According to Ikea’s CEO, Anders Dalhvig, “there’s no longer any doubt about whether taking environmental and social concerns seriously is good for business.” They’ve banned plastic bags, power many of their stores with the help of renewable energy and can transport six times the inventory in one truck (saving time, money and emisssions) thanks to their flat boxes (disassembled furniture).

And now Ikea has launched a new program that offers used IKEA pieces online, with plans to extend this idea to foreign outlets. As Peter Agnefäll, CEO of IKEA Sweden, explains,

“It is about taking an environmental responsibility for how our products are used in the longer term and making it easier for our customers to do their part for their responsibility towards the environment.”

This isn’t necessarily a new concept. Apple, for example, has been selling “refurbished” products for years, but this move by Ikea could be another trend-setting moment for the innovative retail giant.

[Source: Time, via Inhabitat]

Related LLT posts:

IKEA’s Flat Boxes Actually A Good Thing?

Retailers Explore Renewable Energy

Some brands are known almost as much for the packaging as for the product itself. Think of the familiar Heinz Ketchup bottle, Tiffany’s robin’s egg blue box, the shape and feel of a Dom Pérignon glass bottle. These iconic packages reassure the consumer of quality and tradition, and changing a winning formula can be a risky proposition. Conversely, every brand feels a powerful push to update to packaging that reflects its forward progress and innovation while maximizing efficiency and minimizing the footprint.

When Tropicana debuted its “new and improved” packaging last year, for example, the apparent goal was to update the box to fit the age of iPods. There was widespread consumer confusion. The $35 million redesign was so different that customers couldn’t find Tropicana on the shelf anymore. They missed the familiar orange-with-a-straw picture. The ‘crazy genius’ of brand guru Peter Arnell, the man behind the move, now seems, well, just ‘crazy.’ One blogger called Arnell “the Bernie Madoff of brands,” while others evoked the 1985 New Coke disaster. Less than a month later, Tropicana announced it would revert to the old packaging.

But Tropicana’s packaging ‘misadventure’ had been an effort to modernize the brand’s aesthetic. What about when a brand is trying to modernize its efficiency and environmental impact? Heinz literally turned its packaging tradition upside down, changing from its iconic glass bottle after more than a hundred years. The ketchup maker’s Top-Down™ and Fridge Door Fit™ bottles have won awards for packaging innovation and rave reviews from consumers. According to Heinz, the packaging’s lighter weight “reduces the overall weight to transport them, saving fuel and improving efficiency,” reflecting the company’s concern for it’s “impact on the environment.”

We spotted this piece by Liz Alderman in yesterday’s NY Times about the Champagne industry’s “drive to cut the 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide it emits every year transporting billions of tiny bubbles around the world. Packaging accounts for nearly a third of Champagne’s carbon emissions, with the hefty bottle the biggest offender.” But the industry must balance its mandate to lower its environmental impact with its  ”the luxurious image and ritualistic traditions of Champagne.”

As Alderman explains, that luxury and tradition has “been symbolized for centuries by the bottle, ever since Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk, thickened the glass in the mid-1600s to contain what was often referred to as “the devil’s wine” because its vessels exploded so often. Over time, the bottle was recalibrated until 900 grams, or about two pounds, became the standard weight in the early 1970s.”

Alderman writes,

Designing a new bottle was no small feat. The container still had to withstand Champagne’s extreme pressure. It would also need to survive the four-year obstacle course from the factory floor to the cellars to the dining table, and fit in existing machinery at all Champagne houses. And it had to be molded so that consumers would barely detect the difference in the bottle’s classic shape.

Alderman suggests progress is being made. The director of St Gobain, the factory where most Champagne bottles are made, claims “using less glass lowered the carbon emissions necessary to make each bottle by 7 percent, and allowed about 2,400 more to be placed inside delivery trucks, reducing the number of trucks on the road.”

As brands heed to the call- from within the industry and from consumers- to be “new & improved,” big questions loom large. Can a brand’s packaging evoke ‘luxury’ and ‘green?’ Can ‘tradition’ survive ‘forward-thinking?’ The ones that do it right will save money, strengthen their traditions and, if we’re lucky, help in saving the planet.

[Source: NY Times]

Related LTT post:

LTT Opinion: greening life’s little luxuries

WSJ Scrutinzes Bamboo Couture

Better living starts with “better know how.” That is, you have to know how and why to make those one degree changes. That’s why we like the EPA and Department of Transportation proposal this week to overhaul fuel economy labels to reflect how electric and alternative fuel vehicles stack up against gasoline passenger vehicles. The agencies propose grades for cars, ranging from A+ to a D. Apparently, there are no failing grades, though we suspect the Hummer might qualify if it was still in production. The grades will be based on mileage, greenhouse gas contribution and other types of polluting emissions. Consumers will be able to compare cars against all other vehicles, not just cars in the same class.

