Eco workshop - facilitated by Dan Burgess

Introduction video   

Workshop task: 

• Develop concepts that help people live more sustainably, based on the four core themes that were discussed in the introduction (energy, transport, waste, food & water).

People are lazy

• Energy-saving technology should include features that support passive usage

Passive energy-saving location-based services that use your phone’s GPS

• Your house knows that you’re not around and turns electric gadgets and lights off

Starting from simple ideas, such as making sure you have the proper tire pressure, and continuing on to using more advanced and lighter production materials to make more fuel-efficient & eco-friendly vehicles

Using location-based services to make sure you are taking the most efficient routes and that you’re also using the most efficient speed

Social location-based services that can help you find other people who might be willing to carpool with you

• Incentive-based carpooling could be a solution

The group also discussed concepts that were not related to their given theme:

• Services that help you find products that are environmentally friendly
• Improved technology, e.g. Nokia power chargers that don’t waste energy when not used
• Less material packaging for products in order to save transport costs and use less fuel

The team mostly focused on phone-recycling

The big question for them was to figure out how to deal with cellphone waste

Their solution was the concept of a lifetime mobile device that would have modular components

• You could purchase/add components separately
• Each component would be recyclable
• The components and cases would have to made strong and durable
• The devices would have to be based on open protocols
• Also the hardware would need to be modular
• All possible features could be already included in the phone but you would have to pay to activate each one of them separately, thus there would be less phones & components that would need to be recycled

The technology (RFID tags etc) is there, let’s use it!

• Let’s create smarter distribution patterns for our products
• There’s no sense of manufacturing our products elsewhere and then importing them, let’s smarten up with the help of technology

Priority parking on parking lots or priority lanes on highways for green shoppers

Let’s promote and display the history of the product manufacturing process

• People are unaware of how much energy is consumed during the manufacturing process of products

Mobile alerts on ripening products

• For example, supermarkets could notify customers about products that are approaching expiration date and could be given away for free

Mobile coupons as a payment method in supermarkets

Services that offer information about the energy consumption of the manufactiring process of products

• Scanning product information with your mobile phone