About The PI's Solutions Engine
We already have many of the solutions to climate change. We just have trouble figuring out which combination goes where. The PI will recommend the right suite of solutions for Your Area of the planet, guide the deployment and measure impact. This will teach us what works where. AI will help us scale climate solutions by telling us "where else" that suite of solutions should be deployed. That's how we Map the Path to Sustainability.
Our recommendations are primarily based on Project Drawdown's research of the Top Solutions to reduce global warming (www.Drawdown.org). However, the providers of those solutions are hard to find. We aim to bring them together on a single, open platform and help deploy and measure impact your area.
For Countries
There are 52 Micro Climates on earth, and several may well exist in your country. There is no one solution to Climate Change - there is a mosaic of solutions that all interact with each other in mysterious ways. The trick is to test many solutions, measure their impact, and drive progress based on what works. There is a suite of technology, nature and social solutions that is right for your people and country. Give us a chance to help you find it.
Towns & Villages
Towns are smaller cities - 50,000 inhabitants and below. With smaller populations we can do many things as a community to reduce emissions, improve quality of life and human wellness. Work with us to find out which solutions are right for your town - and we'll help you on the path to implementation.
Rivers & Lakes
Sadly, all of the great rivers of the world are now polluted. This means our bodies are also polluted as a result. And the marine life that lives in those rivers are changing and dying. There are many, many options to change that course. Let us help you find the right solutions for your rivers.
For Cities
No two cities are alike. The bad news is 80% of all emissions come from cities. The good news is, we can have greater impact if we start to deploy solutions. Cities are categorised by country, climate, population size, topography, access to natural resources, air quality and other characteristics that helps The PI's AI driven recommendation engine provide the best-fit climate and sustainability solutions. Find out which solutions are right for your city.
Forests & Agriculture
Changing Agricultural practices is the single most important thing we can do to impact climate change. Our soils are dying, our crops are decreasing in quality and yield. This will only get worse. We can recommend simple but high-impact changes you can make to reverse that trend.
Air Quality
This is where technology plays a major role. It's also where systems need changing. Not all the solutions to air quality mean complete infrastructural overall. A mix of solutions will make a big difference. Try some of these now.
The PI Hosts 100s of Solutions to Help Us Reach Sustainability
Direct Air Capture (DAC) is a carbon capture technology that uses giant fans to suck air and separate out the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide can then be used for commercial purposes or it can be permanently stored in rocks or deep beneath the surface.
Public Water Systems provide water for human consumption through pipes to multiple buildings and households. Using leak detection, low flow fixtures and a host of other solutions, the water usage can be significantly optimised to reduce water footprint.
Bioplastics are plastic materials made from plants and biomass. It is an alternative to the more common ‘petro-plastics’, plastic materials made from fossil fuels. Bioplastics often have lower emissions and they can sometimes biodegrade.
Indigenous peoples’ ownership of their inhabited land protects their traditions and sovereignty rights whilst preventing deforestation. Their way of life also helps protect ecosystems, reinforces biodiversity and the carbon sequestration capacities of forests.
“Along the fringes of coasts, where land and ocean meet, lie the world’s salt marshes, mangroves, and sea grasses. They provide nurseries for fish, feeding grounds for migratory birds, a first line of defense against storm surges and floodwaters, and natural filtration systems that boost water quality and recharge aquifers. Relative to their land area, they also sequester huge amounts of carbon in plants aboveground and in roots and soils below.”
“Multistrata agroforestry can achieve rates of carbon sequestration comparable to those of afforestation and forest restoration, with the added benefit of producing food. [...] By mimicking forests, multistrata systems can prevent erosion and flooding, recharge groundwater, restore degraded land and soils, support biodiversity [...] and absorb and store carbon.”
Large-scale seaweed cultivation has many desirable environmental impacts, making it one of the most sustainable forms of farming. Seaweed uptakes carbon helping to reverse climate change and regulate ocean acidification, it also releases oxygen which can help restore marine ecosystems. Non-native seaweed can become invasive in a new habitat if it is not properly managed.
Feeding bovine seaweed affects their digestion and research has shown that it can remove more than 80% of the methane emissions created by the animal dung, farts and burps.
Green roofs reflect and reuse the incoming solar energy to produce mini ecosystems on the roofs of buildings. Green roofs reduce buildings’ energy use for heating and cooling and the ecosystem created can contribute significant wealth itself.
⅓ of all food produced goes to waste. Reducing food waste is crucial to tackle global inequalities but also to decrease the multi-faceted impacts that the food system has on land-use, emissions, water quality and nutrient cycles.
Methane is a greenhouse gas, it is 25 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. “Landfills generate methane as organic waste decomposes. Rather than getting released as emissions, that methane can be captured and used to produce electricity.”
A BAS is a building’s brain, it constantly scans a collection of sensors, thermostats, appliances, wiring, communication systems and networks to optimize the energy use. “Adopting automated rather than manual building management systems can reduce energy consumption by 10–20 percent.”
Solar power is the conversion of energy incoming from sunlight into electricity, it is a clean, renewable source of energy. Solar power can be harnessed in multiple ways, most commonly using photovoltaics (PV) or concentrated solar power (CSP).