This type of grading system will, we think, have a profound effect on how cars are perceived. It’s one thing to know, on some level, that you car isn’t as fuel efficient as other cars. It’s another entirely to know you’re driving around a D+.

What grade will your car receive? Hybrids such as the Ford Fusion, Honda Civic, and Toyota Prius will get an A-minus, with a MPG rating between 40 and 58. Fuel-efficient cars such as the Nissan Altima, Toyota Corolla, and Volkswagen Golf will be given a B-plus for mileage between 30 and 30 miles per gallon. (Click PDF to see the full list of mileage and grades.)

Any Ferrari drivers out there? You’d get a D rating, where mileage is 12 miles per gallon or lower.

Officials expect to be finalized with new rating system early next year and used in 2012 model year cars. The published labels will be available for public comment for 60 days.

[Source: CNET]

Every so often, the e-media vs. paper-media debate flares up again. We’ve covered it a few times on this blog, including a One Degree TV clip of our conversation with Brad Robertson of GannettLocal. Earlier this year, in a post about the growing landscape of E-readers, we noted that it was easier to measure the considerable environmental impact of the publishing world, from deforestation, to waste water and carbon emissions. Measuring the relative impact of E-readers (from manufacturing to daily use) was, at least then, more difficult. Last week, Brian Palmer examined this question in his piece for Slate, Should You Ditch Your Books for an E-reader? As the infographic (left) suggests, the planet might prefer you to read your books electronically.

Palmer explains, ”environmental analysis can be an endless balancing of this versus that. Do you care more about conserving water or avoiding toxic chemical usage? Minimizing carbon dioxide emissions or radioactive nuclear waste?” But, in quoting Cleantech, which aggregrated a series of studies on this subject, Palmer delves into the numbers that shapes this debate.

A few excerpts from Palmer’s piece for Slate:

A single book generates about 7.5 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents—the value of all its greenhouse gas emissions expressed in terms of the impact of carbon dioxide. That includes production, transport, and either recycling or disposal. (Attention students: Your textbooks are particularly bad, releasing more than double the CO₂ equivalents of the average book.)

Apple’s iPad generates 130 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents during its lifetime, according to company estimates. Amazon has not released numbers for the Kindle, but independent analysts put it at 168 kg. Those analyses do not indicate how much additional carbon is generated per book read (as a result of the energy required to host the e-bookstore’s servers and power the screen while you read), but they do include the full cost of manufacture, which likely accounts for the lion’s share of emissions. (The iPad uses just three watts of electricity while you’re reading, far less than most light bulbs.) If we can trust those numbers, then, the iPad pays for its CO₂ emissions about one third-of the way through your 18^th book. You’d need to get halfway into your 23^rd book on Kindle to get out of the environmental red.

Water is also a major consideration. The newspaper and book publishing industries together consume 153 billion gallons of water annually, according to the nonprofit Green Press Initiative. It takes about seven gallons to produce the average printed book, while e-publishing companies can create a digital book with less than two cups of water. (E-book publishers consume water, like any other company, through the paper they use and other office activities.) Researchers estimate that 79 gallons of water are needed to make an e-reader. So you come out on top, water-wise, after reading about a dozen books.

E-readers also have books beat on toxic chemicals. The production of ink for printing releases a number of volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere, including hexane, toluene, and xylene, which contribute to smog and asthma. Some of them may also cause cancer or birth defects. Computer production is not free of hard-to-pronounce chemicals, to be sure, but both the iPad and the Kindle comply with Europe’s RoHS standards, which ban some of the scarier chemicals that have been involved in electronics production. E-readers do, however, require the mining of nonrenewable minerals, like columbite-tantalite, which sometimes come from politically unstable regions.

[Source: Slate]

We spotted this post from PopSci:

You may not have heard about it during your local traffic report this weekend, but anyone negotiating the Beijing-Tibet expressway in recent days is painfully aware of the problem: a 62-mile jam that slowed traffic to a crawl between the Chinese capital and Jining city. But while such huge traffic jams aren’t unheard of, China’s traffic woes are unique in their duration – the current traffic snarl (it’s still ongoing) has been unfolding since August 14, making for nine days of gridlock.

