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This year, a whole range of companies geared up to use technology for good to develop digital solutions to some of the most pressing global issues facing our world today. In case you missed some of these, here is a roundup of all the AI-powered, tech-forward innovations we learned about this year.
1. Website Carbon Calculator
Did you know that every single time we load a web page, an average of 6 grams of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere? To try and inspire a “zero-carbon internet”, B-Corp certified WordPress agency Wholegrain Digital created the world’s first website carbon calculator so users and developers can track how energy efficient they are online.
2. TreeClicks
Founded a mere few months ago in August 2019, TreeClicks is an online browser plug-in that helps online shoppers mitigate some of the environmental footprint of their purchase by using ad revenue to plant trees. It works on over 50,000 e-commerce sites, including giants like Amazon, ASOS and Ebay.
3. Jejak Tree Management System
This artificial intelligence (AI) powered tree management system, dubbed Jejak.in, collects and analyses ecological data and carbon absorption rates that can be sent to forest managers and government regulators to help clean up one of the world’s most polluted rivers – the Citarum river in Indonesia.
4. The Vegan Filter
The Vegan Filter is a browser extension on Chrome, developed by British tech startup Xarista to help users find plant-based groceries, vegan fashion and cosmetics products faster. Running on over 20 retail sites, it automatically filters out all non-vegan products.
5. Ecosia
Ecosia is a web search engine that uses a large sum of its profits to help local partners planet trees all over the world to fight climate change. Plus, unlike Google, Ecosia does not track your personal search history data, so those concerned about privacy can rest assured. As of June 2019, they have planted over 60 million trees in 15 different countries!
6. Winnow
Food waste fighting startup Winnow has developed a Waste Monitor tool for commercial kitchens to log what type of food is being thrown away. Using AI, the Winnow Vision image recognition device enables automatic tracking and analysis to help kitchens efficiently record what foods can be reduced.
7. EcoMatcher
Hong Kong-based social enterprise EcoMatcher allows companies to plant trees around the world and offer full transparency to these projects: users can see progress virtually through their online tree tracker platform.
8. Cloverly
Cloverly is an Alabama-based startup that just recently launched their Stripe-like API. E-commerce sites, by simply putting in the few lines of their code, can now offer an option for customers at check out to pay a little extra to offset their carbon costs, such as shipping. Cloverly then uses this money to purchase wind or solar energy credits on behalf of the online shop!
Lead image courtesy of Unsplash.
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