Making 'Climate Candy' From Upcycled Fruits and Veggies

The California-based tech startup Shinkei is combining artificial intelligence with an ancient Japanese method called Ike Jime to kill fish quickly with less pain. Alongside improved fish welfare, the method cuts down waste by keeping the fish fresher for longer.

To reduce landfill use and greenhouse gas emissions while feeding those in need, New York’s food donation program requires big businesses to donate edible food to places like food banks instead of throwing it out.

Gree Energy helps food processors in Indonesia overcome the financial barriers to installing anaerobic wastewater treatment plants. These plants turn methane emissions into biogas to be used as electricity or thermal energy. The company plans the builds, finds uses for the biogas, and establishes revenue to fund the projects.

The shareholder activism nonprofit The Accountability Board is holding fast food companies accountable to making progress toward their climate commitments by filing proposals asking for action, which all shareholders who own a certain percentage of companies are able to do.

A brewery and a winery in Oregon are setting the standards and building the infrastructure for a reusable glass bottles system to reduce their environmental impacts. They sell their products in bottles that customers are incentivized to return so they can be cleaned, refilled, and sold again.

A utility company in Framingham, Massachusetts, worked with climate advocates to build a unique geothermal heating and cooling project that spans a whole neighborhood. A group of residential and commercial buildings share the infrastructure necessary to harness stable underground temperatures for heating and cooling, which reduces their greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills.

Recirclable provides reusable takeout boxes that customers can return to a participating restaurant within two weeks to avoid being charged a fee, which allows restaurants to cut down on disposable containers that harm the environment. So far Recirclable is working with 14 restaurants and has had thousands of customers select the reusable option, but the effort is difficult to scale up because reuse requires more effort on the part of the consumer and there’s not yet sufficient infrastructure to streamline the process.

A direct carbon capture plant in Iceland sucks carbon dioxide out of the air, mixes it with water, and pumps it underground to help combat climate change. When the mixture reaches the basalt bedrock, it causes a chemical reaction that turns the carbon into a solid so it can be stored underground in the porous rock.

Researchers in India developed a spray that is applied to mangoes to extend their shelf life by about a week, reducing food waste and increasing farmers’ profits.

Thermal storage technologies are lowering businesses’ energy costs and carbon emissions while reducing strain on the grid during peak times. Two hotels in California implemented a system that makes ice when energy demand is low and uses the ice during peak demand times to cool the building.