This story provided welcome perspective this morning, after my 8 minute commute was stretched into a “maddening” 15 minutes (!!!), on account of the annual late-August arrival of anxious parents and excited college freshmen. I’m not gloating. The thought of a nine day traffic jam makes my brain hurt. But a story like that reminds us that “one degree change” is, by necessity, a relative concept. Course corrections throughout the day depend on the choices each of us face. The single greatest influence on what those choices may be is where we live. It’s easier here, perhaps, than other places to consider “pace, space, and interface,” that is, to take a moment to consider our pace of life, to connect with our surroundings and notice our interactions (with each other, with products and technology).

But we’re also lucky to travel, and we know that, while the choices that we can make everyday aren’t achievable by all, one degree change is realistic for everyone anywhere. We spend a lot of time in Asia, and we’re working to build a design community that uses LTT as a lens to develop products and practices to support the growing concerns of a new generation, living in the one of the most densely populated places on the planet.

Why “one degree change” is a relative concept, innovative solutions are often born out of the most challenging of situations. Somewhere in that 62 mile long traffic jam, there’s an innovative thinker saying, “how could we do better?”

According to PopSci, the Beijing-Tibet expressway traffic jam puts squarely into focus the global impact China’s car manufacturing boom is having. “While Detroit declines, China is quickly becoming the world’s largest auto economy. China is selling passenger cars to its own citizens at a pace that seems unfathomable during an overall global economic decline (last year China automotive market moved 13.6 million cars, compared with 10.4 million in the U.S.). China is also on the brink of becoming a major automotive exporter, meaning Chinese manufacturers and designers will soon be deciding what commuters drive in other parts of the world.”

Time to ride my bike to work!

[Source: Popsci]

In the late 1980’s, Kelly LeBrock starred in a series of Pantene print and television ads* with the slogan, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” We didn’t. And now Proctor & Gamble, which makes Pantene, could run with “Don’t hate me because I’m sustainable.” The beauty giant has announced that beginning next year, the company’s Pantene Pro-V, Cover Girl and International Max Factor product lines will feature packaging made from renewable sugarcane-based plastics. The new packaging will be made by Brazilian plastics manufacturer Braskem, consisting of sustainably grown Brazilian sugarcane. The plastic will also be 100% recyclable.

According to Gina Drosos, Group President, Global P&G Beauty, “As we talk with women around the world, they tell us that they want to make themselves more beautiful without making their environment less beautiful. With this new packaging innovation, women can have confidence that their favorite brands are helping to make a difference.”

[Source The Living Principles via PSFK]

*By the way, everything is on YouTube these days.

Related “sustainable packaging” posts from LTT:

Brands: Curtis Packaging

When a company “goes green,” does motive matter?

Brands: Frito-Lay’s Compostable Bag

Dupont’s Awards For Packaging Innovation

Pre-Consumer Sustainability?

Yesterday’s post sparked some interesting emails. The post- on Cleveland’s plan to monitor how much its residents recycle and to fine those who do not- raises the question ’should government force people to go green?’ We’ve examined this question from a few angles on this blog, but our focus has always been on individual responsibility. We seek to answer the question “what can I do, today?” We know “living better” begins with the countless little decisions we each make throughout the day. But is that enough? Should good intentions be ushered by good policy? Should individual progress be spurred on by legislation that rewards our better choices and punishes our “lesser” ones?  California legislators could be voting tomorrow on a bill that would do just that.

The proposed bill, AB 1998, would prohibit stores from providing plastic carryout bags to customers. Similar “plastic bag bans” have succeeded in places all over the world. China, of all places, banned plastic bags two years ago, a measure that has saved an estimated 100 billion plastic bags from landfill or worse.

For our California readers, here’s what the bill says:

This bill would…on and after July 1, 2011, prohibit a store, as defined, from providing a plastic carryout bag to a customer. The bill would require a store, on and after July 1, 2011, with regard to providing carryout bags to a customer at the point of sale, to either make reusable bags available for purchase by the customer or provide a paper carryout bag that is subject to the green bag fee that would be imposed by the bill. The bill would require a store to charge a green bag fee of not less than $0.25 for each paper carryout bag distributed at the point of sale. The bill would establish the Paper Bag Pollution Cleanup Fund in the State Treasury and would require a store to remit these fees, less a specified amount, to the State Board of Equalization for deposit in that fund.

