7 Sustainable Innovations That Stood Out at CES 2020

A roundup of promising eco-friendly innovations that came out of the annual consumer tech show in Las Vegas.

Another CES has come and gone. While we’ve grown accustomed to seeing some promising eco-friendly innovations come out of the annual consumer tech show in Las Vegas in recent years, sustainability appeared to be (thankfully) among the major trends at this year’s event. 

Continue reading for a quick roundup of the sustainable innovations and products that stood out to us — some of which we’ll be writing more about in the coming weeks. 

1. Hydraloop residential water recycling system

Winner of CES’s Best of Innovation award in the Sustainability, Eco-Design & Smart Energy category, the Hydraloop system cleans and disinfects bath and washing machine greywater that can be reused to flush toilets, fill pools or by reused in washing machines. Hydraloop says it can help reduce in-home water consumption by 45 per cent. Hydraloop recycles and filters the water through a six-step process that includes sedimentation, dissolved air flotation and UV light disinfection. The system is also highly customisable, with users able to prioritise when and for what purpose the recycled water is used via an app. 

2. Sustainable packaging ‘Box’ for eCommerce

French reusable packaging startup LivingPackets partnered with E Ink, the world’s largest supplier of ePaper displays, to create THE BOX —  a sustainable and reusable packaging solution designed to replace cardboard boxes. It can be reused up to 1,000 times and is equipped with an E Ink display that replaces printed address labels.

3. Clean and silent air-conditioning

HomeCool by OxiCool aims to provide clean and silent air-conditioning for homes by using water as a coolant rather than the commonly-used refrigerants that harm the environment. The company claims to be the first to figure out how to use water as a refrigerant in a nonfreezing capacity. Its technology uses molecular sieves in vacuum-sealed units made from stainless steel. 

4. Reduit’s precision-based hair care system

Reduit says its Reduit One is the world’s first precision-based hair care system. The Swiss company says its Ultrasonic Diffusion technology allows its new Hairpod to disperse droplets 50 times smaller than traditional mist applications, creating a highly concentrated formula. By optimising the delivery of active ingredients, product waste is minimized. 

5. Plans for hydrogen-powered smart city 

Toyota announced plans for a 175-acre prototype of a hydrogen-powered smart city near Mt. Fuji. Its “Woven City” will feature autonomous vehicles, subterranean deliveries and domestic robots. The city will be built on a stretched grid of pathways that will separate traffic into individual paths for the likes of self-driving mobility pods, electric scooters and other medium-speed mobility devices and pedestrians. Construction is expected to start in 2021.

6. Impossible Pork and Sausage

The popular plant-based food company Impossible Foods is furthering its sustainable agenda with two new products: Impossible Pork Made from Plants and Impossible Sausage Made from Plants. The company says that all the buildings, roads and paved surfaces in the world occupy less than 1% of Earth’s land surface, while 45% is currently used for grazing and growing feed crops for livestock. According to MarketWatch.com, the company is also working on plant-based substitutes for lamb, goat, fish and dairy products.

7. Fisker Ocean’s all-electric SUV

Fisker Ocean unveiled further details on what it claims to be the world’s most sustainable vehicle. Among its electric SUV’s many sustainable features are a full-length solar roof, fully recycled carpeting, a vegan interior made of Polycarbonate Polyurethane and reinforced Rayon backing, tires made of repurposed rubber waste and an extended range (250 to 300 miles) made possible by an 80 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. The first batch is expected to be delivered in 2022 at a starting price of $37,499 (€33,720).