After a sabbatical year, VivaTech returns strongly despite capacity limits and a reduced exhibition area. 'Sustainable Innovation' is making strong advances around energy, mobility and the circular economy.
Producing and storing energy sustainably are the key challenges for today’s and tomorrow’s society. The many innovations at VivaTech aim to reduce the limitations of current solutions.
Wind my Roof, a bladeless turbine enclosed in a metal cage, is much quieter than conventional turbines and safe for birds. Also equipped with photovoltaic panels and installed on the roof, it provides supplementary power to buildings. Solar panels also have many drawbacks. For the most part made in China with silicon and rare metals, they lose efficiency above 25°C, are bulky and difficult to recycle.
To address these issues, Heliatek manufactures organic solar panels (carbon-based) in Europe. They use neither rare metals nor silicon, making recycling much simpler, and they do not lose efficiency as temperatures rise. Currently their efficiency is still half that of conventional panels and they are twice as expensive but, at the thickness of around ten sheets of A4 paper, they can be installed anywhere because they are light and flexible.
Two light gases were also highlighted at VivaTech: hydrogen, which powers the Hopium Machina, a French saloon car, and helium, which fills the airships from Flying Whales that are ready to carry as much as a cargo plane while emitting significantly less CO2.
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The heat produced by industry (cement, petrochemicals, steel and glass) is very largely wasted energy. Water Horizon manages to store this so-called waste heat using a battery made of moisture-absorbing salts and to release it as cold. Useful for cooling a building, a data centre or a refrigerated warehouse and far less CO2‑emitting than traditional technologies!
In the circular economy sector, Nona Source collects end-of-roll textile remnants and offers them for sale to fashion designers. To avoid waste, it works on the "ends of ends" of rolls with a small brand, Le Bon Sauvage, which "upcycles" them to create new garments, but the ambition of its founder, Aline Alagbo, is larger. She wants to build in Togo, her country of origin, which is "buried" under mountains of used clothing, a sector for creating "upcycling" by training local residents in textile upcycling.
Néolithe also targets ultimate waste. It transforms non-recyclable materials from demolition or the construction of new buildings into reusable aggregates for use in building or road construction.
For food waste, Mutatec converts insects ground to powder into nutrient-rich substrates to feed shrimp in particular.
Using more durable materials motivates MycoWorks teams who can substitute leather with a material that has a very similar texture and feel made from mushrooms.
For e-commerce, Hipli solves the problem of reusable packaging by integrating the return envelope directly into the packaging. You just fold it and post it to return it. It was a clever idea!
The most outlandish innovation is Grow Your Own Cloud, which genetically engineers plants to store your data. The memory is tiny, enough to hold a few passwords, but at least you can watch them bloom!
There were also numerous conferences on these topics. The one I hosted on Zero Carbon with Lilo.org, Ilek and Carbo showed that the core issue is reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, not offsetting them. We would need to plant nine Amazon forests to neutralise global CO2 emissions, which is a little unrealistic!
It is also necessary to link the fight against climate change with other environmental issues such as biodiversity and the reduction of social inequalities.
It was an edition rich in discoveries and meetings that foreshadows a significant movement towards innovation primarily serving the planet and its inhabitants.