What is the future of travel? | Ivaylo Lefterov | TEDxVitosha
Summary
TLDRThe script introduces the Spark Hotel, the world's first energy-positive, carbon-neutral, and waste-free hotel, aiming to revolutionize the building and hotel industries with sustainable practices. Located in Norway, it leverages innovative technologies like digital twins and blockchain for carbon neutrality and waste management. The hotel's design is inspired by local architecture and nature, and it offers a holistic experience with wearable technology to personalize guest wellness. The goal is to redefine travel and promote eco-friendly practices for a better planet.
Takeaways
- πΏ The Spark Hotel is the world's first energy positive, carbon neutral, and waste-free hotel, aiming to redefine sustainable travel.
- ποΈ The hotel's vision is inspired by the desire to protect the Arctic Circle and create an off-grid, carbon-neutral building.
- π‘ The hotel's design and construction incorporate innovative technologies to minimize environmental impact and promote sustainability.
- π¬ A design lab and incubator are part of the hotel's concept, serving as a space for testing new technologies and innovations.
- π The hotel's location in Norway, on the second largest glacier in the country, emphasizes the importance of understanding and protecting the site's natural environment.
- π The building industry contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, and the hotel aims to challenge this norm.
- π The hotel uses a digital twin and blockchain technology to monitor and offset its carbon footprint, striving for carbon neutrality.
- β»οΈ A partnership with Nokia's net0 labs has resulted in a portable data center that captures heat from computing to recycle food waste into fertilizers.
- π The hotel is designed to be energy positive, producing more electricity than it consumes, utilizing surplus energy for various operations.
- π‘ The building's design minimizes its physical footprint, using low-carbon floating platforms to avoid impacting the seabed or land.
- π₯ SVAR Touch, a wearable technology, is used to monitor guests' physical and mental well-being to create personalized experiences and promote wellness.
Q & A
What is the primary goal of the Spark Hotel project?
-The primary goal of the Spark Hotel project is to create the first energy positive, carbon neutral, and waste-free hotel in the world, challenging the hotel and building industry to adopt sustainable practices.
How did the idea for the Spark Hotel originate?
-The idea for the Spark Hotel originated from the business partner's vision of creating a balance and saving the Arctic Circle, and his experience falling in love with the pristine nature during a personal holiday.
What was the initial plan for the land before the hotel project?
-The initial plan for the land was to develop a Disneyland adventure park, as allocated by the local municipality.
How did the land ownership transfer to the Spark Hotel project initiators?
-The land ownership transferred when the then-owner of the land contacted the initiators after they expressed interest in preventing the land from being used for the initial development plan.
What is the significance of the location of the Spark Hotel in terms of sustainability?
-The location is significant because it is situated in the second largest glacier in Norway, the lowest glacier in Europe, and the only growing one, emphasizing the importance of creating a sustainable project to protect the environment.
What is the role of the design lab or incubator in the Spark Hotel project?
-The design lab or incubator serves as a space for future technologies and companies to test innovations in building materials, construction methods, food production, wellness, and more, fostering a culture of innovation for sustainability.
How does the Spark Hotel project address the issue of food waste?
-The project addresses food waste by incorporating a portable data center technology that captures and converts the heat produced by computing to recycle food waste into byproducts used for fertilizers in green farms, creating a circular economy.
What is the concept behind the digital twin and blockchain technology used in the Spark Hotel?
-The digital twin, in conjunction with blockchain technology, allows the hotel to monitor the entire carbon footprint and waste production from sourcing materials to the operation of the hotel, enabling them to design and offset the carbon imprint and become truly carbon neutral.
How does the Spark Hotel project aim to create a guilt-free travel experience for guests?
-The project aims to create a guilt-free travel experience by calculating and monitoring the carbon footprint of guests from their reservation to their departure, and recycling the entire carbon footprint locally within the hotel, achieving a net-zero impact.
What is the significance of the building's design in terms of its environmental impact?
-The building's design is significant as it floats above the land and water, minimizing the footprint on the seabed and land, and using local, low-carbon platforms as a foundation, ensuring zero impact on the environment.
How does the Spark Hotel project plan to utilize surplus energy?
-The surplus energy captured from sunlight will be used for the operation of the hotel, charging electric boards for guest transport, and powering the green farm and other activities, ensuring no energy waste.
