Wagner, one of the six justices who voted to strike down the legal challenge, but one can no longer take rationality for granted:

“Climate change is real. It is caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities, and it poses a grave threat to humanity’s future. The only way to address the threat of climate change is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Hear, hear!

#LessCheap

Fret not, this edition’s share of good news isn’t exclusive to the land of Rush, Arcade Fire, Barenaked Ladies and... Nickelback? Damn it, Canada!

Implemented on the 1st of January 2005, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the world’s largest scheme of its kind. As well as CO2, it covers the emission of nitrous oxide (N2O) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs) from power plants, oil refineries, paper mills, airlines*, chemical companies, and others.

Like all things EU, the EU ETS is a complex mechanism. Now in its fourth phase, it’s been revised a few times and contains provisions to ensure that the bloc remains economically competitive. It’s also proven to be effective. According to a peer-reviewed article published last year, between 2008 and 2016 the EU ETS achieved “reductions of 3.8% of total EU-wide emissions compared to a world without the EU ETS”.

It may not sound like much, but let’s not forget one of the main characteristics of the cap-and-trade system: companies can buy and sell credits in a market that follows the principle of supply and demand. The higher the demand, the higher the prices get.

That’s exactly what’s been happening since the beginning of this year. The price per tonne of CO2, which had never remained above €30 for long, is currently at around €50 – a record. With the 26th edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) only months away, there’s reason to believe the rate will continue to go up.

As much as such a hike can be detrimental to sectors of the economy that, for one reason or another, are taking longer to adapt, it’s also a clear incentive to speed up efforts across the board. And luckily for us all, if there’s one thing capitalism is good at is finding cheaper ways to conduct business as usual.

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Okay, you can let go of my hand.

If you didn’t know much about carbon pricing, now you know. I hope you’re better equipped to digest this contentious subject next time you encounter it. Now I gotta go close a ridiculous number of browser tabs, so get off my lawn!

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* It only applies to flights between airports located in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway right now, though this will change in 2024.

Greetings, fellow Terran!

This is the fifth edition of Greenwhile, a periodical highlighting some of the people, projects and companies concerned with one of the most complex challenges we've ever faced: how to get our shit together before the planet "shakes us off like a bad case of fleas".

As old as it may be, recycling is no panacea. Even when conditions are optimal, that is, the materials are not contaminated or inseparable, the process requires energy (which could be dirty) and water – and rarely result in a product of the same quality.

Therefore, we must prioritise the two Rs that come before recycling in the waste hierarchy: reduce and reuse. Today we'll tackle reuse, a practice that can save you a bit of money and boost your out-of-the-box thinking.

Let's start by making a distinction between conventional reuse and creative reuse. The former translates into reusing an item for its original purpose (e.g.: refilling printer cartridges, returning glass bottles to the supermarket, handing down clothes, etc.). The latter involves giving new life to an item by converting it, without breaking it down, into something else (e.g.: using tyres as swings or flower pots, bottles as lamps, toothbrushes as cleaning brushes, etc.).

Equipped with a god-knows-how-old keyboard, a ten-year-old mouse, and a modular computer I'm hoping to use for at least a decade, I'll tell you a thing or two about: how my family approaches reuse (and why); the importance of getting as much use of your electronics as possible; and why reusing should be fashionable. 

#LessIncome

Reuse was such a big part of my childhood in Brazil I always took it for granted, and only after 14 years living abroad did I notice how pervasive this practice is in my family's everyday life.

Take my mother's home, for instance: every single glass and plastic container that pops up is washed and reused to store stuff like coffee beans, condiments, dressings, sauces, cleaning products, and clothespins; old t-shirts, boxers, socks and blouses become cleaning cloths; aseptic cartons, which are notoriously difficult to recycle, are cleaned, cut and donated to an NGO that uses them as insulation panels; and the list goes on.

I see a strong link between my mother's (and many other Brazilians') love for reuse and the country's more often than not troubled economy. In fact, I bet the same is true of pretty much every other developing nation on the planet. Unfortunately, the only relevant research (PDF) I could find to back my theory is behind a paywall.

That study mentions an ongoing decrease in reuse practices in developing countries, tied to increases in the purchasing power of their citizens. I happen to have anecdotal evidence to confirm this, which pretty much any Brazilian you know could confirm.

