Photo via dailymail.co.uk
While yesterday’s blog post focused on innovative environmental designs generated in Boston, today's highlights many other cities throughout the nation and across the globe developing revolutionary ideas concerning how cities can decrease their negative impact on the environment.
In 2008, Rotterdam, Netherlands caught the public eye when they opened Watt, the first-ever sustainable night club. The night club’s sustainability comes from its distinct dance floor, which harvests the energy generated by patrons’ movement and transforms that energy into electricity. Today, companies continue to work to generate energy in environmentally friendly ways. Developers in Reedsport, Oregon established the first U.S. wave farm, which uses “wave power” as a source of clean energy production. Meanwhile, in cities throughout France, a company named Eole Water has created a way to use wind turbines to condense water in the air and transform it into drinkable water.
There have also been creative designs targeted to make transportation in cities better for the environment. London, which CEOs for Cities has already noted as hosting the “greenest Olympics ever," is discussing plans to build elevated bike highways to encourage citizens to bike more. Working to make biking a group activity, an innovative health care company in Louisville, KY worked to promote biking through its endorsement of pedal buses. Featured at this year’s Democratic and Republican Conventions with the slogan “petal power to the people," Humana Inc. provided free pedal buses for convention-goers. But as some cities work to encourage citizens to bike more and drive less, other cities are working to make motor transportation less detrimental to the environment. For example, New York City has introduced zero-emission electric trucks into the Bronx, while a Palestinian inventor in Gaza built the city’s first-ever electric car.
What creative ideas do you have to make cities more environmentally friendly?