What is the purpose of the wearable technology 'Svar Touch' in the hotel?
-Svar Touch is a wearable technology that monitors guests' physical, mental, and social aspects to create a bespoke experience tailored to their individual needs, including personalized menus and treatments.
How does the hotel plan to educate guests on sustainability and wellness during their stay?
-The hotel plans to provide an educational process at checkout, showcasing how guests can change their lifestyle and living habits based on the data collected during their stay, offering ongoing programs, coaching, and sessions to improve their wellness and lifestyle.
Outlines
π¨ Pioneering Sustainable Hotel Design
The script introduces the Spark Hotel, the world's first energy-positive, carbon-neutral, and waste-free hotel. The hotel's design is a response to the environmental challenges, particularly the hotel and building industry's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The hotel's creation was inspired by the desire to protect the Arctic Circle and create an off-grid, carbon-neutral building. The hotel's design and construction involve innovative technologies and materials, aiming to challenge the industry norms and redefine sustainable travel. It also includes a design lab for future technologies and a holistic circular economy approach to minimize waste and maximize efficiency.
πΏ Embracing Circular Economy and Technological Innovations
This paragraph delves into the technological innovations at the heart of the Spark Hotel's operations, emphasizing a portable data center technology developed with Nokia, which captures heat from computing to recycle food waste into fertilizers. The hotel's goal is to create a 360-degree holistic circular economy, contributing to guilt-free travel for guests. It discusses the potential of carbon credits as a new form of digital currency and the hotel's design inspiration from local architecture. The building floats, minimizing environmental impact, and leverages abundant sunlight for energy production. The hotel captures and recycles various forms of waste into useful resources, aiming for a net-zero energy footprint.
π± Creating a Bespoke and Holistic Guest Experience
The final paragraph focuses on the guest experience at the Spark Hotel, highlighting the use of wearable technology to monitor and tailor individual wellness experiences. The hotel offers a personalized approach to dining, treatments, and overall well-being, ensuring guests receive bespoke services that cater to their physical and mental health. The script discusses the hotel's educational mission to empower guests with knowledge to improve their lifestyle and contribute to a better planet. The hotel's vision is to be a space for innovation, offering guests insights into sustainable living and the opportunity to experience the future of travel.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Metaverse
π‘Sustainability
π‘Carbon Neutral
π‘Digital Twin
π‘Blockchain
π‘Circular Economy
π‘Net Zero
π‘Carbon Credits
π‘Floating Platforms
π‘Wearable Technology
π‘Holistic Experience
Highlights
Introduction of the world's first energy positive, carbon neutral, waste-free hotel.
Aim to challenge the hotel industry to innovate for sustainability.
Hotel's vision started with a personal story of balancing and saving the Arctic Circle.
The hotel is designed to be off-grid and carbon neutral.
Land was initially allocated for a different development but was purchased to prevent it.
Hotel serves as an incubator for future technologies and innovations.
Location in the second largest glacier in Norway, with unique environmental considerations.
Building industry contributes significantly to global green gas emissions.
Food waste is a major contributor to green gas emissions.
Innovation in technology and digital twin with blockchain for carbon neutrality monitoring.
Portable data center technology to recycle food waste into fertilizers.
Creating a 360-degree holistic circular economy for true sustainability.
Guilt-free travel concept with carbon footprint monitoring for guests.
Potential creation of carbon credits as a new form of digital currency.
Inspiration from local architecture and the concept of floating above land and water.
Use of low carbon platforms for a zero impact on the seabed and land.
First energy positive hotel producing surplus electricity for its lifespan.
Utilization of sunlight in Norway for energy capture and production.
Capture and recycling of heat and food waste into the electrical system.
Svar Touch wearable technology for monitoring and bespoke guest experiences.
Educational process at checkout to change guests' ongoing lifestyle for better wellness.
Vision for the hotel as a space for innovation and sustainability.