Up until recently, a popular cheese spread known as requeijão was sold in glass containers. Unlike a mayo jar this was very much like a drinking glass, so once the spread was gone folks would remove the label, wash the container, and use it as a drinking glass. However, as many in Brazil became less poor (and more condescending, if I may add) the requeijão glass became a symbol of poverty. Offering your guests a drink of water in a requeijão glass would be considered a faux pas. 🙄

If Amsterdam’s hipster culture is any indication, though, reusing stuff will soon be cooler than buying new. And maybe in a few years my compatriots will proudly toast their repurposing skills with ice-cold beers in requeijão glasses.

#LessRepairable

A cracked screen, a busted charging port, a brief but brutal swim in the toilet… it may not be broken beyond repair, and yet it might as well be. Repairing the vast majority of smartphones is a very complex matter these days.

In fact, none of the 20 most repairable phones listed by iFixit, a how-to website famous for their repairability scores, were manufactured in 2020. And only one of the top 20 is made by Apple. Take away Fairphone’s environmentally friendly devices and the latest phone with a decent-enough score is from 2017.

The practice of designing products with a limited useful life has a name: planned obsolescence – and preventing repairs is only one of its manifestations.

Fortunately there are steps you can take to fight back, both as a consumer and as a member of society. You can start by making a savvier purchase next time you’re in need of an electronic device, be it new or refurbished. Make sure to read about its durability and keep an eye out for update policies too, as even a brand new smartphone may be supported for a mere one or two years.

If you’re considering replacing something only partially broken, don’t. Getting it fixed may cost you surprisingly little, while also delaying the addition of yet another item to the colossal pile of end-of-life electronics in need of recycling – or to the even more colossal 80% that’s not recycled.

Finally, voting with your wallet isn’t enough. Find out if your government has rules and regulations regarding e-waste and the right to repair. Earlier this year the European Union (EU) moved to make this a reality, compelling companies to follow strict rules in terms of repairability, recyclability and the availability of spare parts.

#LessFast

It's easy to forget that plastic carrier bags used to be all over the place. Six years after the EU's original Plastic Bags Directive, the vast majority of member countries have a ban (be it full or partial) and/or taxes or charges on single-use bags. Several nations in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America have similar policies.

The very first country to enact such a ban, years before the EU and even China, was Bangladesh ‒ back in 2002. Although it was already part of the solution almost two decades ago, this small but populous country is very much part of the problem when it comes to a different single-use nightmare: fast fashion.

In terms of statistics, separating fast fashion from its slower-paced peers is not trivial. Knowing some of the footwear and apparel industry's figures is crucial for this discussion, though, so here they are1:

• CO2 = up to 10% of total global emissions2, more than the climate impact of the entire European Union

• Water = 93 billion cubic metres yearly (it takes 3,781 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans)

• Wastewater = almost 20% worldwide, due to fabric dyeing and treatment

This is bad enough when the final product is a garment that will get plenty of use (perhaps even handed down), and was manufactured by a well-paid worker in a healthy and safe environment. However, this is the exact opposite of what fast-fashion brands such as H&M, Zara, Primark and Uniqlo stand for. Here too there's a link between economic growth and loss of appetite for reuse – clothing utilisation in China had already decreased by 70% in 2017, over the previous 15 years3.

Since the fast-fashion industry is engaged in a race to the bottom, at the cost of their workers' well being and our limited natural resources, governments must come up with legislation to address the issue; as many did to tackle pollution caused by free or dirt-cheap plastic bags.

In the meantime, be clever with what you buy – from the integrity of its fabric to the integrity of the companies behind it. Even better: your wardrobe hasn't really featured in a lot of live events lately, so avoid buying new clothes. There's plenty of second-hand stuff around, and one can even rent a pair of jeans these days!

#LessBureaucracy

Before the grumpy old man inside me tells you to do you know what, I'd like to highlight a truly brilliant initiative by the Brazilian government. Lately there haven't been many of those, but hey, credit where credit is due, right?

Reuse.gov, developed by the Ministry of Economy, is “a tool that reduces bureaucracy and ensures transparency in the processes of incorporation and transfer of assets (...), optimising the management of public resources with conscious and sustainable consumption”. Great! But what does that mean?

Say, for instance, that your department has a couple of desks and computer monitors that are no longer needed. These goods can be listed on Reuse.gov, my department can claim them, and any Brazilian citizen with a connection to the Internet can audit the entire process. Cool, right?

Now, without further ado, get the hell off my lawn!

