The sustainable home of tomorrow

With the emergence of the Internet of Thing (IoT) and home automation products, it’s never been easier to save energy in our homes. One company that’s been a key player within the movement is Nest Labs, founded in 2010.

The company's first product is the Nest Learning Thermostat - a programmable smart thermostat that optimises your energy usage. It gets to know the temperature you like, learns how your home heats up or how draughty it is and only uses the power it needs.

Developed by two former Apple employees, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, the device works using a machine learning algorithm. For the first weeks, users have to regulate the thermostat in order to provide the reference data set.

The Nest can also be controlled via an app and, using built-in sensors and the inhabitant's phone locations, can shift into energy-saving mode when it realises no one is at home.

In 2014, Nest Labs was acquired by Google for US$3.2 billion. The company has since launched a variety of clever devices for the smart and sustainable home, including security systems, cameras, smoke and CO alarms and more.

Once you own one Nest product, such as the Nest Thermostat, Nest Protect or Nest Cam, any add-on products, like a light bulb, will notice each other, learn from one another and help you out – all on their own.

Showers are one of the biggest contributors to our overall domestic water consumption, that’s why we’re all urged to keep our bathroom time as short as possible. But, with The Shower of the Future, users can be environmentally friendly without compromising their long, hot showers.

Using the same technology used onboard spacecraft, the shower works on a closed-loop system that requires only five litres of water – about a tenth of what traditional showers use. Once initially used, the 'waste' water is collected from the drain, purified and then recycled back into the tank.

The shower also saves over 80% in energy consumption, as it doesn’t have to reheat the water each time it’s needed. Users can also keep track of their water usage and savings by downloading The Shower of the Future app.

According to research performed by makers Orbital Systems, households using The Shower of the Future could shave at least US $1100 off their energy bills every year.

Not only is the shower great news for homeowners, but its patented purification system has shown great potential for use in other fields.

Every year, we produce approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste, most of which ends up in landfills. This food waste decomposes and produces methane – a potent greenhouse gas
 that significantly contributes to global warming.

The ZERA Food Recycler is designed to fit seamlessly into your kitchen and make the most of your food — turning today’s food scraps into tomorrow’s ready-to-use, homemade fertilizer.

At first sight, the 8.4-litre bin might just look like another designer trash can. But inside is a concentration of technology that dramatically accelerates the composting process. In just 24 hours, it can transform 7 days’ worth of food waste into approximately 3.5 kg of compost.

Unlike conventional composting systems, it can recycle 95% of all household food waste, including meat and dairy.

The process is simultaneously chemical, mechanical and electronic: a small bag of baking soda and coconut husks is placed at the bottom of the container and the food waste is then piled on top.

Then, by pressing a button, the electric cycle is triggered: the combined action of air, humidity, heat and stirring blades first reduces the volume of waste by two-thirds, then starts the high speed composting process.

The Silk Leaf is a synthetic leaf that mirrors nature to generate oxygen out of water and light. The ground-breaking technology is opening doors for a number of innovative applications, such as a living, breathing building material.

Designed by Julian Melchiorri, the leaf consists of chloroplasts extracted from real plant cells suspended in silk fibres. The outcome is a thin layer which, when provided with water and light, can mimic photosynthesis to provide oxygen and help recycle output gases.

"We're efficiently converting carbon dioxide, one of the major reason for global warming, into life-giving and valuable resources: oxygen and energy,” says Melchiorri.

The leaf technology can be applied to homeware products or to the outer façades of buildings. It can then clean outside air and filter the oxygenated air into the inside of buildings.

Melchiorri believes that his creation can also be used to develop low-pollution biological air filters and ventilation systems at a much larger level.

Many of our major cities are pushing our ecosystem to its limits. And by 2050, it’s estimated that most of our global population, a projected 10 billion, will live in mega-cities. We’re in desperate need to rethink urban development and how communities can produce and consume more conscientiously.

ReGen Villages are a new type of regenerative and resilient eco-village. Designed to be fully self-sufficient, each community produces its own food and energy, and handles waste in a fully closed loop. A ReGen “Village OS” software platform will also autonomously manage communities across climate zones.

By using the most advanced methods for growing food – a combination of aeroponics, aquaponics, permaculture, food forests and high-yield organic farming – the ReGen Villages will grow much more food than a traditional farm of the same size, with fewer resources.

Aquaponics, for example, can produce up to 10 times as much produce on the same amount of land, with 90% less water.

Any household waste that can be composted will feed livestock or soldier flies. The soldier flies will feed fish and the fish waste will fertilise an aquaculture system that produces fruit and vegetables. Seasonal gardens will also be fertilised by waste from the livestock.

ReGen Villages also foster social value by creating a framework for empowering families and developing a sense of community.

This project holds great potential to alleviate the challenges of our growing global population, including rapid urbanisation, resource scarcity and CO2 emissions. They will also reduce burdens on municipal and national governments.