With sustainable and plant-based diets becoming more normalised, attention has been given to food waste and how to reduce its impact on the environment; the handling of food and its associated greenhouse gas emissions are not far behind those of the energy and transportation industries. 

—

Food Waste Statistics

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), if food waste were a country, it would be the 3rd-largest contributor of carbon emissions, after the US and China. In terms of area, food waste would be as big as India and Canada combined. These figures are staggering considering that 11% of the global population is undernourished. 

The UN estimates that 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year, a third of the world’s total production. According to the IPCC, the loss and waste of food was responsible for 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions between 2010 and 2016. Food waste also leads to a waste of the resources (water, energy, labour, capital and land) used to grow, transport and package the food. The FAO estimates that food loss and waste costs developed nations USD $680 billion and developing nations $310 billion annually. 

You might also like: Lisbon Orders 10 Electric Ferries as Part of Efforts to Decarbonise City

While developed and developing countries waste similar quantities of food (650 million tonnes per year), in developing countries, 40% of the losses occur at the post-harvest and processing stages, while in developed countries, 40% of the losses occur at the retail and consumer levels. Solutions depend on the stage these losses occur at; for example, developed countries need to focus on better retail practices and changing consumer behaviour, while developing countries need to focus on improving storage and distribution infrastructure as well as providing financial and technical support for better harvesting techniques. 

Food Waste Solutions

A number of innovative solutions already exist for countries looking to tackle food waste. In a joint collaboration with the company Too Good To Go, Unilever, Arla Foods and Carlsberg have added a new packaging label, ‘often good after’ directly after the ‘best-before date’ on certain foods to inform consumers about expiry dates versus best-before dates. The latter is meant to be an indicative measure requiring consumers to judge whether food is expired based on sight and smell. This new practice is being launched in the Nordics and will expand to other markets provided legislation allows it.

Technology in Papua New Guinea is being used to help local farmers’ livestock meet internationally-recognised standards. A digital tracking system helps verify important information about pigs like pedigree and what food and medicines they have been fed, giving importers and consumers greater purchasing confidence and reducing the risk of food being rejected and disposed of. This digital system was designed by the FAO and the International Telecommunications Unit (ITU); the broadband network is being improved locally so that farmers can update records easily on their subsidised phones.

Insignia Technologies has colour-changing tags that can be applied to products at the point of manufacture. The time-temperature indicators change the colour of the label according to the shelf life of the product, allowing restaurants to prioritise products that are about to get spoilt, thus reducing waste. 

UK academics are developing paper-based, smartphone-linked spoilage sensors for meat and fish packaging. They cost less than £0.02 each and are non-toxic and biodegradable, helping to detect spoilage and reduce food waste for supermarkets and consumers.

Global food waste initiative Winnow has developed software that tracks food being thrown away in kitchens. By using this software, businesses can record what’s being thrown away, assess the cost of the discarded food and get a detailed breakdown of each day’s waste to better manage their menus and reduce waste. 

Government interventions to reduce food loss and waste could include providing incentives or financial aid to smaller farmers and producers so that they can adopt more efficient techniques and practices. Organisations like the World Food Program help small farmers connect to people in need and also provide the necessary technologies for more efficient storage and distribution to prevent spoilage.

Local governments can support the set up of organisations like the Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP) in the UK that develops actions and milestones to help UK retailers and brands halve food waste by 2030. It provides guidance on labelling, packaging and storage and conducts and publishes surveys of businesses on their progress.

Updating legislation around labelling requirements so that the best-before and use-by dates are clearer to consumers, as well as ensuring solutions like the ‘often good after’ concept is brought in to markets, will also help.

Governments should also educate consumers on reducing food waste. The highest carbon footprint of wastage occurs at the consumption phase (37% of total), whereas consumption accounts for 22% of total food wastage; one kilogram of food that is wasted further along the supply chain will have a higher carbon intensity than at earlier stages.

Cereals, vegetables and meats have intense carbon footprints and contribute heavily to food waste. It is vital to, in the case of meat, minimise consumption, while for cereals and vegetables, optimise how they are managed and consumed to reduce wastage.   

Project Drawdown, a global research organisation that identifies, reviews and analyses the most viable solutions to the climate crisis, ranked solutions to global warming and found that cutting down on food waste could have a similar impact on reducing emissions over the next three decades as onshore wind turbines. If small and large businesses, governments and consumers work together, about 70 billion tons of greenhouse gases can be prevented from being released into the atmosphere.

