Sustainability Insights For Fitness Club Operators

Only a few major battery innovations (Lead Acid by Plante, Nickel Cadmium by Jungner, Lithium-ion by Goodenough/Sony) have reached significant market penetration since the 1800s. As of 2018, over 90% of large‐scale battery storage power capacity in the US was provided by batteries based on Lithium‐ion (Li-ion) chemistries [1]. The demand for Li-ion batteries for consumer electronics and electric vehicles (EVs) is projected to grow about tenfold until the next decade. By 2025, the global revenue from Li-ion batteries is expected to reach $71 billion USD [2]. The volume of retired batteries follows an S-like curve, with less end-of-life Li-ion batteries today, but an estimated 315 GWh (1,619,000 tons) available for recycling by 2030 (assuming a lifetime of 10 years) [3], a volume roughly equivalent to current annual battery production [4]. 

Now that Amazon’s “Alexa” has become a daily partner in our lives, with 83 million-plus users and more than 100 million devices sold, proving we have accepted face and voice recognition, artificial and predictive intelligence, as well as following directions from the Google Maps lady, it’s about time we accept robots making our latte and autonomous vehicles delivering our food.  The world of automation and robotics has jumped off engineering drawing boards and moved into restaurant dining rooms and kitchens. Not to mention the halls of congress and the cross-hairs of legislative policy wonks. The time has come to add Food Technology to the growing list of priorities in your food company’s strategic plans.