Sustainability innovations that made headlines in 2024

While capital reserves in climate technologies grew to historic levels as big finance groups launched climate-focused funds, actual investments in climate tech startups plunged, as did the number of climate tech deals, as investors went cold on innovations that could potentially cut climate-wrecking greenhouse gas emissions.

In the much-hyped alternative meats sector, cultivated meat and plant-based investments dropped year on year, although the fermentation sector grew briskly, with a 16 per cent rise in the number of fermentation companies globally. 

Renewables investments grew to an expected US$2 trillion in 2024 – twice the amount spent on fossil fuels – at the time of publishing, according to the International Energy Agency, although the familiar obstacles of fossil fuel subsidies and a reluctance to transition too quickly from dirty energy, particularly in Asia, remained stubbornly in place.

On a podcast with Eco-Business in July, Steve Melhuish, a sustainability tech venture builder, noted that while five years ago there was a rush into electric vehicles in Southeast Asia – “everyone wanted to be Elon Musk” – there is now a resurgence in investor focus on food, agriculture and land use.

These sectors, Melhuish told Eco-Business, are where 50 per cent of Southeast Asia’s emissions are and where investors should be focusing their attention – not on software like carbon measurement solutions that do not really put a dent in emissions.

In this year-end listicle, Eco-Business highlights  some of the more promising innovations – some gimmicky, others perhaps more effective – that got the atttention of investors and newspaper editors in a year in which sustainability tech had a rough ride.

Slick detective work

The waste palm oil slicks from the Singapore-flagged vessel can be seen as black lines on the map on the right. The slicks were identified by Skytruth’s Cerulean software, which can link oil slicks to polluters. Image: Skytruth

Non-profit oil slick monitoring group SkyTruth introduced a new tool called Cerulean that uses machine learning to detect oil slicks in satellite imagery and identify possible sources of pollution from vessels or offshore infrastructure. Cerulean was used to identify waste palm oil dumping by a Singapore flagged vessel in July. Free-of-charge and publicly accessible, the platform has identified nearly 15,000 oil slicks globally, spanning an area of over 225,000 square kilometres. SkyTruth is planning to incorporate real-time alerts and monitoring of additional environmental metrics, such as methane leak detection and natural gas flare monitoring, in the new tool.

Deforestation-free coffee

Pluri’s cell-based coffee. Image: Pluri

Israeli cell technology firm Pluri launched a cell-based coffee brand to mitigate the enormous amounts of land, water and labour needed to harvest the plant for the popular brew. Pluri coffee uses 98 per cent less water and 85 per cent less land than traditional coffee farming methods. Using a bioreactor, the company says it is able to mimic the cell source’s natural conditions without needing the whole plant for the process – the leaves of the plant are enough. Climate change is estimated to reduce the land area available for coffee farming by up to 50 per cent by 2050.

Artifical glaciers

Ice stupas for tackling water scarcity in India. Image: Oliver Bolton/Rolex

Sonam Wangchuk, an engineer from Ladakh in India, developed a solution to tackle the water shortages farmers face each spring in the trans-Himalayan mountains: ice stupas, which are towering, conical ice mounds resembling Tibetan religious stupas. They are designed to store glacial meltwater and release it gradually, providing irrigation water during the growing season.

Spotting beach trash from space

Plastic debris is hard to spot on beaches, because it mixes with sand. However, a satellite imagery tool developed by researchers from Australia’s RMIT University can pick up differences in how sand, water and plastics reflect light, allowing plastics to be spotted on shorelines from more than 600 kilometres above. The tool will enable dirty remote beaches to be identified and cleaned.

Super-light solar panels

The CSIRO team that achieved a record for the efficiency of thin, flexible solar panels. Image: CSIRO

Thin, flexible, lightweight solar cells made by printing ink on to plastic film moved a step closer to reality in February, when Australian researchers claimed a new record for the amount of sunlight they can capture and turn into energy. Researchers at Australia’s national science agency CSIRO claimed an efficiency record for fully roll-to-roll printed solar cells and said the efficiencies were made possible by integrating machine learning into the production process. It launched a new venture in November to commercialise its next generation solar thermal technology that it says will help reduce industrial emissions, and has secured seed funding to do so.

Plastic-eating worms

NTU scientists isolated the worm’s gut bacteria and used them to do the job without the need for large-scale worm breeding. Image: NTU

Scientists from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University developed an artificial worm gut to accelerate the breakdown of plastics. Previous studies have found that the larvae of the darkling beetle commonly sold as pet food can survive on a diet of plastic because its gut contains bacteria that can break down common plastic types. However, their use in plastics processing has been impractical due to the slow rate of feeding and worm maintenance. NTU scientists isolated the worm’s gut bacteria and used them to do the job without the need for large-scale worm breeding.

Cow-less beef

Aleph Farms’ lab-based beef was approved for sale in Israel. Image: Aleph Cuts

Singapore and the United States are the first countries to approve cultured chicken for sale. This year, Israel became the first country to give lab-grown beef the green light. Developed by Israeli food tech firm Aleph Farms, the company cultivates meat from stem cells taken from fertilised eggs rather than from cells of muscle tissue. The tissue is grown in tanks that act as fermenters, similar to those in a brewery. The cells are nurtured and shaped into a three-dimensional structure that resembles steak.