Transcripts
[Music]
does this look like the new james bond
movie set or is it simply another
metaverse reality i have to say sorry to
the point it's simply a spark hotel
the first energy positive carbon neutral
waste free of grit hotel in the world
we truly pushed ourselves from the very
beginning to
create a vision for the new hotel design
and the new building design in order to
tackle the issues of
sustainability in general but also all
the issues of green gas emissions but
most importantly we really wanted to
challenge the hotel industry to be
different and to be a destructor for the
building industry itself
we aim to redefine travel in a way in
which we're going to see it in the
future
it's a very personal story like with
many others the hotel started
with my business partner through his
vision of creating and balancing and
saving the arctic circle but also the
vision of how we can create a truly
off-grid
building and it's truly carbon neutral
so four years ago he went on a personal
holiday with his family and completely
fall in love with the crystal clear
waters and with the
blue deep blue
colors
of the glacier itself
well as it happens the land was already
allocated for developments by the local
municipality who wanted to create some
kind of a disneyland adventure park of
so some sort
so
he starts searching who is might be and
what we can do actually to stop that
as the universe it happens interviews
right in the right moment and four
months later the owner of the land back
then
has contacted him and say well would you
like to buy that because i have no idea
what to do with it
and so it happens we then come together
and start tackling the issues of what we
can create there to both satisfy the
local community the people as well as
everyone else who is involved in this
project but most importantly how can we
protect that pristine nature where it's
over there
so we start looking and combined with
many various different
companies as well and we decided we need
to design a hotel that's a given but how
we can make it more interesting how we
can put it first so we decided to do a
design lab an incubator if you like for
future technologies and companies to
come and produce all of their new
innovations that they want to do a place
to test various different things from
building materials to construction
methods to
food production wellness spa whichever
you want to do with it so it really
becomes a true incubator space for
innovation
and that obviously put us in quite a lot
of challenge for how we do this and how
do we approach the people that we need
to work with
but
the most important thing is to
understand the sites where it is it is
located in the second largest glacier in
norway
and it's the lowest glacier in europe
climbing veteran europe and the only
growing one as a fun fact
uh the location itself is very important
as i mentioned we needed to really be
able to understand how we can create a
true sustainable project there in order
to protect that location
and from my personal mind but also for
the purpose of the project we start
looking as to what sustainability really
means it's not just water conservation
or
simply
alternative energy sources it's much
more than that so i want to give you
some very basic facts which are
quite scary in fact over 40
of the global green gas emissions is
actually
committed and produced by the building
industry itself the hotel industry alone
contributes to another one percent for
those green gas emissions
but the worst for most of all is
probably the food waste over eight
percent of all food production
is going to waste and actually eight
percent of all green gas emissions are
going to waste which is a third of the
food production sorry for that
being sustainable means more than that
so for us to actually tackle those three
main issues in particular the food waste
we wanted to design a building that is
actually can prove to the world alike
and everyone else in the industry that
we can do better we can be better and it
should be better in order to continue
enjoying these beautiful astonishing
places around the world so how do we do
that it all starts with innovation
obviously in technology the key aspects
of all of those elements and one thing
that we start looking at and creating
from the very beginning is a digital
twin together with a blockchain
technology and digital twin we've
decided
to be able and and able to actually
monitor the entire imprint of all carbon
neutrality and all the carbon aspects
and waste produced from the very
beginning from those how we source the
materials where we buy it from how it
travels to us how it's being built how
it's been produced in order then through
the operation of the hotel to actually
design and be able to offset that entire
carbon imprint and become truly carbon
neutral
which brings me to the second innovation
that we owe technology i should say that
we produced
uh together with our sister company and
nokia which is net0 labs it's a
basically a portable data center
technology that allows us to convert and
capture the heat produced by the
computing in order to fully recycle all
the food waste to then create a
byproduct that is essentially used
for the production of fertilizers for
our green farm food for our animal farms
and fish farms etc all that creates a
true 360 degree holistic circular
economy which is what true
sustainability should be
in that effect that allows us to also to
look into this aspect even further
create a true guilt-free travel as they
call it for all of our guests to come we
will be able to calculate and monitor
the entire journey from the moment they
send us an email for reservation
calculate the footprint on their flight
their entire stay with us and then going
home and looking at these wonderful
pictures combining all that footprint of
carbon we then take it and recycle it
entirely locally into the hotel itself
which creates them to be fully net zero