Read more: http://plasticbagbanreport.com/ab1998-california-assembly-bill/#ixzz0xeX3ZpDJ

Starting next year, the city of Cleveland will introduce a $2.5 million hi-tech recycling monitoring system that has residents divided. Is it an example of forward-thinking city governance, nudging residents towards habits that serve the greater good? Or is it an invasion of privacy?

Here’s how it works, according to a recent piece in Fast Company; “chips embedded in recycling carts will keep track of how often residents take the carts to the curb for recycling. If a bin hasn’t been taken to the curb in a long time, city workers will go rummaging through the trash to find recyclables. And if workers find that over 10% of the trash is made up of recyclable materials, residents could face a $100 fine.”

According to Cleveland.com, the city has actually been testing the system since 2007. As Fast Company explains, “if the chip system works in a city as big as Cleveland, other small to medium sized cities will probably take note.”

What should a city’s role be in fostering better habits among its residents? San Francisco has made composting mandatory, for instance, and threatened to fine residents who don’t comply. What role should government play in making sure we love tomorrow today?

[Source: Fast Company]

We’ve talked a lot about ‘eating local’ foods- see our video on locavore legend Pete Johnson- but here’s a functional product designed to make it easier to ‘buy local’ foods. Betabrand’s Cornucopia Bag is another clever creation from this San Francisco-based clothing company better known for introducing the world to Cordarounds, horizontal corduroy (”the quietest cords in the world”). The Cornucopia looks and feels like the logical evolution/improvement of the shopping bag. After all, plastic bags and local farmer’s markets are now as incongruous as a smoker in an airplane lavatory- it’s possible, but I wouldn’t recommend it- and the landscape of canvas totes is crowded with few really good designs.

The Cornucopia has two modes- as a picking bag slung over your shoulder or as a backpack-and has three shelved pockets, a main compartment, a laptop sleeve and a built-in change pocket.

The $120 price tag is pretty steep, and it’s only available online, but this could seriously improve those farmer’s market outings.

[Source: Gizmodo, via PSFK]

It’s not quite how Jules Verne* imagined it, but teams from three continents have set off from Geneva in a race ‘around the world in 80 days.’ The ‘Zero Race,’ as it’s called, will see electric cars navigate the longest and greenest race of all time, traveling across more than 19,000 miles, from Geneva, through Moscow, to Shanghai, across the ocean by ship to Vancouver, down the west coast of North America to Cancun, board a ship once again to Portugal, returning across western Europe to Geneva.

As Louis Palmer, organizer of the race, explains, “We want to show that we have solutions, like electric cars and renewable energy.” Race officials say any emissions generated from the race will be offset through solar energy being fed back into the grid and other investments in renewables.

After 80 days, the cars will have passed through 16 countries, with 150 city stopovers, returning to Geneva by January, 2011.

See related LTT posts:

Solar Roadway Captures Energy, Heats Roads

Motivated By The Impossible- flying around the world on solar-power

Japanese Solar Car Wins Aussie Desert Race

*Jules Verne was quite a visionary. Known as the “father of science fiction,” he imagined scientific exploration (through space, air and water) before means of such travel had been devised. In 1865, for example, he penned ‘From The Earth To The Moon,’ a half century before the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk, and more than 100 years before Apollo 11 touched down on the moon.

Researchers at New Mexico State University are trying to figure out whether simple modifications to shopping carts could translate into profound modifications to consumers’ diets. (NMSU photo by Darren Phillips)

Could better shopping carts help us make better decisions about what we eat? Researchers at New Mexico State University are studying whether simple tweaks to shopping carts could profoundly change the way we eat. In one trial, Collin Payne, an assistant professor in marketing at NMSU’s College of Business, and his research team placed a yellow line across the width of shopping carts with a sign designating one side of the cart for fruits and vegetables and the other for everything else.

“We showed a 102 percent increase in people buying fruits and vegetables, without showing a decrease in supermarket profitability,” he said. “Allowing retailers such as supermarkets to maintain their profits is important in achieving buy-in for these kinds of tools. Whether the profits of food manufacturers are affected remains to be seen.”

“It would be a sad day if companies ever stopped making candy bars, but consumers need better tools,” Payne said. “There’s been such a dramatic decrease in the consumption of fruits and vegetables over the past few decades, which corresponds to an increase in certain cancers, diabetes and other ailments.”

If we are what we eat, we’re also what we buy. Even within one broad event- such as ’shopping for food’- there are countless small decisions. Type of food? Brand of food? Organic from New Zealand vs. non-organic from just around the corner? Payne’s research may help us to make those decisions more thoughtfully. One degree…changes everything.