World’s first recycled solar panels

The low recycling rate of solar panels has been a thorn in the side of the energy transition. So the development of the world’s first fully recycled crystalline silicon solar panel module by China-based photovoltaic supplier Trina Solar has been regarded as a milestone. The silicon, silver, aluminium frames and glass can be recovered from these modular panels. The process makes use of self-developed interlayer separation reagents, chemical etching technology, and wet chemical silver extraction technology. The recycled panels can produce over 645 megawatts (MW) of power output, significantly higher than the average output of between 250 MW to 400 MW, according to the company.

Eco-milk

Asparagopsis sea weed used by Sea Forest to produce “eco milk”. Image: Sea Forest

Cow belches don’t have to hurt the climate. Spiking cow feed with SeaFeed – an additive made with the Asparagopsis seaweed native to Tasmanian waters – can eliminate methane emissions almost entirely. The resultant “eco-milk” made by the team at Sea Forest, an environmental technology company, together with Tasmanian-based dairy Ashgrove Cheese, has no taste difference, and costs just 12.5 cents (7.91 cents in USD) more per litre than normal milk. The milk container is also fully recyclable.

Upcycled fish scales

Physicists from the National University of Singapore developed a way to repurpose fish scales to remove the pollutant Rhodamine B from water. Up to 91 per cent of the pollutant – which is associated with cancer and liver failure – can be removed within 10 minutes of contact time with the heat-treated fish scales. 

Bark-based packaging

Bark and BPack’s bark-based granules that can replace polymer pellets. Image: BPacks

British packaging startup Bpacks launched the world’s first bark-based packaging technology to replace petroleum-based rigid plastics. The firm produces both finished packaging and granules as substitutes for plastic pellets using waste from wood production. Its production process resembles that of polymers and doesn’t require capital investments to begin molding, since the manufacturing process mirrors that of plastic production. 

Cultured eel

Wild eel populations are in trouble. Habitat loss, overfishing, pollution and climate change have pushed the slippery fish species to near extinction. In 2024, Israel-based cell-cultured seafood start-up Forsea Foods unveiled its first prototype of cell-cultivated freshwater eel, replicating the traditional Japanese unagi eel (Anguilla japonica) with the same texture and flavour as real eel. Forsea’s technology echoes the natural growth process of tissues in a living eel.

Mobile chicken farming

A self-driving chicken coop powered by solar panels creeps slowly along the fields, herding about 6,000 chickens every day. Developed by Californian-based enterprise Pasturebird, these coops encourage natural feeding behaviour and allow the chickens to forage on fresh grass without overgrazing any area. The constant movement of the coops and the chickens also helps to evenly distribute manure as fertiliser.

Recycled nappies 

In countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, baby’s disposable diapers are the most commonly discarded type of waste that ends up in waterways. Diapers are notoriously difficult to recycle. Singapore-based startup Diaper Recycling Technology says it is able to recycle nappies into reuseable paper and plastics using a complex process that cuts energy use. The technology was named green startup grandslam winner at the Green Tech Festival in Singapore in October.

Retroreflectors to beat urban heat?

Retroreflectors, which are used on road signs to make them easily visible at night, might be a solution to ease urban heating. Engineers at Princeton University have discovered that retrofitting buildings with retroreflective material could reduce surface temperatures by up to 20°C and cool human skin temperatures by almost 0.5°C. Retroreflective surfaces are more effective than other types of reflective material, which can cause light to bounce in any direction, potentially worsening the urban heat effect if poorly applied.

Emission-free flights?

On June 24 2024, Joby’s hydrogen-electric technology demonstrator aircraft completed a 523-mile flight above Marina, California, with no in-flight emissions except water. Image: Joby Aviation

This June saw the successful flight of a hydrogen-powered electric air taxi, the first of its kind to travel over 800 kilometres with zero in-flight emissions besides water. Designed by California’s aviation company Joby in partnership with the United States Air Force, the aircraft demonstrated the potential for hydrogen fuel to power emissions-free regional journeys, and without the need for a runway. The electric air taxi can carry a pilot and four passengers, travelling at speeds of up to 320 kilometres per hour. Joby said it plans to start commercial operations as early as 2025, and has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Abu Dhabi to establish and scale air taxi services in the region.

Cricket flour

Italy-based Nutrinsect’s cricket powder, made from freeze-dried and pulverised house crickets from the species Acheta domesticus, went on sale in Europe in 2024. Using crickets grown in Italy, the product retails at EUR$6 (US$6.50) per 100 grams. According to the company, crickets contain thrice the amount of protein as in meat, and are rich in calcium, iron and vitamin B12, while being low in fat and calories. The product appears as a fine beige powder that is soft and light in consistency, and Nutrinsect has claimed that it tastes like cereal, with a “savoury, typically umami aftertaste”.

This story is part of Eco-Business’ Year in Review series, which looks back at the stories that shaped the world of sustainability in 2024.