Drivy, the Airbnb for cars, shows new self-service tech

Drivy, the car rental company, has a business model much like Airbnb's; it allows people to rent out vehicles that are not being used. Across Germany, France and Spain, Drivy currently has around 800,000 users and 35,000 private cars registered. CEO, Paulin Dementhon has announced that the company has produced "game-changing technology"; with a box that can be installed a car that enables doors to be opened via a smartphone. This technology, which Dementhon plans to scale up this year, will make self-service rental possible, as people will be able to open the car at times agreed with the owner. 

Sustainer Homes

The interior of the pilot model of Sustainer Homes’ off-grid mobile home. Photograph: Xam Xander Mouthaan/Sustainer Homes

This Dutch company makes fully off-grid mobile homes from recycled and reusable materials. Heat and power are renewable, and the water supply is filtered rain. According to co-founder Gert van Vugt, who has been staying in the pilot model, the life-cycle emissions are 4% those of a normal home, but inside it’s “a regular house with a dishwasher and washing machine”. As well as developing holiday homes, the company has bigger projects in the works for 2017 and beyond, including for developing countries. One challenge that lies ahead is how municipal planning systems will deal with such a different kind of house.

Drivy

The Drivy car rental model is like an Airbnb for cars. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

Drivy likens itself to an Airbnb for cars, enabling people to rent out their vehicle when they’re not using it. Around 800,000 users and 35,000 private cars are signed up across Germany, France and Spain. A key step for the business was establishing an insurance policy with Allianz to protect both car owners and renters. Drivy has just made what CEO Paulin Dementhon believes to be a game-changing technology breakthrough: a box it can install in cars to allow customers to open car doors with their smartphones at times agreed with car owners, making self-service rental possible. Dementhon says it will be scaled up quickly this year.



Redisa

Redisa gathers waste tyres for recycling or for cement kiln fuel. Photograph: Sequence Pictures/Redisa

“South Africa is littered with what was originally estimated to be 60m waste tyres, which pollute the environment – they are often burnt in uncontrolled environments for the steel content – and create breeding grounds for vermin and mosquitoes,” a spokeswoman for the government initiative explains. Redisa collects a levy on tyre manufacture and imports, and uses the money to gather waste tyres for recycling or for cement kiln fuel. Since 2012 it has collected 18m tyres and created 3,000 jobs. Its major challenge is to develop a local industry using rubber and steel recyclate so it can burn less and recycle more.

Optoro

Optoro acts as a middleman for selling goods online. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Optoro, winner of the circular economy enterprise category at The Circulars awards at Davos, started life as eSpot, a middleman selling people’s knick-knacks and antiques for them on eBay in the days before widespread online knowhow. “We had the idea for Optoro when more and more local retailers, instead of individuals, asked us to help them sell their returned and excess inventory,” says the firm’s director of communications, Carly Llewellyn. “We realised that dealing with returns and other goods in the reverse supply chain was a problem even top retailers face.” Optoro now works with 20 of the top 100 retailers in the US and expects to process 25m items in 2016, cutting its clients’ waste from returned and excess stock by 73%.

Circularity Capital



Edinburgh firm Circularity Capital offers small and medium businesses access to investment opportunities created by the circular economy. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian

This Edinburgh-based private equity firm specialises in the circular economy. Launched last year, it plans to make 10-12 investments of between £1m and £5m by 2020 in small- and medium-sized companies. The founders say businesses that innovate to increase their resource productivity offer investors an attractive return. “The beauty of the circular economy framework is that it’s founded on strong economic principles,” says partner Andrew Shannon, a former banker. “That’s shown by its growing adoption in the corporate world.” Shannon is particularly interested in SMEs that are maximising the value and productivity of their assets by moving from selling a product to selling a service.

Neptuno Pumps

Neptuno Pumps is based in the Atacama desert in Chile, one of the driest places on Earth. Photograph: Krys Bailey/Alamy

This Chilean manufacturer produces 60% of its pumps using reused and recycled materials. This includes remanufactured pumps where almost all the parts are reused or recycled. The buyer gets a pump that’s 30% cheaper, but still comes with a one-year warranty. Neptuno is based in the Atacama desert, one of the driest places on Earth and the heartland of Chile’s multibillion-dollar mining industry, a huge consumer of the country’s scarce water resource. Through its design, Neptuno claims its pumps can help mining companies recycle up to 70% of their water, which cuts energy consumption by up to 30%.

Miniwiz

Miniwiz has fitted out Nike’s high-end stores in seven cities including Tokyo. Photograph: Sean Pavone/Alamy

This Taiwan-based engineering, manufacturing and design firm turns trash – particularly plastic, electronic and agricultural waste – into building materials. It has fitted out the interior of Nike’s high-end stores, NikeLab, in seven cities including London, Tokyo and New York, and has built an e-waste recycling plant out of recycled materials. The firm is self-funded, with no government subsidies, so it has to compete on quality and price. Miniwiz’s communications director, Johann Boedecker, says people are often resistant to recycled materials but that things are improving. “Our new customers think the loop economy can be good for their bottom line,” he says.

National Zero Waste Council

A coalition of metropolitan governments and businesses aim to prevent food waste. Photograph: Grant Faint/Getty Images

Canada’s local governments spend around C$3.2bn (£1.5bn) each year on managing 34m tonnes of waste. The National Zero Waste Council, a coalition of metropolitan governments and businesses, aims to shift policy and practice from waste management to waste prevention. In the past month, cities including Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary have backed the Council’s proposal for a federal tax incentive to encourage food producers and retailers to divert edible food from landfill to charities. “The estimated value of food wasted across Canada is C$31bn (£14.9bn) or 2% of GDP,” a spokeswoman says. “The cost to businesses, and to municipalities that are responsible for managing organic waste, is significant.”

New Hope Ecotech



Brazil’s biggest garbage dump, which was located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, closed in 2012. Photograph: Buda Mendes/STF/LatinContent/Getty Images

This Brazilian startup develops software for compiling and sharing recycling data. Brazil’s solid waste law requires firms placing consumer packaging on the market to invest in recycling. One of New Hope Ecotech’s digital platforms conveys data from recyclers to manufacturers for compliance purposes. More than 27,000 tonnes of recyclable material sorted by waste firms and cooperatives was reported on the platform in 2015. The firm’s main current purpose is to help create transparency but in the future they plan to have a more direct influence on increasing recycling by making direct transfers of funds to recyclers, says co-founder Luciana Oliveira.

Tarkett

Tarkett, a manufaturer of sports surfaces, is using alternatives to toxic phthalates in its European and US factories. Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

The presence of toxic chemicals in the recycling loop is a major challenge for the circular economy. PVC, one of the world’s most common plastics and which can be easily recycled, often contains phthalates. These additives, used to make PVC flexible, are toxic for human reproduction and development, and end up in consumer products when soft PVC is recycled. Tarkett, a French multinational that manufactures flooring and sports surfaces, uses alternatives to phthalates at its European and US factories, and aims to have rolled out the technology to all its production sites worldwide by 2020.