“Transportation is responsible for 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. [...] Where combustion engines remain in use, vehicles can be made far more fuel-efficient through mechanical improvements, lightweighting, better design, and more artful operation.”
Wind energy generated by rotating turbines shows increasing potential as a source of clean, renewable energy. “Today, 314,000 wind turbines supply nearly 4 percent of global electricity, and it will soon be much more. [...] Ongoing cost reduction will soon make wind energy the least expensive source of electricity, perhaps within a decade.”
More effective windows can help buildings manage heating, cooling and lighting, leading to reduced emissions.
“A heat pump has a compressor, condenser, expansion valve, and evaporator, and transfers heat from a cold space to a hot one. In winter, that means pulling heat from outside and sending it into a building. In summer, heat is pulled from inside and sent out. The source or sink of heat can be the ground, air, or water.”
Shared mobility is a hybrid between public transport and private vehicle use. By sharing a vehicle, either simultaneously as a group or individually over time, passengers can share the costs of their journeys.
“The grid is the dynamic web of electricity production, transmission, storage, and consumption that 85 percent of the world relies on. It was designed for constant, centralized power production, not for the variability of solar and wind power. For electricity supply to become predominantly or entirely renewable, the grid needs to become more flexible and adaptable than it is today.”
SMRs are small nuclear fission reactors that are smaller than typical nuclear reactors. They generally produce 300MW or less of electricity, approximately enough electricity to power a town of 100,000 people.
Biomass is animal or plant material that is harvested to create steam to generate electricity or processed into oil or gas . “Most important to bear in mind is that biomass—carefully deployed—is a means to reach a clean energy future, not the destination itself.”
Forest restoration implies restoring a forest ecosystem to a previous healthy state. This promotes biodiversity, ecosystem services and increases the carbon sequestration potential of forests.
“Cement is a vital source of strength in infrastructure, second only to water as one of the most used substances in the world. It is also a source of emissions, generating 5 to 6 percent annually. [...] To reduce emissions from the decarbonization process, the crucial strategy is to change the composition of cement.”
“Every refrigerator and air conditioner contains chemical refrigerants that absorb and release heat to enable chilling. Refrigerants, specifically CFCs and HCFCs, were once culprits in depleting the ozone layer. Thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, they have been phased out. HFCs, the primary replacement, spare the ozone layer, but have 1,000 to 9,000 times greater capacity to warm the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.”
Bamboo has more than a thousand uses and it can even be used to reverse climate change caused by the greenhouse effect. “Bamboo rapidly sequesters carbon in biomass and soil, taking it out of the air faster than almost any other plant, and can thrive on inhospitable degraded lands—the ideal place to put bamboo to work.”
Hydroelectric energy is a form of energy that harnesses the motion of water to generate electricity, it is a clean, renewable energy. Large-scale hydroelectric energy projects can influence water quality and movement, sediment patterns and fish migration.
Walkable cities prioritise pedestrian access over vehicle access, lowering the inner-city emissions and improving local air quality. They lead to happy and healthy lives for those that live in them.
"Education lays a foundation for vibrant lives for girls and women, their families, and their communities. It also is one of the most powerful levers available for avoiding emissions by slowing population growth. Women with more years of education have fewer and healthier children, and actively manage their reproductive health."
The activities of grazing animals benefit soil, improve soil carbon sequestration and water retention. “Managed grazing imitates these herbivores, addressing two key variables: how long livestock grazes a specific area and how long the land rests before animals return.”
Increased connectivity and the improvement of video-calling technology means people can interact across geographies. This has many benefits, none more significant to climate change than the impact of reducing the demand for cross-continental transportation.
Wave energy is a source of energy that harnesses the power of waves at the surface of the ocean. The energy can be used for electricity generation, but also to pump water, and in many other useful ways.
Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation technique applied to agricultural practices. It focuses on improving the health of the soil by using ecosystem processes, minimizing soil disturbance and maximizing crop biodiversity.
Growing rice has a massive carbon footprint because it is currently grown in fields flooded with water to drown competing weeds. This water stops oxygen from reaching the soil, which leads to methane being produced. New varieties of rice that can thrive in drier conditions have been developed.
Nitrogen and phosphorus are most commonly found in crop fertilizers. Although they are responsible for higher agricultural productivity, when overused they can release greenhouse gases, chemically destroy organic matter, seep into waterways, creating algal blooms, ocean dead zones and major fish deaths.
"Creating new forests where there were none before is the aim of afforestation. Degraded pasture and agricultural lands, or other lands corrupted from uses such as mining, are ripe for strategic planting of trees and perennial biomass.”
Silvopasture is a distinct form of agroforestry, it combines trees, forage and grazing animals in a mutually beneficial way. This is one of the oldest farming practices and can be found in many parts of the world.
Offer your Solution and Scale Your Climate Solution Through The PI
There are thousands of solutions to climate change and sustainability waiting to be discovered and deployed around the world. The PI aims to make all of those innovations accessible, observable and measurable at global scale.
Email us today to discuss scaling your innovations: info@ fpi.earth
