Humanity faces environmental problems that will become critical in the coming decades. Among other things, the rising temperatures lead to high air conditioning costs that consume energy and make outdoor living difficult. Extreme weather events also bring floods and heatwaves, resulting in reduced agricultural productivity and a concern over a global food crisis. "In recent years, there is hardly a patent or product that does not emphasize the ecological aspect. However, especially prominent are start-ups that present innovative solutions to acute environmental problems," say Dr. Dalia Rivenzon-Segal, partner in the Life Sciences Department, and Dima Litvak, partner and head of the Technology Department at the long-established Reinhold Cohen Group, Israel’s intellectual property group.
For example, Dr. Rivenzon-Segal points to the development of PhenOlives, which uses olive byproducts after olive oil production and transforms them into gluten-free, fiber-rich olive flour. "This is a groundbreaking solution because, in the olive oil extraction process, only 15% of the olive is utilized, while the remaining 85% becomes problematic byproducts due to rapid oxidation and large volume. The PhenOlives system stops the oxidation process and treats the olive byproducts, drying and grinding them into flour with high nutritional values." Another intriguing solution comes from the Israeli company BloomX, which has developed advanced robotic tools for AI-based biological imitation to artificially pollinate crops. "This development allows growers to increase productivity by up to 30% without raising irrigation or fertilization levels, all through learning and mimicking the process that bees previously performed naturally," explains Litvak.
As outdoor living becomes impossible in the summer months, more outdoor spaces—restaurants, public parks, and football stadiums—are forced to equip themselves with cooling solutions. In this context, the Israeli company Green Kinoko offers a nitrogen-based air conditioning device. "The advantage of this device is twofold: It cools by about 8 degrees, from an average of 34°C to 26°C, which is very significant. But perhaps even more importantly, nitrogen absorbs moisture from the air, creating an even airier feeling, all without using electricity at all," concludes Litvak.