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1 According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

2 Sustainability consulting group Quantis claims it's closer to 8%, while McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, and the Global Fashion Agenda, a sustainable advocacy organisation, claim it's 'only' 4%.

3 Ellen MacArthur Foundation, A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future, (2017).

Greetings, fellow Terran!

This is the fourth edition of Greenwhile, a periodical highlighting some of the people, projects and companies concerned with one of the most complex challenges we've ever faced: how to get our shit together before the planet "shakes us off like a bad case of fleas".

A very significant day was celebrated a few weeks ago, on the 22nd of March. Do you know what that was?

Worry not, I’m aware that the pandemic has made date-keeping frustrating – if not pointless. Even Fridays have lost that joyful feeling; the happy hours and weekend plans we used to look forward to now but a distant memory. But hey, at least the folks at Citigroup can TGIF again!

Anyway… March 22 is World Water Day, and has been so since 1993. Whether you observed it by being extra mindful of your water usage or by hosing down your car to the sound of Rose Royce’s 1976 tune, I thought it’d be appropriate to dedicate this edition of Greenwhile to good old H2O.

Read on to learn more about renewable water resources, the value of grey water, how an Italian architect addressed the lack of clean water in remote villages in Ethiopia, and, perhaps more importantly, how you can contribute to improving water security.

#LessMisunderstanding

Think for a minute and tell me: what’s the country with the most renewable freshwater resources? Is it Russia, home of the mindblowing Lake Baikal? Or maybe the US, with lakes as large as entire countries?

It’s actually Brazil, which isn’t surprising. But the difference between it and the second country on the list, Canada, is incredible: with more than 8,000 cubic kilometres as of 2011, Brazil has twice as much renewable freshwater as the Great White North.

With all that water going around, how come severe scarcity issues plague places as diverse as California and Jordan ? It’s simple: although our planet has had roughly the same amount of H2O for millions of years (i.e.: 1.386 billion cubic kilometres), 96.5% of it is in our oceans. Then there’s 1.76% ‘trapped’ as ice and snow, leaving less than 2% across aquifers, rivers, lakes (including saline lakes), swamps, the atmosphere, etc.

Still, that’s been adequate for all these years, so what’s changed? Well, we have.

We were fruitful and multiplied, reaching a population of 7.8 billion last year. We’ve developed technologies, from agriculture to semiconductors (sometimes side by side), which happen to require a lot of water. We’ve also mismanaged existing resources. 

And there’s fecking climate change, of course, increasing the odds of downpours in some places and acute droughts in others. Bizarrely, even the former can make matters worse as floods may cause wastewater to mix with potable water.

Okay, this is sufficiently grim. Let’s talk about solutions.

#UnsulliedSullage

Have you ever wondered what happens to all that water used when brushing your teeth, showering, shaving, washing your clothes and dishes, etc? Unless you live in a really cool house like this or have a toilet like this, it all goes down the same drain as your wastewater. 💩

Unfortunately most of us can’t afford to redesign our plumbing or retrofit our toilets, but there’s one piece of technology that is cheap and pervasive enough to allow for at least some use of sullage (aka grey water): the humble bucket.

It’s quite easy to leave a pail in your shower while you wait for the water to get hot, for instance. Provided your tap water is safe to drink, your pipes are in good condition, and your bucket is clean, you should have a full kettle or so everyday. With a little bit more effort, you could use the water from your washing machine too. Not for tea, though.

As well as reducing your water footprint, using your sullage can save you some money. Just keep in mind that:

• Without treatment, any water mixed with cleaning products, food particles, hair or the like can only be used to flush your toilet and water your plants.

• Sullage must be used within 24 hours, otherwise it’ll get smelly.

• Depending on where you live, using sullage may require a permit. Make sure to check your local legislation before hitting the DIY shop.

#LessConventional

Here’s a quick note: the folks behind the project highlighted below were not fully transparent when seeking funding on Kickstarter back in 2015. However, I believe in what they developed and in the positive change they’ve brought to communities in Ethiopia and Cameroon.

Upon noticing the struggle of villagers in northeast Ethiopia to source potable water, Italian artist and architect Arturo Vittori decided to empower them. There was clearly plenty of water in the region, just not in liquid form. What the locals needed was a way to trap the rain, fog and dew.

“Insects, animals, and plants develop specific strategies to live in a specific environment. Some of them are capable of collecting water from the air and store it to survive in the most hostile environments on Earth”, says Mr. Vittori. So he set out to design a solution that suited “the local meteorological conditions, the geomorphological characteristic of the site, and the local culture”.