by doing that it really helps us to look
at in in carbon neutrality in a very
different aspect and also that
technology allows us to potentially
create carbon credits which in a couple
of years time will be the new nft so
potentially the new digital technology
of digital currencies that people will
start trading very quickly
as governments globally now are looking
into how that can become a reality
and of course
all that has to be inspired by something
and part of our inspiration has been the
very local architecture of the
traditional fishermen drying hats for
fish and also the traditional cabins in
the nordics themselves
the building is
neither land-based or water-based it's
simply floating above emerges between
the lot the water and land and it's
located we're using the symbol of crab
as one of our aspirational elements that
it's neither aquatic or or ground-based
it's simply which exists between the two
the same thing what we do with smart
itself we've decided to change some of
the conditions we first looked at how we
can minimize the actual footprint and
and
the base of the building in order to
avoid any
major impact on the seabed and the land
itself
well initially we're looking into the
more traditional aspects of things but
then we discover
a technology
of a local company that is using in some
of the floating platforms in the north
sea which is actually a low carbon
platforms that can submerge as a
foundation so the building is actually
anchored to those platform so we
actually have a zero impact on the
seabed as well as on the land and the
building is simply floating merging
between the land the line of line land
and water
fun fact the actual size of the building
the inner circle is the size of a
stadium so i don't know how many times
bigger than this is
but that was also driven by the need of
our need to create electricity as i
mentioned in the beginning this is the
first energy positive hotel that means
that we're actually going to produce
more electricity
for the entire lifespan of the building
and actually the building itself needs
to be built and operate itself
how we do that you say it's norway it's
dark people get drunk they get commit
suicide that knows what else they do
right well
one forgets that there's over seven
months of the year there's above 20
hours of sunlight in norway it has the
ability to capture so much of that
energy that's going completely to waste
and that's exactly what we're doing
we the all the surcharge or surplus of
that energy will be used for the
operation of the hotel itself but also
for the charging of our electrical
boards which we use will be used for
transport guests from the airport to the
building itself
as well as our green farm to charge our
animal farm and all the other activities
we are going to be doing in the
operation of the hotel itself there's
many other aspects that we looked into
to the building itself we capture all
the heat produced by the human being
ourselves we're being guests in the
building we capture all the food waste
created from sewage toilets the heat
produced by
kitchens and the spine converting it all
back into the into the electrical system
and the operation of the hotel itself we
truly don't want to see any single waste
of the energy that's been produced in
the building itself
which brings us directly into the more
holistic journey we want to make sure
that entire
vision if you like for uh experience has
to be transferred to the person itself
the user the people who are actually
going to utilize that building
so we've created svar touch
that's very different
concept in a way that it's a wearable
technology that allows us to monitor
every user and everybody in the building
their physical mental physical
even
if you like
social aspects in order to create a
truly bespoke experience of their
creating their
menu for the needs of their
body needs and their mental needs are
creating their particular treatment
aspects to be entirely designed for what
their actual body system requires
how many of us have actually been truly
honest to the doctors when we go there
and tell them how many drinks you had
last night and you know do you do this
and going to the spine you have slightly
uncomfortable things for me as a man
being asked because i'm pregnant or not
well none of those things are going to
be happening here what we wanted to do
is actually
create a truly holistic experience for
our guests from the moment of their
arrival they'll be met with a welcome
health concierge will take them through
the entire journey allow them to
experience and create
true value for wellness and do these
changes in their day-to-day experiences
for the hotel but more importantly what
we want to do is at the time of checkout
we want to create a bit of an
educational process we want to show them
to all of them
how we can actually change their ongoing
lifestyle how they can change their
living as a normal person outside of the
hotel itself we'll be able to showcase
them and collecting through the data
collected and through the modification
of the food menu and the treatments
they're using the adventures they're
doing the light in the bedrooms the
sound the smell that they're going to
experience
to see how actually their overall
wellness have improved by staying with
us for the period of time that they
stayed with us we'll be able to provide
them with the ongoing programs and
coaching and sessions if they choose the
like to do that for us in order to get
them to become a better in their
lifestyle and wellness which by default
will create a better planet itself
and in that sense we truly want to be
smart to be a building a space for true
innovation a lab for people to come and
truly engage with what innovation and
sustainability means for for everyone
and how we can protect the planet well
in two years from now
all of us
could experience the future of travel
thank you
[Music]
you
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