The University of Notre Dame installed three Grind2Energy systems, which aims to reduce the amount of food waste from the campus’ dining halls. The systems process the waste and send it to a local dairy farm where they break down the material to produce biogas that is used to generate electrical power for 1,000 homes each day in Plymouth, Indiana. While not everyone at the university has committed to the sustainability efforts, these systems can be scaled to be used on other college campuses.

The Brock Commons Tallwood House in Canada was the tallest building made of wood when it opened in 2017. Now, thanks to government policies, scientific research, and hundreds of examples of proof-of-concept, more developers around the world are looking to construct buildings out of timber. Using timber is cheaper than cement, concrete, and steel and can actually store carbon emissions in its supports instead of releasing the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

By planting cattails and tule reeds in a California Delta farmland, scientists hope to change the area into a marsh with peat that can store carbon dioxide. This would also support levees from failing and prevent salty ocean water from ruining crops and threatening drinking water. Managing this kind of landscape can be expensive, and farmers are not always on board with converting their land, but this pilot project has already doled out 52,000 tons of carbon credit making it the first wetland project in the United States to do so.

The Apollonia, a sail freight ship, carries a variety of cargoes on the Hudson River to waterfront markets and places where individual customers can pick up pre-ordered goods without burning fossil fuels. Much of the transportation involves transporting goods from local farms to local small businesses, all aimed at building a zero-carbon economy. The Appolonia uses fuel less than 5% of the time, consuming less than 20 gallons of fuel to move over 2619.99 ton-miles of major cargoes.