Much like their creator, the Warka Towers are a blend of art and architecture. Built with bamboo, hemp rope and polyester, the towers harvest water from the air surrounding them. Depending on the meteorological conditions, they can provide between 40 and 80 litres of potable water per day to the community managing it (according to the nonprofit Warka Water).

Although that may not sound like much, it does make a difference when the alternative is a long trek to the nearest pond – whose water could be contaminated. Mr. Vittori adds that the Warka Tower has one extra benefit: locals can gather under the shade of its canopy, making it a good meeting place.

#LessConversationMoreAction

So, what can you do to be a part of the solution? For starters, you can drop the hose and wash your car with a bucket (while listening to Rose Royce’s Car Wash, obviously).

If you have a dishwasher, use it! Washing dishes by hand consumes more water in comparison, and heating this water has an impact on your carbon footprint too. If you don’t have a dishwasher, fill one of your basins (or a bucket) with cold water and the other with hot water. This way you can soak, scrub and rinse your dishes et al quite efficiently.

I know it’s tough, trust me, but short showers are a must. If your toilet has a two-tier flush, one for solids and one for liquids, make sure to use it. Keeping the tap closed while you brush your teeth, wash your hands or shave is also crucial.

Vote responsibly. Not every country has a regional water authority that’s democratically elected, like the Netherlands, but your vote matters. A lot.

And if you need yet another good reason not to drink sugary drinks, Coca-Cola itself has you covered: “In 2017, we used about 289 billion liters of water to produce approximately 151 billion liters of product (e.g., Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero) that translated into some 166 billion liters of finished product sales to consumers.” 🤯

Above all, what we need to do is value water as the finite resource it is. This involves pricing it accordingly and fairly, so wasteful industries, crops and livestock are driven towards efficiency – and those in need aren’t punished even further.

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Water scarcity is a gargantuan and insanely complex issue. Therefore, there’s a lot more to it than I could cover here. Stick around and we’ll discuss it again, but in the meantime you can learn more on the World Water Day website.

Now… since grass is the most irrigated plant in the US, today I’ll leave you with this excellent piece of journalism instead of telling you to get off my lawn.

Greetings, fellow Terran!

This is the third edition of Greenwhile, a periodical highlighting some of the people, projects and companies concerned with one of the most complex challenges we've ever faced: how to get our shit together before the planet "shakes us off like a bad case of fleas".

I’ve been coming across a lot of news about batteries recently, from potential breakthroughs to major announcements by car manufacturers. Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or not, I thought it’d be interesting to focus Greenwhile #3 on the importance of electric batteries (especially lithium-ion), the developments that can be expected, why they’re only one of the many required solutions, and, just out of curiosity, what the world’s biggest battery looks like.

#LessIntermittency

Chances are you’re reading this article on a device powered by a battery. If you’re anything like me, there are many more around you. Between portable chargers, controllers, my trusty laptop et al, there are ten such devices in the room where I am right now. 😬

Whether you can no longer imagine corded life or have fond memories of the days when folks practised their anti-social behaviour by staring at printed media rather than electronics, today we’re heavily dependent on battery technology*.

These enclosed chemical reactions aren’t essential only to keep cardiac pacemakers pacing and portable computers computing. They’re a key piece of the renewables puzzle too.

Sure, solar panels and wind turbines are great while the sun is shining and the wind is blowing – respectively. But what happens otherwise? Well, then you either plug into the electrical grid (which could be dirty) or a battery, in which you stored the surplus while there was energy flowing through the system. 

It’s quite simple: without storage, wind and solar are too intermittent to fully replace oil and coal.

Here lies a ‘green’ opportunity: it’s possible to repurpose used electric vehicle (EV) batteries as residential, commercial and grid-scale backup storage installations. There’s money in it too – for car manufacturers, tech startups and even one-man operations. According to Reuters, 55,000 batteries were recovered in 2018 and by 2025 this number could reach 3.4 million.

#LessExpensive

If you had to guess the percentage of the total cost of an EV that’s down to its battery, what would it be? 1%? 5%? 10%? 15%? A whopping 20%?

Nope, it’s up to 30%. Yeah, it’s a lot. In fact, no other car component costs this much. And this is both good and bad news.

