The Ability To Have Supper From A Biosphere Home Farm

Royal Philips Electronics, a global powerhouse headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has been knee-deep in electronics manufacturing since – well, since pretty much, the dawn of electronics.

Back in the un-information age before Personal Computers, Philips manufactured every CRT (Cathode Ray Tubes), in most every brand of Terminal attached to a main-frame computer system. Odds are they made the CRT’s in every big bulky PC monitor you ever owned – no matter the brand name on the outside encasement. If you have graduated to a flat screen monitor, they probably made that one too.

Chances are there is more than one item in your home produced by Philips. They make (just to name a few): flat screen TV’s, electric shavers, wireless music centers, baby monitors, sonic toothbrushes, and are the worlds largest manufacturer of lighting. They produce all kinds of LED and now OLED lights. In April, 2009 Philips introduced LED’s that are direct replacements for incandescent and halogen lamps, saving up to 80% on electricity consumption (equivalent to $40 (€30) per year per individual lamp when used in always-on applications).

For such a giant of a company their commitment to the environment and a sustainable future is quite frankly, awe-inspiring.

They produce a bagless vacuum cleaner that uses 30% less energy without giving in on the cleaning result. At least 25% of plastics are produced from bio-based or recycled material. Bio-based means that the plastic is made out of non-edible organic materials instead of oil.

Philips offers UV light purification solutions to produce purer water, safely and economically without the addition of chemicals. Simple to install, cost-effective, environmentally friendly, these lamp systems make a safe solution for the purification of water, air, and surfaces as an alternative to chemical purification systems.

Philips Lighting India has developed the SMILE project consisting of two lighting solutions: a rechargeable, weatherproof, portable lamp for general illumination (UDAY), and a hand-held, hand-cranked LED flashlight (KIRAN) that offers 30 minutes’ light for every one minutes’ cranking. This project is designed to create new markets by meeting the needs of people at the base of the economic pyramid with technologically superior products at an affordable price.

Philips states a belief that healthcare is a fundamental right to which every human is entitled. To that end they apply their technology to improve healthcare quality and reduce cost. Partnering with the broader healthcare community, seeking to facilitate new solutions for change to drive better health outcomes.

For almost twenty years, sustainable development has been a pivotal factor in the Philips Design approach. Their design process is founded on thinking ahead: not just for tomorrow, but also for the next generation, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Philips is a charter member of the Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) initiative, which is a UN supported global public-private initiative. StEP charter members include Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, Ericsson, and Cisco Systems, along with governmental, NGO and academic institutions, as well as recycling/refurbishing companies.

Philips’ aim is to use our planet’s limited resources in a sustainable way and they fully accept their responsibility as a producer for the recycling of their products. Their products are designed to continuously realize improvements and reduce their overall life cycle environmental impact. Their cardboard packaging material for consumer products contains around 90% recycled content. For televisions, this percentage is 60%. Blister packaging (PET) contains 25% recycled material.

Their EcoVision4 environmental action program began in 2007 and will run through 2012, next to their EcoVision5 program, which they have identified three sustainability indicators, ‘care’, ‘energy efficiency’ and ‘materials’ runs from 2010 to 2015.

EcoVision4 by 2012:

Generate 30% of total revenues from Green Products
Double investment in Green Innovations to a cumulative EUR 1 billion
Improve operational energy efficiency by 25% and reduce their CO2 emissions by 25%, all compared with the base year 2007.

EcoVision5 by 2015:

Bringing care to more than 500 million people – Target: 500 million lives touched by 2015
Improving energy efficiency of Philips products – Target: 50% improvement by 2015 (for the average total product portfolio) compared to 2009
Closing the materials loop – Target: Double global collection, recycling amounts and recycled materials in products by 2015 compared to 2009.

Now add to all this an incredible Philips future concept in the here and now. From March 31 until the beginning of September 2010, the Biosphere Home Farming system will be in the Sustainable Futures exhibition at the Design Museum in London. This in home self-contained biosphere farm has been designed to occupy a minimum of floor space and instead to stack the various mini-ecosystems on top of each other. It contains fish, crustaceans, algae and edible plants, all interdependent and in balance with each other, providing fish and fresh produce 52 weeks a year. Water filtration, recycling of nutrients and optimum use of sunlight are all central to its appeal. A completely interdependent system in which processes rely on one another rather than depending on any external aid. It will also deliver fresh hydrogen, heat and gas which can be further used to nourish plants, illuminate your house or can be used to power future hydrogen cars. The system runs on food waste from the kitchen. The tank is kept clean by shrimp, which can also be eaten.

Well, I like what I’m seeing …
… as the green future unfolds.

Tags: amsterdam the netherlands, bagless vacuum cleaner, cathode ray tubes, climate, electric shavers, electricity consumption, energy, environment, flat screen tv, global powerhouse, go green, green, halogen lamps, lamp systems, lighting solutions, music centers, philips lighting, purification of water, purification solutions, recycled material, royal philips electronics, safe solution, sonic toothbrushes, water, wind, wireless music

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Going Green, Natural Living, recycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.