[Source: NMSU via Dan's Plan]

These days, going green is fashionable. Literally. In recent years, an increasingly vocal segment of the fashion industry has been quietly experimenting with innovative design techniques with the aim of achieving ‘zero-waste design.’ The idea is to create clothing patterns that leave “not so much as a scrap of fabric on the cutting room floor.” Last week, Stephanie Rosenbloom profiled this “fashion-forward” trend for the NY Times. “This is not some wacky avant-garde exercise, Rosenbloom explains, “it’s a way to eliminate millions of tons of garbage a year. Apparel industry professionals say that about 15 to 20 percent of the fabric used to produce clothing winds up in the nation’s landfills because it’s cheaper to dump the scraps than to recycle them.”

From Fashion Tries on Zero-Waste (NY Times), on these innovative ideas that are “starting to penetrate the mainstream’:

Next month, Parsons the New School for Design — which inspired a generation of would-be designers through the television series “Project Runway” — will offer one of the world’s first fashion courses in zero waste. The book “Shaping Sustainable Fashion: Changing the Way We Make and Use Clothes,” by Alison Gwilt and Timo Rissanen, zero-waste pioneers, will be published in February by Earthscan. And an exhibition of zero-waste fashions, curated by Mr. Rissanen and another zero-waste designer, Holly McQuillan, will be held in New Zealand next spring and in New York the following fall. Also in March, an exhibition, “No Waste/Zero Waste” will open at the Averill and Bernard Leviton A + D Gallery in Chicago, part of Columbia College Chicago.

“Clearly this is an idea whose time has come,” said Sandra Ericson, founder and director of the Center for Pattern Design, which studies and educates about historical and current trends in pattern making, in St. Helena, Calif.

One way to eliminate waste is to create a garment pattern — with gussets, pockets, collars and trims — that fits together like a puzzle. Such designers favor certain cutting techniques with names like the “jigsaw cut” (from Mr. Liu) and “subtraction cutting” (from Mr. Roberts). Mr. Rissanen put his on a blog, zerofabricwastefashion.blogspot.com. Another method is to simply not cut the fabric at all, but drape it directly onto a mannequin, then tuck, layer and sew.

Click here to read more.

In our last post, we described Graham Hill’s ThinBike as one fewer excuse not to ride a bicycle. The sleek design, which allows the handlebars to twist and lock sideways and the pedals to fold down, makes the bike more manageable in tight quarters. The Copenhagen Wheel, featured in the product teaser above, offers functional innovation, with a hubcap that captures energy exerted while pedaling and braking, saving it for when you need an extra boost.

This brilliant invention from MIT’s aptly named SENSEable City Lab hooks on to any regular bicycle and transforms it into a hybrid electric. The design recently scored the top prize for U.S. entries at the 2010 James Dyson Awards. In addition to the motor, batteries and internal gear system encased in the red hubcap, the Copenhagen Wheel also includes sensors that provide data for a cycling-related mobile app. Cyclists can plan better bike routes, achieve exercise goals, connect with other cyclists, share their data across social media platforms and more.

Genius!

[Source: Guy Kawasaki]

Related Posts:

Pedal-powered Christmas Lights in Copenhagen

Copenhagen Cycle Chic

When we launched Love Tomorrow Today, the idea was to either create or find ‘things’ that would make it easier for people to live better. It’s true, life does come at you fast, and ’living well’ relies on a series of ‘good choices’ made quickly. What we eat, what we buy, how we get where we’re going…,these are decisions we make everyday, and, frankly, sometimes we choose the path of least resistance. Take, for instance, the choice to ride a bicycle. You don’t have to try hard to find a reason to drive instead of ride. Time- “I’d like to ride, but my car will get me there faster.” Weather- “it’s sunny now, but what if it rains later.” Business- “I probably should make a phone call or two.” Space- “where am I going to store the bike?” At least for that last excuse, Graham Hill has a simple solution- his flat-folding ThinBike that can fit into just about any slim space.

Let’s face it, whether you live in a studio apartment in Brooklyn or a house with a garage in suburban Vermont, finding a place to store your bike is a pain. As consumers, we tend to collect stuff, and however much space we have to fill, we do. The ThinBike was built with “the space dilemma” in mind. Working with Schindelauer, Graham- who is the founder of TreeHugger- created the custom bike that will fit into the tightest of spaces. With just a simple twist the handles lock to the side when not being used, and the bike’s pedals fold down to avoid any pant snags. In place of a greasy chain, Hill and co. went with a carbon belt drive. The ThinBike weighs 18 lbs, so “it’s just so heavy and unweildy” is no longer an excuse either.

