Hot In The City? Startup Using Plants To Cool Urban Areas

An Israeli startup is countering the effects of rising urban temperatures by making cities greener, with smart infrastructure that helps create green walls, roofs and pergolas to bring down the heat.

Growing urbanization has led to phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. This is when temperatures in a city increase relative to outlying areas due the impact of urbanization – such as densely-packed buildings retaining the summer heat and a shrinking number of green spaces as the population expands. 

BioShade’s green infrastructure comes in the form of lightweight PVC pipes containing a hydroponic system that feeds the plants using a water-based nutrition solution instead of soil.

The plants sprout through holes in the pipes, which can accommodate their root systems as they grow. The pipes also contain sensors that measure parameters such as water acidity and air temperature within them, to ensure that the plants are growing under peak conditions.

The sensors are connected to the startup’s platform, which uses bespoke algorithms to detail how much carbon dioxide the plants have captured, how much they have reduced heat stress in their surroundings, and even whether the plants are sufficiently fertilized.

The BioShade platform can even send alerts when a green installation is under attack from pests such as aphids. And because its sensors continuously monitor the condition of the plants, the system itself is low-maintenance, and only requires an in-person visit every six months.

“We want to create more green spaces in places where we cannot plant trees or have different kinds of urban greenery,” BioShade CEO and co-founder Peleg Bar-On tells NoCamels. 

​​“We can lower [the temperature in a small area] by about 10°C around the system, which essentially is biomimicking – or emulating the functions of – a tree,” he says.

“By growing it in this closed-loop system, we’re able to deploy it in places that don’t contain any soil, like rooftops and walls.”

Green spaces are crucial to life in a city. They can provide a cooling effect to counter the urban heat island effect by reflecting infrared radiation. Buildings, roads, and other infrastructure conversely absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition to this, greater access to green spaces has numerous health benefits, the European Environment Agency says. People in urban areas with more green space have also been shown to have less mental distress, anxiety and depression when compared to individuals living in areas with less. 

Green spaces influence physical activities, with studies showing that people with access to them are more likely to engage in exercise, and would also do so more frequently.

The BioShade team grows the plants themselves and acclimatizes them to the hydroponic system before installing them for its clients, which range from municipalities to businesses and schools.

The Tel Aviv-based startup uses different plants for different locations. For example, the greenery used on a pergola in hilly Jerusalem will need to be resistant to colder conditions, as opposed to vegetation used in the more temperate coastal region of central Israel.

BioShade already has several custom installations throughout Israel. In Herzliya in central Israel, it is currently building a structure that will provide green shade for the roof of a new school.

And as part of a pilot project with the city’s municipality, the BioShade team has created a climatic insights dashboard for the students to analyze how its system will capture CO₂ and conserve water and energy while growing the plants.

Another one of its systems can be found in the bustling Dizengoff Center shopping mall in Tel Aviv in central Israel, where the startup even hosted a delegation from Sydney, Australia to showcase the invention.

Beyond that, BioShade has embarked on pilots with the municipalities of Tel Aviv and the southern desert city of Be’er Sheva.

From Gray To Green

Installing vegetation on walls, roofs, and other kinds of infrastructure isn’t anything new, and there are dozens of companies worldwide already doing so. 

But Bar-On says that the traditional green walls produced by these companies use plastic molds filled with soil, and that over time these plants struggle to grow because there isn’t enough space for their roots, unlike the BioShade system.

Additionally, he says that this kind of green infrastructure requires far more maintenance than BioShade’s autonomous system.

More than half of the world’s population – over 4.3 billion people, or 55 percent – now live in urban areas, especially in highly dense cities. As people continue to move to cities, green spaces and all the benefits they provide are shrinking. 

And this trend of urbanization it shows no signs of slowing, as people continue to flock to cities in search of better career opportunities and greater access to education and culture. By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world will be living in urban areas, according to Our World in Data at Oxford University.

Bar-On first had the idea for the company while learning about these challenges when studying for his Bachelor’s degree in Agroecology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“I started to get more into the challenges that we now face, like climate change, and the lack of greenery around the world,” he says.

“And I thought to myself, how can we receive the benefit of trees and other kinds of natural organisms in cities [that don’t have any room for them]?

He co-founded BioShade together with Ziv Shalev in 2021. The startup was first based in CityZone, Tel Aviv’s Open Innovation Lab where startups receive support to build technologies and products tackling urban challenges. 

It received an initial investment from the Cactus Capital venture capital fund, and has been bootstrapping since. 

Most recently, BioShade was a semi-finalist of the 2023 Asper Prize, a competition which recognizes startups using innovative technology to create a global positive impact.

Bar-On says that while trees remain the best organism for reducing heat stress, planting them is not always ideal.

“Unfortunately, they’re not the best solution for cities, which have become so dense and industrialized that trees might conflict with the interests of residents and other players in the urban environment.

“I say, if you can plant the tree, you should do it. But where it is not possible, then you should definitely consider other types of open greenery and vegetation cover technologies.”

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