Other things that consumers can do to reduce their food waste is to simply buy less food- plan your meals to ensure that you only buy what you need. Be sure to store food correctly; some tips include keeping the refrigerator below 5°C, storing cooked foods on shelves above raw foods and storing food in sealed containers. Finally, freeze your leftovers so that they last a bit longer.

The post How to Reduce Food Waste appeared first on Earth.Org.

Agriculture accounts for around 70% of all water withdrawals globally according to the World Bank, and approximately 60% of that is wasted, largely due to inefficient applications according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). With water increasingly valuable against the backdrop of a rising human population and climate change, can AI be used to prevent water wastage? 

—

Simple techniques like rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling are already being used in many regions to reduce water consumption. And many farms have realised the benefits of replacing their surface and sprinkler irrigation systems with more efficient drip irrigation systems.

But there’s another technology that could provide much bigger benefits to farms the world over: Artificial Intelligence.

You might also like: Using Oysters as a Flood Defence Strategy

How Can AI Solve Climate Change?

An Italian startup, Blue Tentacles, has come up with a “precision based” AI system that takes note of humidity, temperature, climate data and forecasts as well as satellite data to help farmers improve their irrigation practices whilst preventing water wastage and conserving energy.

In Japan, similar digital farming solutions collect data from soil and light sensors to advise on the quantity of water and fertilisers required. This is particularly useful to inexperienced farmers who might need help to improve productivity while reducing water consumption. These digital technologies are already being used by a number of large scale company run farms in Japan like GRA Inc, a strawberry farm that has gained a competitive edge by embracing technology.

A fuzzy logic system developed in Cordoba Spain, assesses and predicts the varying water needs of different users (for example, different crop growers in an association). This allows farming associations to not only manage water supplies more efficiently, but also to schedule maintenance and repair tasks, hire staff and manage electricity usage more effectively.

ConserWater tracks how water is distributed in a field using satellite and historical data. This allows users to fine tune their irrigation supply and also identify any leaks in the irrigation pipes. Their AI system can learn to identify damaged areas in a pipe without the need for manual inspection. It is a scalable solution working without ground sensors, and farmers would only need a desktop or a smartphone to access the data and receive notifications. Their products are being used by a 100+ farmers across the globe.

The fight to preserve freshwater extends beyond bucolic countryside hedges spilling into hydro-supply monitoring. UK-based United Utilities has partnered with Emagin to develop AI to manage their water networks and plan to test the technology on leakage reduction.

Similarly, WINT Water Intelligence in the US has developed an AI system to analyse water flow in residential and commercial buildings, identifying faults, waste and leaks and, if needed, shutting off a water supply to prevent damage. While this system has been designed for commercial facilities and manufacturing industries, similar solutions could be exported to the farming sector.

The agricultural sector is primed for disruption, from automating the analyses of aerial imagery of a field to identifying crop stress, weather forecasts and supply-chain optimisation. But how to ensure global wide-scale adoption?

Granular data collection for each farming zone is key and governments should facilitate it as much as possible. Data is the backbone for any AI system and the sooner it is collected the more historical data will be available for calculations.

Providing tools and training to farmers is equally essential. In 2017, when India collaborated with Israeli scientists and agronomists to establish drip irrigation in the country, teams of specialists educated local farmers through seminars and field visits to smooth the shift to new tools and practices.

Also in India, Microsoft collaborated with ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics) developing a predictive analytics app that calculated the best crop sowing date for maximising the yield. As a test case, farmers across seven villages were sent text messages with dates for sowing and other advice. Despite meager rainfall, farmers that used the app boosted their yields by 30%. When other farmers witnessed the results, they were also more likely to use the app themselves.

Introducing new methods and sophisticated machinery is expensive and would require tax breaks and financial support. This could come in the form of private sector grants like Microsoft’s AI for Earth Grant or through government policy. Funding would also be required to ensure adequate testing of the technology in the farms once it is developed.

Preventing water wastage  is not an intractable issue but whatever new AI tools or systems are devised, widespread public awareness and adoption should be a top priority. The OECD projects that Northeast China, Northwest India and Southwest USA are fertile grain belts supporting millions of people but also areas on the verge of imminent water scarcity.

The post Smart Farms: How AI Can Solve Water Wastage appeared first on Earth.Org.

Concerns over energy consumption and the impact of fossil fuels on global warming are leading to radical innovations in the field of energy conservation. From advanced AI systems for utilities to simple design elements and smart architectural solutions, widespread adoption lags behind the pace of innovation.

