Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Last week, Forbes unveiled a list of the world’s “Top 10 Greenest Billionaires.” Prominently featured was Israel’s own Shari Arison, heiress to the Carnival Cruise Line’s fortune. While claiming to be “green” is quickly becoming a cynical way for companies today to make more green of the paper and cotton blend variety without truly reducing their carbon footprint, Shari Arison is a model businessperson for her sincere commitment to environmentalism.

Environmental sustainability and profits are usually seen as opposing forces, but not for Arison, whose businesses are a great success not in spite of, but because of their commitment to doing right by the planet.

“Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels,” said Arison in an interview with BusinessWeek.

One of the “levels” she’s talking about must be the bottom line. Ms. Arison’s is worth 3.4 billion dollars thanks to her successful companies like Miya, a water company based on technology that eliminates water loss in transit. With over a billion people lacking access to clean water, and most cities running inefficient systems, Miya is an important project for all of us.

To read more about Ms. Arison’s amazing work, check out BusinessWeek‘s profile of her from 2009.

To see more of Forbe’s list of the world’s greenest billionaires, click here.

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Illustration: JNF

While Israelis are gearing up for summer at the beach, they do so knowing there was hardly any winter to speak of. The absence of a serious winter is having a dire impact on Israel’s water balance. For the past six years, lack of rain and a growth in population have brought Israel to record low water levels. The good news? In response to this crisis, developments in water technology are booming.

After introducing drip irrigation and building the largest desalination plant on earth, this next project incorporates an ancient but time tested method of water conservation- rain harvesting. In the old days, when it rained, it poured- straight into water holes and cisterns, or through the ground to aquifers. But with the rise of urban life, most of the rain water goes to waste flowing through gutters out to the closest stream or sea.

The solution to this problem is the bio-filter, an ecologically-friendly rain harvesting and  water purifying system. The bio-filter works pretty much like a sink, accumulating the water collected in gutters around town. After entering the bio-filter, the water is purified by toxin devouring plants and injected into the ground where it is purified the old fashioned way- by nature.

The brains behind the project is Yaron Zinger, an Israeli researcher working in Australia. After seeing the system at work he decided that this may very well be the answer to Israel’s shortage. Together with the support of the Jewish National Fund, the first system is is currently being installed in Kfar Saba, a city on the outskirts of Tel- Aviv, with plans for installation in three other cities.

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For the past 12 years, Hiriya, a garbage dump outside Tel Aviv, has not accepted anymore refuse.  Instead the site, the largest pile of garbage in Israel, has been transformed into a model of environmental sustainability. With three recycling plants, an environmental education center, a reed bed to treat waste water, and a facility to turn methane bio gas into a source of energy for a nearby textile company, Hiriya isn’t exactly what comes to mind when one thinks about a rotting garbage dump.

But why stop there? German architect Peter Latz has an even bigger vision of what the site can become. Latz and his office won a competition to transform Hiriya, the largest open space in the overcrowded Dan region into a full-fledged park.

Latz has succeeded in turning industrial wastelands into parks before, using a unique approach.  Instead of rejecting the industrial past of a site, he tries to preserve the memory of what a place was.  He explained in an interview with the Jerusalem Post: “I leave enough elements to see what was before, but I also change it…One of my philosophies is to use all the elements, even if they’re not very gentle, because people are curious.”

For Hiriya, the recycling plants will remain and offer observation decks along a walking path; the massive hydraulic system of the park will become part of a climbing wall, and canals that help protect the site from floods will also serve as walking and biking paths.

While the site will not be completely transformed for another 25 years, one day children may be asking their parents if they can go play in the dump.

Photo courtesy of pshab on flickr, used under Creative Commons License.

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Good news for the Dead Sea. The lowest place on Earth, which in previous years has been suffering from dehydration due to lack of rains, has just gotten a little boost to its sea level–and morale.

For the past 13 years, the sea level of the Dead Sea has been rapidly decreasing. Lack of rains, population growth and industry use have led to a sheer drop in the amount of water flowing into the dead sea through the Jordan River. Add to that equation the desert sun, which, this past summer caused an evaporation of 10 inches, and you have an environmental problem on your hands.

While the first obvious impact of the water shortage means that beachfront hotel guests have to walk a little farther to bathe in the salty waters, this water shortage has drastic effects on the ecosystem. Lack of water means that the land previously imbued is now dry, causing land slides and sinkholes, which can injure people and cause substantial infrastructure damages.

But the past winter has made environmentalists a little more optimistic, with the Dead Sea gaining three inches, at 423 meters below sea level (- 1387 feet). The current sea level is 33 inches lower that that of last year and almost 30 feet lower than a decade ago.

While this is a drop in the bucket, there is still hope that the waters that have been drunk by men will be returned by men. Over the past few years, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan have embarked on a project that may serve as a life line to the salty sea.

According to the plan, a 100 mile long pipe will be laid between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, pulling water upstream as a means to maintain a consistent level of water that will revive the Dead Sea.

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1st place winner, Major Dror of the Israeli Air Force

We’ve all heard of being “carbon neutral,” and while the technology does not yet exist for vehicles, let alone an entire army to have zero impact on the environment, the Israeli Defense Forces is pushing to be the first.

A self-declared “green” army, the IDF recognizes projects that connect its soldiers with the environment. In the 7th annual competition held by the IDF and Ministry of the Environment, soldiers who worked to protect sources of water were honored last week.

“Preventing harm to natural resources is vital to the same extent as protecting the state from its enemies,” said Environmental Minister Gilan Erdan. “Air, soil and water pollution is a real threat to our existence and quality of life.”

One of such campaigns which the army has taken upon itself is biological warfare, in the form of organic pesticides. In recent years the army has created nesting boxes for Barn Owls in various bases across Israel. These hungry birds make sure that pests like mice and snakes are taken care through the food chain and not by using harmful toxins.