Happy trails.

[Source: Treehugger via Inhabitat]

Patagonia basically invented the concept of “corporate social responsibility.” Founder Yvon Chouinard built a brand that blended quality lifestyle products with a commitment to improving the quality of that lifestyle, investing in ways to make things better and at a lower cost to the environment. From its Footprint Chronicles, which tracks the life-cycle impact of its products, to its partnership with Bluesign Technologies in promoting higher environmental standards for dyes and finishes in the textile industry, Patagonia leads the pack in almost every area.

We also highly recommend its blog, The Cleanest Line, where you’ll be able to find the company’s first interactive “environmental initiatives booklet,” which highlights that impressive example of “considered” business.

Patagonia’s Environmental Initiatives Booklet 2010

Not Far From The Tree - a slideshow history from Not Far From The Tree on Vimeo.

As the saying goes, nothing is certain but death and taxes. Really? What about crab apples? They have become the bane of my existence, thanks to a tree in our backyard that seems downright spiteful. Every morning, I find dozens of fallen apples littering my yard, more, somehow, than the previous day. And like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill only to watch it roll down again, I’m starting to wonder if I’m bound to repeat this throughout eternity. Do residential fruit trees provoke rage-filled skyward fist shaking and overly-dramatic comparisons to Greek tragedy? Then you might also find a glimmer of hope in hearing about ‘Not Far From The Tree,’ a Toronto “residential fruit-picking program.”

Not Far From The Tree sends out teams of volunteers to pick fruit from neighborhood trees that would otherwise go to waste. “We help fruit tree owners make use of the abundance of fruit,” the group explains on its site. “One third goes to the fruit tree owners, another third goes to the volunteers for their labour, and the final third is distributed (by bicycle or cart) to community organizations in the neighbourhood who can make good use of the fresh fruit.”

Pounds of residential fruit picked in 2010 (so far):

3344 (includes sweet cherries, sour cherries, mulberries, plums, apples, crab apples pears)

Pounds of residential fruit picked in 2009:

8135 (includes sweet cherries, sour cherries, serviceberries, mulberries, apricots, plums, crab apples, pears, sumar, elderberries, apples, black walnuts and ginkgo nuts)

One of the great moments in urban planning came in 1853 when the New York legislature designated a 700-acre area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the park. A decade earlier, Andrew Jackson Downing, the first American landscape architect, had campaigned for a public park like the Bois de Boulogne in Paris or London’s Hyde Park, and, in 1858, landscape designer and writer Frederick Law Olmsted, and English architect Calvert Vaux unveiled their winning plans for New York City’s Central Park. The park has expanded, now 843 acres, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963. It’s hard to imagine Manhattan without it, and yet it’s hard to imagine modern urban planners reserving so much land on such a small island to remain undeveloped.

Since LTT is focused on this concept of ‘place, space and interface’- how products and ideas can shape (and be shaped by) our personal ecosystem- Central Park is an interesting example of blended ideals. What could be more iconically urban than Manhattan? Central Park, with its miles of trails and Great Lawn and Reservoir…saves the city from being consumed by asphalt and high rises.

So, for our NYC friends, and anyone who happily toes that line- between urban frenzy and “tranquil restoration“- we spotlight “The Urban Picnic Boxsal,” from Three Blind Ants LLC. Three Blind Ants, a “team of designers, illustrators and creatives who care about design and the environment,” claims this picnic box “is for all of the graffiti artists, breakers, subway performers and inner city folks who…head up to the nearest roof top to pop a picnic.”

“The picnic,” they explain, “is a great form of entertainment that centers around togetherness, conversation, friends, lovers, family.” The box includes:

• 1x) BOXSAL PICNIC BOX
• 4x) COMPOSTABLE TRAYS
• 4x) COMPOSTABLE LARGE BOWLS
• 4x) COMPOSTABLE SMALL BOWLS
• 4x) COMPOSTABLE UTENSIL SETS
• 4x) COMPOSTABLE COLD CUPS
• 8x) RECYCLED NAPKINS
• 1x) COMPOSTABLE TRASH BAG

Colorado-based Green Garage specializes in “green-tuning” cars, finding ways to make cars run cleaner, cheaper and greener. Technicians at the full-service garage, nicknamed ‘carhuggers,’ offer a 53-Point Systems inspection that identifies ways to maximize engine efficiency, they use auto parts that help customers save money by improving MPG and recommend more than 60 sustainable car-related products, “chosen for their superior performance at solid waste reduction, CO2 emission, toxicity, water conservation, use of natural resources and social impact.”

