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A new urban green infrastructure to actively reduce air pollution in urban hotspots

Project description

Moss to fight air pollution

Almost all Europeans suffer from air pollution, which results in about 400 000 premature deaths across the continent each year. Another 6.5 million people fall sick as air pollution causes diseases such as strokes, asthma and bronchitis. The EU-funded MossTree project represents an urban green infrastructure based on a patented combination of Internet of things and biotechnology. It is building the world’s first regenerative biofilter based on moss cultures, which can attract air pollution from their surroundings and convert it into biomass without leaving any residue. Specifically, the project will install hundreds of biofilters in various traffic and pollution hotspots in Europe by 2024. Sensors will be used to monitor the air quality.

Objective

Air Pollution is the world’s worst environmental health risk. Only in the EU, more than 400,000 people die prematurely and another 6.5 million people fall sick due to air pollution every year, with associated annual costs estimated at €1,200 billion. Current strategies for improving air quality have proven to be insufficient: (1) traffic restrictions face several barriers that hinder their immediate implementation; (2) natural vegetation is unable to improve air quality and it even shows negative effects in urban canyons, and (3) other solutions such as purifying towers are very expensive to build, have high operating costs, and generate waste. Our business opportunity relies on the urgent need of providing solutions to fight air pollution in a short-term, efficient- and costly manner, and easy to uptake by city authorities. The MossTree is an urban green infrastructure based on a patented combination of IoT & biotechnology. Moss cultures are able to attract air pollution from its surroundings and convert it into biomass without leaving any residue. The sensors incorporated in our solution monitor in real-time (1) the moss status, thus supplying automatically the required nutrients and water, and (2) the air quality enabling us to quantify the impact of our solution. Thanks to our own-developed IoT, we can maximise the filtering capacity of moss and guarantee its survival in urban environment. The MossTree Phase II project consists of the installation and certification of the impact of first MossTree Network in Berlin, with several units working in group symbiosis to showcase the efficiency of our solution in improving air quality in the real environment and specifically, in highly frequented open spaces. By 2024 we expect to have 600 MossTree Networks in Europe thus increasing the quality of life and health of 2 million European citizens. That year we expect to reach revenues of up to €250 million and have offices in several EU cities as well as Hong Kong, New York and Dubai employing more than 200 people.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

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Coordinator

GREEN CITY SOLUTIONS GMBH
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 270 850,00
Address
FERNSTRASSE 27
15741 BESTENSEE
Germany

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Brandenburg Brandenburg Dahme-Spreewald
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 815 500,00
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