The RELX Environmental Challenge 2024 shortlist features four innovative projects that provide sustainable access to safe water and improved sanitation. The RELX Environmental Challenge prioritises replicable, scalable, sustainable and innovative solutions. They must also have practical applicability and involve local communities and other key stakeholders.
The first prize winner will receive $50,000 with $25,000 for second place. To help them advance their work, all shortlisted candidates will receive one year’s access to RELX environmental content, including the premier sector journal, Water Research, through Science Direct, the world's leading source for scientific, technical, and medical research.
In previous years, winners have attended and exhibited at Pollutec, an RX event focused on connecting companies, industries and cities that are looking for solutions to their climate and environmental challenges with entrepreneurs, products and services that can help them and have featured in OneEarth, Cell Press’ flagship sustainability journal, highlighting research and perspectives that advance our ability to better understand and address today’s sustainability challenges.
The RELX Environmental Challenge 2024 shortlisted entries are;
LivingWaters Systems, a low cost, portable, rainwater harvesting guttering system designed to support its own weight without being physically attached to its host housing unit, therefore making it suitable for use on any home with a pitched roof, including refugee tents and less durable informal structures.
Permalution, a start up company harnessing fog and clouds with its innovative technology, consisting of three main components; Fog Atlas - a predictive model identifying optimal project locations based on fog and cloud patterns (25% of the world currently mapped); Water Radar - meteorological sensors that analyse clouds and fog to estimate water yields, assess water quality, and conduct cost-benefit analyses and Fog Collectors - passive devices with hydrophilic membranes that gather water droplets from the air, collecting between 150-400 litres per day per unit.
The Gravity Water Project, an innovative rainwater harvesting system that captures rainwater, treats it on-site, and integrates it directly into a building's water system. With a low initial cost and minimal recurring expenses, the human-centered design utilises simple, widely available sensor technology to automate rainwater collection, benefiting schools and at-risk communities along the Mekong River Delta.
A fecal waste separator, developed by sanitation enterprise, AKYAS, which comprises a universal plastic fitting called the “Effluent Diversion System” (EDU) that requires no external energy input, can be installed on any 4-inch pipe, and therefore is able to be installed in any non-sewered location with only a single drain such as a pit latrine, household, or multi-story building. Effective separation of fecal matter from the rest of household effluent wastewater creates two main streams for treatment, providing the opportunity for each stream to be treated using nature-based solutions, which have low capital and operational costs, and facilitate nutrient recovery in both streams.
Winners of this year’s Challenge will be announced before the end of the year, following the final stage of judging by an expert judging panel including Dr Mark van Loosdrecht, Editor-In-Chief of Elsevier’s journal Water Research and recipient of the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize and Dr Lewis Collins, Editor-in-Chief of One Earth, a Cell Press journal publishing research in environmental change and sustainability science and Virginia Gardiner, a sanitation expert and inventor of the Loowatt toilet system. LooWatt, the first prize winner of the 2016 RELX Environmental Challenge, is a proprietary waterless and energy-generating toilet system that is clean and odourless, creating social and environmental benefits that include water savings, carbon emissions reduction, improved human health and job creation.
Read more about the RELX Environmental Challenge and the continued success of past winners here.
Media contact:
Mirième Hill
RELX
London, UK
Mirieme.hill@relx.com
+44 20 7166 5500