Since converting your car to run on bio-diesel or turning it into a completely electric car (see our post on a 14 year old who turned his grandfather’s 1972 VW Beetle into an all-electric car) might be a few degrees of change more than you can afford right now, “green-tuning” might be your best option. In fact, experts tend to agree that anything you can do to make your used car more efficient is actually greener than throwing down for that new Prius. You’d need to drive that Prius more than 100,000 miles before the environmental impact of manufacturing a new (albeit greener) car is offset.

Green Garage, and places like it, are helping customers make those critical one degree changes. And, as they suggest, that should help increase your smiles per gallon.

Website: www.greengarage.com

With everything from mandatory recycling and composting to hybrid ferries to Alcatraz, few cities in America are so aggressively chasing innovation in sustainability as San Francisco. Now the city is testing a parking system that adjusts the meter price based on demand at that moment. Electronic sensors measure the number of available spaces in real time. If there are a lot of empty spaces, the meter could be as low as 25 cents an hour. Park during a busy time, the meter might ask for as much as $6 an hour.

It’s another innovative concept, and it’s another one that might encourage carpooling and/or alternate means of transportation. The first phase of the project begins with 190 new meters in the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

Check out some other reasons we like the San Francisco Bay Area:

Bay Area Becomes ‘Better Place’

SF: mandatory recycling & composting

SF’s Mayor Newsom Eyes Ocean Power

Places: San Francisco’s Green Rental Car Program

Hybrid Ferry To Alcatraz

[Sources: PSFK,SF Park,CognitiveCities]

Subways are so last century! Anyone who has considered the marvel that is New York City’s maze of subway tunnels knows it’s an immense feat of engineering. But the bones of that subway system has seen minimal changes in nearly 40 years. Given how complicated they are to update and expand (just ask New Yorkers on the eastside who have waited decades for the long-planned 2nd Ave Subway line), perhaps the traditional “underground transit system” is yesterday’s solution. A company in China, for example, has revealed plans for an “overground system” it claims is more practical and innovative.

The company, Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., has developed plans for what it calls the “3D Fast Bus,” that rides aboveground, straddling the traffic. TreeHugger’s Michael Graham Richard provided an English translation of the company’s pitch:

At present, there are mainly 4 types of public transits in China: subway, light-rail train, BRT, and normal bus. They have advantages and disadvantages, for example, subway costs a lot and takes long time to build; BRT takes up road spaces and produces noises as well as pollution to the air. How to develop environmental-friendly public transportation? Straddling bus provides a solution…

The straddling bus combines the advantages of BRT, it is also a substitution for BRT and subway in the future. As you all know, the majority vehicle on the road is car, the shortest vehicle is also car. Normally our overpass is 4.5-5.5 m high. The highlight innovation of straddling bus is that it runs above car and under overpass. Its biggest strength is saving road spaces, efficient and high in capacity. It can reduce up to 25-30% traffic jams on main routes. Running at an average 40 km/h, it can take 1200 people at a time, which means 300 passengers per cart. [...]

The bus can save up to 860 ton of fuel per year, reducing 2,640 ton of carbon emission. Presently we have passed the first stage demonstration and will get through all of the technical invalidation by the end of August. Beijing’s Mentougou District is carrying out a eco-community project, it has already planned out 186 km for our straddling bus. Construction will begin at year end.

While we can’t imagine a New York without its subway, could an “overground system” help update the aging MTA? New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has done a lot to make his city run more efficiently- his “Smart” ideas include introducing a fleet of hybrid taxis, wind turbines on skyscrapers and bridges, a greener Broadway, making crosstown buses free and more. So, who knows. Who could have imagined Broadway would become the safest place to be in the city AND a pedestrian park?

[Sources; TreeHugger & China Hush]

We don’t often repost entire articles, but after we read Nature’s series ‘Can Science Feed The World,’ we’re doing just that. As the science mag explains, “more than one billion people go hungry today, and the vast majority of them are in low-income countries. Increasing yield sustainably — using less water, fertilizers and pesticides — is going to be a crucial part of the solution.” In the series- highly recommended reading- Nature asks what role science has to play in securing food for the future.

Thanks to Dan’s Plan for bringing this series of articles to our attention. And here’s an article entitled ‘Food: The Growing Problem.’

more…

Intel, Khol’s and Whole Foods retained their top spots as the “biggest buyers of renewable energy in the U.S.,” as more companies and governments continue to partner with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increase their green energy purchases. The top 10 renewable energy purchasers according the EPA are: Intel, Kohl’s, Whole Foods, the city of Houston, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Cisco, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvannia, the U.S. Air Force and the city of Dallas.