Good news because “battery prices have fallen 88 percent over the last decade”. If this trend continues, the magic figure of $100/kilowatt hour (kWh) could be reached in three years – bringing price parity between unsubsidised EVs and ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles.

Bad news because that trend has already slowed down. Such a consistent drop in prices between 2010 and 2020 was tied to the rapid expansion of output, which becomes much harder to match once the output is already considerable.

Luckily there’s more to it than simply driving costs down. Last September, the much-hyped Californian company QuantumScape shared some promising data on their solid-state** batteries. In a nutshell, this technology would allow for much faster charging times, more durability, less flammability, and more energy density.

There’s no such thing as a miracle, though. The likes of Volkswagen and Bill Gates may have invested heavily in QuantumScape, and for a while its market capitalisation (i.e.: the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the price of a single share) was higher than Ford’s, but QuantumScape has yet to begin commercial production.

#LessReinventing

Are batteries really the solution to all of our problems? Of course not! Remember: n-o m-i-r-a-c-l-e-s.

Mr. Gates tells it like it is:

“The problem is that batteries are big and heavy. The more weight you’re trying to move, the more batteries you need to power the vehicle. But the more batteries you use, the more weight you add – and the more power you need. Even with big breakthroughs in battery technology, electric vehicles will probably never be a practical solution for things like 18-wheelers, cargo ships, and passenger jets. Electricity works when you need to cover short distances, but we need a different solution for heavy, long-haul vehicles.”

What would be practical in those cases then?

Detroit-based Remora is tackling the 18-wheeler issue by retrofitting carbon dioxide capturers to existing trucks, a significantly cheaper and more scalable approach.

Headquartered in Stockholm, the folks at shipping company Wallenius Marine are developing the world’s largest wind-powered vessel. Their aim is to have one of these beauties in operation in the North Atlantic by 2024.

It’ll be a tad trickier to decarbonise the aviation industry, though the fact that refuelling tends to happen at very specific locations helps a lot. Hence hydrogen fuel cells might be our best bet. This video from the Economist describes a few of the obstacles involved.

#LessConventional

Finally, what does the world’s biggest battery look like? I’ll tell you this much: it’s not a big-ass AA alkaline powering the world’s biggest Duracell Bunny. As a matter of fact, the world's biggest battery doesn't even look like a battery.

As always, I hope you’ve learned a thing or two from this edition of Greenwhile. Now do me a favour, will you? Get off my lawn!

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* If it’s been way too long since you learned about the twitching frog, Alessandro Volta, cathodes and anodes, the good folks at TED-Ed have a great refresher on how batteries work.

** Ars Technica’s Scott K. Johnson explains this exciting technology way better than I possibly could here.

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The first, second and third editions of Greenwhile were originally published on LinkedIn, between February and March 2021.

Greetings, fellow Terran!

This is the second edition of Greenwhile, a periodical highlighting some of the people, projects and companies concerned with one of the most complex challenges we've ever faced: how to get our shit together so the planet doesn't "shake us off like a bad case of fleas".

Before I begin, please keep the following in mind: there’s no such thing as a miracle.

While several works by St. John, St. Paul, St. George and St. Ringo may seem miraculous, in reality they’re simply the result of serendipity plus talent.

The same can be said about the breakthroughs in sustainability accomplished by scientists, engineers, policy makers and other industrious people. They need to be celebrated, no doubt about it, but they also need to be questioned.

Energy storage, for instance, is hailed as essential to move us towards decarbonisation. Nevertheless, we’re (mostly) stuck with lithium batteries – and to make these we need to either mine or recycle lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc.

See what I mean? Then put your (critical) thinking cap on. Today’s subject is thorny.

#LessOverallDamage

Plastic-based artificial leather sucks. Giving it a trendy name, such as vegan leather, faux leather or leatherette, won’t change that.

Made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PU), its fabrication involves petroleum, a lot of energy and processes that produce toxic chemicals. It’s also not breathable or biodegradable, unlike animal leather. So why not stick to the real deal?

Be it a byproduct or a coproduct of the meat industry, when it comes to actual leather three things are certain: tanning it tends to involve toxic chemicals, especially when carried out in developing countries; quality leather comes from animals reared solely for this purpose; and the likes of JBS aren’t into this highly profitable business to minimise waste.

How profitable is it, though? According to Statista (paywall), “in 2016 the global market value of leather goods was worth approximately 217.49 billion U.S. dollars”. Since we can’t expect a multibillion dollar industry to disappear for the sake of mankind, we need as many sustainable alternatives as possible.

