Earth Day 2025: Innovations Powering a Sustainable Future

Every year, Earth Day serves as a reminder of the urgent need to protect our planet. The climate crisis is no longer a distant threat—it’s here, shaping the way we live, build, move, and even eat. The engineers at Akkodis are proving that a greener future isn’t just an aspiration—it’s actively being built.

Revolutionizing Construction: Sustainable Carbon Capture for Greener Buildings

Take the buildings we live and work in, for example. Cement, the backbone of modern construction, is also one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters, accounting for nearly 8% of global CO₂ emissions. For decades, reducing its environmental impact seemed nearly impossible.

But now, a breakthrough carbon capture initiative, supported by the EU and led by Akkodis engineers, is turning that assumption on its head. This project is expected to capture nearly 600,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, preventing millions of tonnes from being released into the atmosphere over the next decade. If widely adopted, this technology could fundamentally change the way we build, making one of the most polluting industries significantly greener.

Beyond Transportation: How EVs Are Powering the Future Energy Grid

But innovation isn’t just reshaping the way we build—it’s also changing how we move. The rise of electric vehicles (EVs) has been a major step toward cutting emissions, yet EVs are now becoming even more than just a cleaner mode of transportation.

With the ability to act as mobile energy storage units, EVs are evolving into key players in a smarter, more flexible power grid. Experts estimate that by 2050, European EV batteries could collectively store around 3 GWh of energy, helping to balance the flow of renewable energy across the grid. To fully harness this potential, however, charging infrastructure must keep pace. Enter the DEFA Power Charger, a next-generation EV charger developed by Akkodis, designed to make charging smarter, more intuitive, and globally accessible.

Already capturing a quarter of the home charging market in the Nordics in its first year post launch, the DEFA Power Charger is now available for public use in Germany and Denmark and expanding into the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland, with plans for the U.S., U.K., and select Asian markets. With a sleek design, an integrated display, and an app that optimizes charging to save both time and money, it’s helping to make EV adoption smoother than ever before.

Green Cycling Innovation: Mechanical Power for Eco-Conscious Commuters

Yet even as technology accelerates the shift toward electric mobility, some are rethinking transportation altogether. Bicycles, one of the most sustainable ways to get around, are also undergoing a green revolution. With urban cycling on the rise and over 14.7 million bicycles produced in Europe in 2022 alone, innovators are asking: How can we make bikes even more eco-friendly?

The answer might lie in an unexpected place—a wind-up “mechanical battery.” The Green&Bike project, spearheaded by Akkodis France, has developed a new kind of tricycle that is as practical as it is sustainable. Designed for transporting passengers or goods, it offers the comfort and protection of a small vehicle while remaining far greener than a car.

But its biggest innovation is in its power source—instead of a lithium-ion battery, which has environmental drawbacks, it uses a manually wound mechanical battery. This not only reduces reliance on rare minerals but also revives a time-tested, low-impact energy solution in a modern, high-tech form.

AI-Powered Agriculture: Sustainable Food Production for a Growing World

Sustainability is also about how we produce the food that sustains us. Agriculture is facing one of the biggest challenges of our time: how to feed a growing global population while battling climate change, which is making traditional farming increasingly difficult.

Experts predict that we will need to produce more food in the next 50 years than in the last 10,000 combined, all while dealing with more extreme droughts, heatwaves, and floods.

The key to solving this challenge lies in data and technology. Akkodis engineers have been working on rovers—sophisticated machines designed to gather and analyze agricultural data in real time.

By using AI and machine learning, these rovers help farmers optimize their practices, from predicting pest infestations to determining the ideal harvest time. With more accurate and accessible data, farmers can reduce waste, increase yields, and adapt to changing climate conditions with greater precision than ever before.

Actionable Sustainability: Innovating for a Better Planet, Starting Now

These are just some examples of the many technological advancements Akkodis is developing and deploying today – not something imagined for the distant future.

As we celebrate Earth Day 2025, we’re not just looking at problems—we’re looking at solutions that are already changing the world. Engineering, innovation, and sustainability must go hand in hand, and our thinkers and makers are creating a future where technology doesn’t just support human progress but protects the planet as well.

This Earth Day, let’s commit to scaling these solutions and others like them, supporting innovation, and collaborating to build a world where sustainability isn’t an afterthought—it’s the foundation.

Because a greener future isn’t just an idea. It’s happening now.