—

Optimising Consumption: Innovations in Policy and the Market

The concept of net zero energy buildings (designed to consume only as much energy as they produce) has been around for some years, but the industry is still in a nascent stage globally. The US are at the forefront, with California leading the charge, and followed by a string of European countries.

Governments have played a pivotal role in levelling the policy field and spurring adoption of energy conservation strategies. California mandated all new residential developments to be net zero by 2020; commercial by 2030; and has also applied stringent rules on the retrofit market. Similarly, EU regulators have issued directives aimed at making all new buildings nearly zero energy by 2020.

The trend has slowly taken root elsewhere. The largest net zero commercial building in the US opened in Silver Springs near Washington D.C. last year, the Unisphere by the architectural firm EwingCole. The building uses a combination of solar panels, daylight harvesting, natural ventilation, radiant heating, hybrid cooling and pours excess electricity into the utility grid.

In Asia, the National University of Singapore’s School of Design and Environment launched in February 2019, the island city’s ‘first new build net zero energy building’, using similar sustainable and energy conservation strategies.

You might also like: Fukushima’s Shift to Renewable Energy Sets An Example for the Rest of Japan

Verified Zero Energy Buildings Use Less Than Half the Energy of Typical Buildings in US³

Clever technological solutions, both big and small, support these green achievements.

Smart windows can control the light and heat entering a building or vehicle by turning from clear to dark, thus lowering air conditioning costs. The University of Nevada developed one prototype that does this quicker than any other, achieving 94% opacity in 60 seconds and also removes the unaesthetic bluish tint typical of similar products.

Smart thermostats adapt to user behaviour by learning the habits of a house’s occupants and adjust temperatures accordingly.

Timers can be applied to energy saving outlets to cut off power when chargers are not in use.

Higher up the spectrum, Google is using its AI system, DeepMind, to control its data centre cooling systems. Every 5 minutes, their cloud-based AI pulls data to predict how different combinations of actions will affect energy consumption in the future and identify what steps to take.

Efficient Production and Transmission of Energy

Artificial intelligence is a glittering allure for the energy sector. Researchers at Stanford University, for example, apply AI to enhance grid stability.  By assessing data on past power fluctuations and identifying weak spots, the grid harmonises inputs generated by multiple sources (hydropower, wind, solar) with seamless efficiency. Less power outages occur as a result.

Similarly, Google and DeepMind have been applying machine learning algorithms to the wind power industry. Algorithms correlate weather forecasts with historical turbine data predicting output up to 36 hours in advance. Doing so has strengthened the business case for wind power by obviating to one of the industry’s main issues namely the inconsistency of power generation resulting from unpredictable weather.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the UK’s National Grid have been using drones to inspect overhead lines and machine learning technology to analyse the drone footage. AI assesses the condition of the lines identifying the parts in need of repair or replacement.

All this is just a start. The potential to increase efficiency in the generation, transmission and storage of power is endless. According to Frost & Sullivan, a consulting firm, AI will give a boost to the renewable energy sector and allow utility companies to analyse consumer behaviour leading to an optimised distribution of energy supply and demand.

A Case for Widespread Adoption

To reap the benefits of technological prowess, innovation should go hand in hand with large-scale consumer adoption. A survey conducted of top European executives of utility companies by Roland Berger, another consulting firm, on the adoption of ‘smart’ utilities powered by AI, found that even though a majority of CEOs consulted believed that AI will have a big impact on their business, only 5% had a clearly defined implementation roadmap. 

Finding a Global Pathway to Adoption

The world can learn from the example set by California and the EU. Policy makers at all levels of government can create incentives for the adoption of energy-efficient technology from a municipal level up until the highest perch of government.

Tax breaks incentivise utility companies to adopt green technology. Deploying AI for example, can streamline the maintenance of power lines especially for providers in poor counties with little cash to spare for expensive physical monitoring by ground experts.

Progress is expensive. International bodies like the World Bank and IMF could step in to help their commitment to green financing. Other big institutional investors can follow the lead of Norway’s enormous sovereign wealth fund, which announced a multi-billion US dollar divestment from fossil fuels and is redirecting that money into green energy initiatives.

Finally, consumers can take it upon themselves to make informed choices and enlarge the market for energy conservation solutions by purchasing products designed to lighten humanity’s footprint on Earth.

The post Energy Conservation: The Big Leap Between Innovation and Adoption appeared first on Earth.Org.