Any sustainable innovation that minimizes environmental harm and ensures efficient utilization of natural resources for growth is known as green innovation. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development states that green growth improves economic development while ensuring that environmental services are being provided using our natural resources.
To enhance business performance in terms of economy, the environment, and competitiveness several key points need to be considered such as decreased energy use, trash recycling, pollution management, resource sustainability, and green product design.
When it comes to green innovation, one of the most critical points is product design. The key to minimizing harmful waste and recycling is the implementation of a design that improves on previous designs. Designing for efficiency can not only help in the environmental realm, but it can also increase sales for a business.
In this post, we will talk about the characteristics, importance and examples of green innovations.
Characteristics Of Green Innovations
Due to the following features, green innovation typically sets itself apart from non-green technologies.
- It is supported by economic and environmental factors.
- It lessens the harmful environmental effect
- It aims to improve a system, a process, a product, or a service.
- Through the reduction in waste, cost, and other inefficiencies, economic and social performance are increased.
Examples Of Green Innovations
1. Recycling and waste management
There is an increase in household or industrial waste and this has brought about the need for waste management which has to do with sorting various solid waste from another. Using multiple bins separated by colour is one of the green innovations that help with waste management.
Trash bins are now separated by colour to represent paper, organic, plastic and others. This helps recycling and waste management much easier.
2. Vertical Farming
Vertical farming ensures that plants are produced using as limited space as possible. This is a green technology innovation where vegetables are produced in enclosed and controlled spaces. These vegetables are vertically stacked and plants are grown under favourable conditioning to optimise growth.
Increased sustainability is one advantage of vertical farming, and some setups do not even require soil. They just need a little water, nutrients and engineered lights. This kind of farming can help in cities where farmlands are not present due to urbanisation.
3. Waste-to-energy
This is a green innovation that generates energy from waste or garbage. The local production of biofuels, bioproduct precursors, heat, and power potentially benefit greatly from domestic waste, organic waste, and hydrocarbon waste streams.
4. Automobiles Without Gas Emission
I’m sure you’ve heard about electric cars. Automobiles that use green power sources such as electricity are a perfect example of green innovation. Such automobiles do not release harmful gas like carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NOx), etc in our environment.
5. Use Of Solar Energy
This is an innovation that converts solar energy from natural light (i.e the sun) into electricity, heat, and various other forms of energy. This innovation aims at reducing our dependency on hydrocarbons and fossil fuels thereby promoting environmental protection.
Importance of Green Innovations
There are several key advantages of using green innovations. Some of them are:
- It helps businesses to create a new market by being able to offer services or products that are both innovative and environmentally friendly at the same time.
- It promotes sustainability, clean air and water, recycling, and conserving energy.
- It is environmentally friendly because it does not use more energy and materials than necessary to produce the product or service.
- It has health benefits, like the reduction of harmful substances from waste generated by a business’ manufacturing processes
- They are effective ways to protect natural resources and increase profits.
In conclusion, green innovations are developed to encourage sustainable and responsible practices. As a result of the developments in green innovations, our planet has been less polluted and also given more space for all living beings to survive comfortably in it.
Read: How Green Spaces Improve Health
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