As GreenBiz points out, “One notable absence from the top 10 is Pepsi, which used to hold the #3 spot but has since shifted its focus from buying renewable energy to funding on-site renewable energy projects.” On-site renewable energy projects seem to us to reveal a deeper commitment to integrating sustainability into the fabric of the business operations. But the EPA has minimum percentages of over-all energy needs, to prevent large companies from making token purchases.

The EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with some 1,200 companies, cities, states, college and universities to help them purchase solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas and low-impact hydropower energy. Since a large purchase by one company might only account for a small amount of its energy while a smaller purchase provides more than enough energy for a different company, the EPA maintains a list of partners that purchase 100 percent or more of the energy they need. The list now has more than 550 entries.

Read more at GreenBiz.

The Chinese household appliance giant Haier has unveiled a new system at SinoCES that harnesses waste heat from shower water and transfers energy to the hot water tank. The PowerPad, as it’s called, captures 15% of the energy from the tap, which, according to the company, will be improved to up to 30% when it goes on sale 6 weeks from now.

Details of how exactly it works haven’t been provided, but observers say the 30% efficiency rating, though difficult to achieve, doesn’t seem to break any laws of thermodynamics.

Here at LTT, we love examples of harnessing wasted energy (see our posts on the dance that floor that captures the kinetic energy of dancers, the supermarket that captures the energy of cars entering and exiting its parking lot, and more). Solar, wind, geothermal, tidal…and now shower power.

The PowerPad is expected to hit the Chinese market soon at a price of about $600.

[Source: EcoFriend]

In the video above, Sheena Iyengar discusses her groundbreaking research on ideas of choice- how we make choices and how we feel about the choices we make. In this TED presentation, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, as well as cultural influences that affect how we view those choices.

In this country, for example, individual choice is celebrated as the principle expression of freedom- think of Burger King’s slogan “Have it your way!” or of Starbuck’s “happiness in your choices.” But those assumptions, she argues, don’t always hold us in my countries and many cultures. In many Asian cultures, for example, being true to one’s self may rely as much on satisfying key figures (or a collective) as it does about addressing one’s own preferences. “It’s a mistake to assume,” she cautions, “that everyone thrives on the pressure of choosing alone.”

At Love Tomorrow Today, we’re thinking a lot about choice, and about this balance between the individual (as in, ‘individual choices,’ ‘individual responsibility,’ etc…) and the collective (as in, ‘community initiatives,’ being a part of a ‘movement,’ etc…). And because we also spend a lot of time in our home away from home (Taiwan), we think a lot about cultural influences. In an ever-increasingly “flat world,” part of the challenge in finding “better products” that help us “live better” is in navigating cultural assumptions that are sometimes at odds. But, in our experience, simple ideas and one degree changes make sense in any language.

[Source: TED]

Iyengar just published her first book, The Art of Choosing, which shares her research in an accessible and charming story that draws examples from her own life.

When it’s time to buy an appliance, you can check its Energy Star rating to know just how ‘eco’ that ‘eco-fridge’ is. Soon, you’ll be able to do the same with your favorite apparel brands. Approximately 100 apparel brands and retailers are teaming up to create an “eco-index system” to help measure the environmental impact of their manufacturing and distribution processes. Consumers will be able to choose between competing brands based on index ratings. As the WSJ explains,

“Apparel brands hope that they can proudly display their eco-badge coupled with their price tag. When products do receive a low efficiency score, manufacturers are likely to revise the manufacturing and design process to help improve the score before it sells. For example, Brooks redesigned its shoe boxes and plan to implement a recycling booth for shoe boxes after earning a disappointing rating.

Similar to how the Energy Star rating for home appliances and LEED certification for architecture are being utilized to determine the green reputation in other fields, apparel brands hope this new system can follow suit. In it’s initial phase of implementation, consumers wont have access to the ratings until the companies democratically standardize the formula for rating. Some companies, like outdoor apparel Timberland Co., are getting impatient with the slow pace of implementation and have gone ahead to make their own.

Some of the larger brands participating in this effort include the likes of Nike, Adidas, and Levi Strauss & Co..”

Like Timberland, we’re wondering what took so long, but just as Energy Star and LEED became more than just buzz words- they’ve become essential for forward-thinking brands- we think this could be a big game-changer.

[Source: The Wall Street Journal, via PSFK]