One of them is artificial leather made from the humble prickly pear, a group of cacti in the Opuntia genus. This approach is particularly interesting because the prickly pear, also known as nopal, is:

• Perennial, with plantations lasting up to eight years

• Abundant, as anyone who's ever watched Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner would know

• Extremely efficient in terms of water use

• Easy to harvest without damaging the plant

Mexican entrepreneurs Adrián López Velarde and Marte Cázarez came up with the idea after noticing how the automotive, furniture and fashion industries – in which they worked – were harmful to the environment. So they left their jobs and started their own company, Adriano Di Marti.

It took them two years to develop Desserto, a material that is flexible, breathable, smooth, durable, partially biodegradable, and free of toxic chemicals. It can even be dyed naturally.

Following a successful debut in 2019 at Milan’s Leather Fair Lineapelle, the biannual international exhibition for all things hide, the Mexican duo secured partnerships with fashion brands Karl Lagerfeld and H&M. The latter is using Desserto as part of their Science Story project, the first of “a series of collections dedicated to promoting the use of new, more sustainable materials, technologies and production processes within the garment industry”.

Pie in the sky? Think again. Both Karl Lagerfeld and H&M aim to deliver goods manufactured with Desserto this month, i.e. March 2021.

#MultipleSolutions

If you find this subject fascinating (it really is!), check out: Piñatex, a leather-like material derived from pineapple leaves; Tômtex, derived from coffee ground and shell seafood waste; and my personal favourites, derived from fungi.

#LessIsMore

It’s worth mentioning: the best product is the one that’s already been made and that you already own. Chances are you don’t need yet another accessory or piece of clothing, no matter how green it is. 😉

Now... get off my lawn!

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The first, second and third editions of Greenwhile were originally published on LinkedIn, between February and March 2021.

Greetings, fellow Terran!

This is the very first edition of Greenwhile, a periodical highlighting some of the people, projects and companies concerned with one of the most complex challenges we've ever faced: how to get our shit together before the planet "shakes us off like a bad case of fleas". Kudos to the late (and great) George Carlin, by the way, for one of the best analogies ever made.

Note that I wrote "periodical", but didn't mention how frequently I'll be publishing Greenwhile. Currently, as you may have noticed from the hashtag on my profile picture, I do have a bit of time to write. Once this grasshopper life is behind me and I can get back to contributing to society like a good ant should, though, you may see fewer editions popping up on your newsfeed. Let's see how it goes.

Before I finally cut to the chase, please feel free to tag me if you spot factual articles from reliable journalists and organisations covering the environment, sustainability, the circular economy, renewables, the right to repair electronics, and all sorts of cool things that may help us getting our arses in line.

Now... shall we?

#LessElectronicWaste

You may be familiar with Fairphone, the Dutch company behind the world's most sustainable smartphone, but can you name a brand of modular, highly repairable and thin laptops?

Check out this article by Jim Salter, from Ars Technica, on the San Francisco-based startup Framework. Although their 13.5-inch laptop is yet to become available, it sure looks promising.

#LessPlasticAroundUsAndInsideUs

Yes, you did read that correctly. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past century (you lucky, lucky bastard!), there's already plastic inside you. This blessing/curse of a material has even been found in the placenta of unborn babies.

I'd suggest a glass of water to help you process such a sad development, but – yep, you've guessed it – there could be plastic in it. 😑

So what can be done about this? Well, extremely complex problems require multiple solutions. Enter Manuel Häußler, Marcel Eck, Dario Rothauer and Stefan Mecking, researchers from the University of Konstanz, Germany, who developed a bio-based polyethylene (aka the most common plastic in use today).

To find out why this newfangled plastic is significantly better than the stuff polluting our oceans, rivers, lakes and bloodstreams, read this article by Prachi Patel, in the Anthropocene.

#LessMeat

Let's wrap it up with a video because, well, not everyone is an angry man shouting at camera-toting millennials to get off his lawn.

Last Week Tonight's John Oliver tackles the meatpacking industry in a humorous and unexpected way in his latest show. And by unexpected I mean it's neither about the animal cruelty nor the "14.5 percent of all anthropogenic GHG emissions" involved in the livestock industry.

I hope it's not too late to change that pizza order to something vegetarian. 😁

Now get off my lawn!

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The first, second and third editions of Greenwhile were originally published on LinkedIn, between February and March 2021.