Innovation: Who's leading the way?
Pioneering companies are responding to the challenge of innovating for sustainability in promising ways.
LG
Global technology company LG, a Two Tomorrows client, has launched an online platform dedicated to collaboration and innovation. One of the company’s main themes for collaboration is ‘Green Energy’ where it intends to develop partnerships that will address environmental challenges related to energy generation and storage. LG is seeking partnerships to develop new technologies such as printable solar cells, wind generation, high-capacity batteries and fuel cells to complement its existing work in these areas.
LG collaboration and innovation website
Interface
Global carpet and flooring company Interface, well known for its commitment to sustainability, has used biomimicry – learning from nature in order to solve human problems – to develop more sustainable products. For instance, it studied how geckos adhere to surfaces while upside down to develop a new flooring adhesive that’s both more effective and has a lower environmental impact.
Airbus
Airbus, another Two Tomorrows client, is also taking biomimicry seriously.
The company has looked at how sea birds sense gusts of wind with their beaks and adjust the shape of their wing feathers to suppress lift. Probes on the new Airbus A350 XWB detect gusts ahead of the wing and deploy moveable surfaces for more efficient flight.
Meanwhile, engineers on the Airbus A380 learned from the Steppe Eagle, a bird of prey. If the eagle’s wings were too long, its turning circle would take it outside of a thermal – the rising column of warm air which it uses to gain height. The eagle can manipulate the feathers at its wingtips, curling them to create a ‘winglet,’ a natural adaptation that aids highly efficient flight. For the A380, the issue wasn’t turning inside thermals, but turning inside airports. How could it create enough lift and still fit inside airports where the wingspan limit is 80 metres? Thanks to ‘winglets’, which mimic the eagle’s feathers, the A380’s wings are just 79.8 metres. Winglets enhance the overall efficiency of aircraft, saving fuel while also lowering noise.
GE
GE is a leading proponent of partnerships that advance both sustainability and its market position. In 2010, it announced an investment of $55 million in power grid technology companies. This is the first of several rounds of innovation funding planned by GE and its venture capital partners as part of its Ecomagination Challenge. New partnerships have been formed to develop and commercialise technologies vital to building the next-generation power grid. These technologies include energy storage, utility security, energy management software and electric vehicle charging services. GE expects these markets to grow into a $20 billion opportunity by 2015.