Barn owls in an old amunition box, First Sergeant Amir Ezer

In addition to projects ranging from preserving the marine environment to “Green IT,” they also held a related photography exhibition titled, “The IDF and the Environment Through the Eye of the Camera.” Read all about the competition and see the other winners by clicking here.

For a full presentation of the pictures (in Hebrew) Click here

Source: Ynet

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Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former American Vice President Al Gore has invested $10 million in the Israeli start-up company Green Road Technologies Ltd. The money comes from Gore’s cleantech fund, Generation Investment Management LLP.  In making this move, Gore joins other big names who have invested in the Israeli company such as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Green Ventures, Balderton Capital,  and DAG Ventures.

So what exactly is this Israeli start-up doing that is generating so much buzz?  Green Road Technologies has figured out a way to make driving both safer and greener.  The company has created the “GreenRoad 360 service” that provides drivers and their fleet managers with real-time feedback on the manner in which a person is driving.  When the driver starts the day, the device shows a green light.  If the driver displays erratic driving such as slamming on the breaks or swerving, the light becomes yellow.  If the reckless driving continues, the light turns red.  While it may sound simple, the algorithms can analyze more than 120 different driving maneuvers providing life-saving, and money-saving, feedback to the driver’s supervisor.

Green Road Technologies says their customers can experience a 50% reduction in accident related costs and a 10% reduction in fuel costs.  Billions of dollars could be saved every year by improving driving behavior, the most significant factor in determining fuel efficiency.  By improving driving behavior, this Israeli start-up is hoping to make companies more efficient, more green, and safer. According to TechCrunch, “fuel savings just from driving less aggressively can save a company some $300 per vehicle per year, and when you factor in crash savings it’s more like $1000 to $4000 in savings per vehicle per year.”

The company has its headquarters near San Francisco as well as its 90-person research and development center in Or Yehuda in Israel.  Chief of Safety Hod Fleishman, one of the company’s founders, told Globes that he believes that the company could become profitable very soon. He explained, “This may be our final financing round.”

For more information on how the technology works, see Green Road Technology’s website.

Photo courtesy of World Economic Forum on flickr used under Creative Commons License.

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Photo: Israel Nature and Parks Authority

History is full of hidden little gems. One of them is the story of the Persian Fallow Deer, a species once-extinct  in Israel that in recent years has been reintroduced into nature with help of… Iran.

In 1978, moments before the Islamic revolution, a team of  rangers from Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority left for Tehran on a secret mission to bring back a group of four Fallow Deer that would serve as a breeding group of the locally extinct animal.

Now 30 years later, more than 500 offspring from those original four Iranian deers have been released back into the hills surrounding Jerusalem and vast areas of the Galilee, most of them unaware of the diplomatic efforts that preceded their existence.

The Wall Street Journal has the full story.

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Photo: Dr. Noam Lider

For centuries in the battle between man and animals, the animals paid the price. But in the last few years, concern for nature and an increased consumption of organic food have led farmers across the world to adopt new means to keep animals at bay.

Today, ecologists in Israel are trying to implement the newest techniques available to keep both man and animal satisfied, and that is when they called Robo-Bird as back up.

Designed to look and act like a falcon, robo-bird or Falco-Robo is basically a model airplane with birdlike features that’s designed to “hunt” and chase away unwanted birds.  The “bird” takes off by biological bird concentrations and makes sure the know that they know that they aren’t wanted: ” A bird doesn’t know that it has to fear guns or poison, therefore the only way it “learns” is through a fatal experience”, says Dr. Ohad Hatzofeh, bird ecologist at Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority, “but the fear from a bird of prey has been embedded in bird’s DNA through centuries of evolution. Just seeing a passing shadow of one will make even the hungriest bird fly away”.

In the past days the Robo- Bird has been touring Israel and was presented to farmers, air traffic controllers and government officials.  The people at the Parks Authority hope that soon it’s presence in the sky will make sure that both man and bird finally come to peace.

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Chompy was found 18 months ago in the Mediterranean Sea by a group of fishermen in a state of distress tangled between fishing lines that led to an almost complete amputation of one of his fins. The fishermen who found Chompy rushed him back to shore where He was immediately taken  to the Israeli Rescue Center for Sea Turtles. After 4 hours of operations the Veterinarian Yitzhak Aizenberg  managed to reattach his fin using platinum screws and bits of his shell that may help  mend the cut.

In its 10 years of work the Israeli Rescue Center, operated by the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority, has helped save the lives of scores of endangered sea turtles.  Some of them needed medical attention, and others just a place to nest and hatch after human development took over most of their habitat.

Israel 21c has documented the center’s activity and you’re invited to watch it here.

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Photo: Israel Railways

Mass transit has always been one of the ways to save the Earth from global warming and toxic emissions, but an Israeli company is now making sure that the green footprint of railway commuters expands even farther.

In the past few weeks an Innowattech, an Israeli green energy company, has installed generators on parts of the Israeli railway tracks, that can generate energy from the trains movement. The technology used to generate this kind of energy is called Piezo Electric and it uses vibration, motion or changes in weight to generate electricity that is pumped into the general electric grid. According to the firms experiments an hour’s worth of train traffic is enough to generate 120 kWh of electricity, which can power around 150 homes.

While railways are considered green already, this may certainly provide them with  extra income, that will enable not only promote better railways, but hopeful lower transit travelers costs.

But why stop at rail? Install these generators in a road, and all of a sudden asphalt strips become power stations. While in till now only about a hundred feet of generators were installed, Expanding the project to a length of half a mile along a single lane would be capable of producing  sufficient electricity to provide for the average consumption in 200-300 households.

Now that’s traveling green

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