Green Matters Presents First-Ever "Greenlight Awards" for Climate Innovation at CES 2024

Green Matters is excited to announce the first-ever winners of our Greenlight Award, presented at CES 2024.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas in January 2024, was the perfect place to debut this award, which honors climate innovations that hold the potential to make a real difference for people and the planet.

These 12 companies are making seriously impressive innovations across a wide range of product categories, from a device that creates freshwater out of thin air to an AI food scanner that helps reduce food waste.

1. How it’s made
2. Who it helps
3. How it benefits the planet
4. How original it is compared to other innovations on the market.

In no particular order, here are the 12 recipients of the Green Matters Greenlight Award, presented at CES 2024.

Utah-based fitness company LifeSpan presents the Ampera Office Bike: a stationary bike that uses kinetic energy from pedaling to power your laptop and phone.

The bike, which is made using 30 percent recycled materials and is on sale for $799, is designed to be used alongside a standing desk while you work.

"There's no cable running to the wall. All of the power comes from you!" LifeSpan CEO Jackie Wu tells Green Matters exclusively. "It gives you all the health benefits of a full day of movement while you work, without even thinking about it."

Using AI and cloud-based IoT, the WaterPlantir shrinks wastewater into small planter boxes, and uses the water to feed the plants growing out of the top.

The WaterPlantir Standard takes an entire municipal wastewater treatment plant, and shrinks it into a 2-by-3-by-4-foot box, which is 99 percent smaller than a typical septic system.

There's also the WaterPlantir Micro, a small wastewater treatment system, ideal for tiny homes and RVs. The Micro self-cleans and only needs occasional maintenance, and it uses technology to self-monitor and send the user updates.

Blink Charging is working to make driving electric vehicles more accessible and convenient with its network of more than 78,000 public charging stations.

EV drivers can download the Blink app to easily find Blink charging locations all across the U.S. — as well as find restaurants and activities near stations to help you kill time while your car charges up.

French company Le Papondu offers a collection of plant-based egg products, which can be used to replace the egg in just about any recipe, from vegan omelets to challah bread.

According to Le Papondu, the carbon footprint of its products is 64 percent lower than that of the average hen farm. The product is sold in pucks in the freezer section of stores across France, and hopefully will expand.

French brand Helio Water's spherical devices use solar distillation to reproduce the natural water cycle, and turn any water into safe drinking water.

Powered via a solar panel, water is pumped into a tray in the center of the sphere; then, heat is used to evaporate and condense the water into "micro-droplets" of pure drinking water, which then drips down the sphere's walls and can be collected at the bottom.

A Helio system can produce up to 10 liters of water using eight hours of sunlight, which is enough drinking water for five people each day.

Anu (formerly gropod) is an at-home hydroponic produce garden, which relies on AI and IoT with deep learning to keep everything running as efficiently as possible, leaving only minimal work for the owner.

Though there are a number of hydroponic plant gardens on the market, according to Anu, its technology allows for "best yield, most varieties, [and] best efficiency." Anu can also run year-round, can eventually help you save on money and trips to the grocery store, and free up land.

Bioplastic manufacturing company Green Whale Global, based in both Korea and Vietnam, makes biodegradable bioplastic pellets known as ECOIST.

Traditional plastic pellets, aka nurdles, present a host of environmental issues — and ECOIST is a plastic-free and biodegradable alternative that can be used in place of the conventional plastic pellets.

Bello is an at-home water purifier and infuser that transforms tap water into various drinks at the tap of a button, eliminating the need to buy drinks in single-use plastic bottles.

The company's carbon filtration cartridges are designed to filter out pollutants from water, such as microplastics and heavy metals. Bello also sells recyclable glass capsules filled with fruits, plants, and minerals, which can turn your tap water into beverages from peach iced tea to matcha citrus water. Bello is still in production and will retail for $299, but early birds can preorder it for $199.

Reencle is a "kitchen-to-garden" countertop composting machine. The device's technology was designed to reproduce the human digestive system, in that it uses microbes to digest food scraps, and then turns them into nutrient-rich compost.

Reencle was created for people "who wish to compost on a smaller, more convenient scale than larger outdoor composting systems," CMO David Kim told Green Matters exclusively in 2023. He added that the device can even work for people who live in apartments with no outdoor space, and that the product was "designed to be easy to use and maintain."

South Korean company Nuvilab makes the AI Food Scanner, which uses artificial intelligence to recognize and analyze food, and then provide nutrition information, suggest meals, track food waste, and more.

Nuvilab makes its scanner in a few varieties: one designed to scan food trays; one for food conveyors; and one for trash cans.

Florida-based company Genesis Systems was founded to "sustainably solve water scarcity," and it's doing that through its Watercube system, a proprietary, IoT-enabled method of producing water from thin air — literally.

The WC-100 Watercube takes water from the air to produce drinking water continuously or on-demand, at the rate of 120 gallons per day. It was designed with off-grid living, rescue operations, and many other situations in mind. The Watercube is available for preorder and will retail for $19,995.

French company Withings produces a number of health-focused consumer electronic devices, including the BeamO, which Withings describes as a "complete health checkup in just one minute."

The small device can be used on oneself at home to check body temperature, check blood oxygen levels, as a digital stethoscope, and as an ECG. The BeamO connects to the Withings app, allowing you to then send your data to your doctor.

Withings expects to get FDA clearance and CE marking for the BeamO soon, and hopes to launch the device in the summer of 2024. It will retail for $249.95.