Adam Clare

Accelerating the Circular Economy

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The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected economies from the local to the global and we can rebuild our economy using old destructive methods or rebuild it in a way that future generations can benefit. Everyday there are more calls to reshape our economic systems to respect the environment more while increasing profits, and we can. The circular economy is all about both local profits and global environmental protection. Over at the World Economic Forum they have outlined a few ways we can speed up our shift to a more sustainable economic structure.

2. Transforming consumption

A step further along the value chain, Transforming Consumption addresses the reality that we currently consume 1.75 times more resources each year than the Earth can naturally regenerate, and we are on course to more than double resource use by 2050. Here, innovators are working to conceptualize new models of circular consumption, including product-as-a-service, product-use extension (e.g. repairs, secondary marketplaces), and sharing platforms. Algramo is a Chilean start-up whose omni-channel, cross-brand platform technology enables brands and retailers to sell goods to consumer using smart reusable packaging for the lowest possible prices. Algramoâ€™s packaging distribution system incorporates Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to enable innovations such as their patented Packaging as a Wallet technology and IoT-connected vending machines. It is estimated that converting 20% of plastic packaging into reuse models presents a $10 billion opportunity, making rethinking packaging both a significant business priority in addition to having environmental imperative.

Another Radiative Cooling Advancement

The more I learn about radiative cooling systems the cooler they get. These cooling systems absorb heat from an enclosed space and send the heat directly into outer space. It sounds like science fiction but it exists now. The heat gets converted into infrared waves and emitted upwards away from the planet where the waves pass through the atmosphere to release their heat into the coolness of space.

In experiments, the team showed that the device was able to lower the temperature inside a test unit by more than 12 Â°C (22 Â°F) under direct sunlight, and by more than 14 Â°C (25 Â°F) in a simulated nighttime test.

The mirrors are more advanced than they might sound, too. Made with 10 thin layers of silver and silicon dioxide, theyâ€™re designed to be selective in how they handle different wavelengths. They reflect the mid-infrared waves from the emitter while absorbing the visible and near-infrared waves from the sunlight. That prevents the Sunâ€™s warmth from cancelling out the cooling effect, improving the efficiency.

As an added extra, the heat absorbed by the mirrors can be put to good use â€“ in this test, the team used it to heat water to 60 Â°C (140 Â°F).

Solving Problems is the New Life Goal

It’s now February and those of you that decided to commit to a New Years resolution have probably given up on them, that’s ok. Trying is always the first step. One of the reasons you may have missed your resolution goal is because it was a goal. Instead of focussing on achieving a goal, you should focus on what problem you’re trying to solve and give it a hard think about the best way to go about solving it.

â€œGoals feel good to set, but theyâ€™re just a diversion,â€ he told me. â€œPeople face no consequence if they donâ€™t reach their goal. So they forget it and set another one again and mess that one up, too.â€

No, Kashey wanted to talk about problems. Too often, he said, we use goals to gloss over problems, pulling arbitrary benchmarks out of thin air â€” like losing 10 pounds or reading 30 books in a year â€” without pausing to consider whether hitting those benchmarks will improve our lives.

When we want to do or change something, a more productive framing, he said, is to ask ourselves, â€œWhat problem am I trying to solve?â€

The Right to Repair in Europe

One of the largest markets in the world will soon be demanding manufactures to let consumers repair what their products. You may have bought a product like a cellphone that gets minor damage which you can’t repair yourself, so you need to send it back to the manufacturers for an expensive or worse: buy a new one. The amount of waste produced by negligent manufactures because their products cannot be repaired is astronomical. This has led Europe to begin the process of passing legislation around the consumer’s right to repair what they own.

Some political leaders agree. In November, the EU Parliament called on the European Commission to make routine repair of everyday products easier, systematic and cost-efficient. It said that warranties should be extended, and that replacement parts should be improved and made more accessible, as should information enabling general repair and maintenance.

The EUâ€™s existing eco-design regulations could be an instrument to reach these goals. These mandates were established years ago to improve the energy efficiency of products sold in the EU. But in March, the first eco-design regulation that will define standards for repair and useful life will come into force. Manufacturers of washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators and monitors will have to ensure that components are replaceable with common tools. Instruction manuals must be accessible to specialist companies. And producers must supply spare parts within 15 days.

Practicing Mindfulness Reduces Bias

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Mindfulness training can reduce the biases one has according to a new paper published today in Nature. The researchers had a control group which was given a bias test but received no mindfulness training, the other group got training and then tested. The results are clear: being mindful can reduce one’s bias.

In a study testing whether mindfulness decreases cognitive biases, respondents answered 22 standard cognitive bias questions to measure susceptibility to the endowment effect, overconfidence, mental accounting, anchoring, loss aversion, and 17 other biases, as well as the 14 questions of the Langer mindfulness survey (LMS), measuring the traits of novelty-seeking, novelty producing, and engagement. A portion of the respondents were randomly pre-assigned to a condition that induced mindfulness. On 19 of the 22 biases, those induced to be mindful were less likely to show the bias. They also scored higher on 11 of the 14 LMS questions. The method by which we induced mindfulness was unrelated to the context of the later questions, involving image comparisons and standard Langerian instructions to notice three new things. People can boost their decision-making abilities merely by increasing their mindfulness, with no need for meditation, psychological training, or statistical education.