From autos to agriculture, top executives hail new ideas for sustainable tech

From autos to agriculture, top executives hail new ideas for sustainable tech

From the invention of the wheel to the advent of the steam train and development of smartphones, humans have been creating new technologies for thousands of years.Our hunger for innovation has transformed society and turbocharged economies. Now, as concerns about the environment mount, new ideas and innovations could have a big role to play when it comes to creating a more sustainable planet.     At a recent panel discussion moderated by CNBC's Steve Sedgwick, ex-Unilever CEO Paul Polman touched upon the subject, referring to the Paris Agreement on climate change in the process. "One of the reasons we're moderately optimistic that we can achieve the one and a half (degrees Celsius) … warming target and be net zero by 2050 is obviously technology," he said. "And this is where the private sector comes in."The automotive industry is one area where technology and concerns about the environment have driven change in recent years.Today, major players such as Daimler, Nissan and Volkswagen are ramping up their electric vehicle offerings in a bid to compete with Elon Musk's Tesla.At the political level, a number of governments around the world have pledged to ban the sale of new diesel and gasoline vehicles by the end