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]

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.

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.

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

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

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]

Pepsi is now leveraging its remarkable ‘Refresh’ Project to support communities affected by the BP oil spill. With the ‘Refresh Project,’ Pepsi has provided another powerful example of how a brand can “tap into the benefit of the greater good,’ diverting much of its advertising budget to go, instead, towards supporting community-based projects proposed and selected by consumers. So far this year, Pepsi has donated $1.3m for 32 grants each month.

Pepsi has committed $1.3 million towards ideas that benefit communities in the affected area (the five-state region of Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama). Applications were accepted between July 12 through the 16th, with online voting to begin August 2nd. Ideas/proposals with the most votes will be revealed online on September 22nd.

Last December, we suggested that if Pepsi succeeds, cause-related marketing could well be the next trend, a natural marriage of the corporate responsibility movement and the interactive power of social media. The campaign has won massive support from consumers and industry observers alike.

As Alex Hesz, client services director at ad agency Modernista, and author of Guilt Trip said:

They aren’t over-reaching or over-sentimentalising. There are no photographs of birds covered in oil or ruined beaches or stars and stripes.

We don’t mind if Pepsi enjoys a little positive consumer feeling if they do genuine, substantive good to earn it, and it feels as if this campaign is built on that principle.

It feels honest, and in CSR in general honesty is the single most important element of any branded work. Pepsi have got it right.

Pepsi Refresh Project

[Sources: PSFK, BrandRepublic]

Related LTT posts:

Pepsi Drops Super Bowl Campaign For “Cause-Related Marketing”

BP’s Re-Branding Failure

Brands: PepsiCo’s One Degree Changes

The (re) Rise of Odwalla

The story of Burt’s Bees is a remarkable one, from humble beginnings in the backwoods of Maine where apiarists Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby slept in an 8′x8′ turkey coop…to today’s success as one of the leaders in natural personal care products. The company has helped shape a movement, along with the likes of Seventh Generation, Tom’s of Maine, and Ben & Jerry’s (interestingly, all born in New England), that saw social responsibility as central to brand identity.

That brand identity was pummeled by skeptics after Burt’s Bees was purchased by Clorox in 2007 for $913 million. But just as Ben & Jerry’s has tried to stay true to its roots after being purchased by Unilever, Burt’s Bees is, by all accounts, still driven by its founding mission: “to create natural, Earth-friendly personal care products formulated to help you maximize your well-being and that of the world around you.” Only now, thanks to deep pockets and Clorox’s distribution machine, it might push the industry towards ‘all natural’ even faster.

Among its recent innovations is a line of six natural toothpastes, all formulated with real Cranberry Extract, known to block bacteria from adhering to teeth and gums, helping prevent plaque formation. The Natural Multicare Toothpaste With Fluoride contains no sodium lauryl sulfate and no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners or preservatives. Never tested on animals, the products are also free of petrochemicals and synthetic ingredients such as Phthalates. According to the company, the percentage of natural ingredients in the toothpaste is 99.2%.

The Cloroxes and Unilevers of the world, “faceless multinational, bestriding the globe, selling detergents and cleaning products” may, in fact, be using companies like Burt’s Bees and Ben & Jerry’s as “socially responsible fig leafs.” But that assessment tells only a fraction of the story. As Burt’s Bees CEO, John Replogle, told the NY Times not long after Clorox purchased them, “Don’t judge Clorox as much by where they’ve been as much as where they intend to go.” As Replogle explained then, ”Burt’s Bees’ 380 employees have an opportunity to influence the direction of Clorox, a company that generated $4.8 billion in sales last year and employs 7,800 people.”

To wit, the 2010 ImagePower Green Brands Survey named Burt’s Bees “the #1 Green Brand,” and the company’s green initiatives include an impressive list of achievements. In April, Burt’s Bees accomplished its goal of producing zero waste to landfill, years ahead of schedule. In the last year, the company reduced its energy consumption by 15.3% and saw a 5.5% decrease in non-product water use.

Mr. Replogle and co. hope to reinvent business with an idea they call “the Greater Good,” based on the premise that if companies are socially responsible, profit will follow. Employee bonuses are tied to performance metrics that include meeting sustainability goals.

See some of our other “bee-related’ posts:

German Airport To Use Bees To Monitor Air Quality

UK Supermarket to keep bees

In April, we posted a story about how a UK Supermarket was installing eight ‘bee hotels’ on land around its new eco-store location in Gloucestershire. Sainsbury’s beekeeping efforts are aimed at helping to improve crop pollination in the area, one of Britain’s main fruit and vegatable growing regions. In another example of Europeans harnessing “bee power,” the Düsseldorf International Airport and seven other airports in Germany will use bees for help in monitoring local air quality.

By regularly testing the honey of hives placed on airport premises, researchers are able to identify what toxins are in the air and being captured by the flora and fauna. The first round of this year’s honey was tested earlier this month and showed that toxins were well below official limits. The honey was bottled and given away.

Local officials haven’t thrown away more modern techniques but find the bees an accurate and useful supplementary testing tool.

Apparently, the test results from the honey provide the public a more tangible way of understanding the relative health of the local environment and ecosystem. If the bees are thriving, and the honey is good to eat, people don’t need to see complicated read-outs of computer-generated air quality reports. According to Jaymi Heimbuch, in TreeHugger, “there is nothing like seeing healthy insects and food to know that pollution is low.”

As Heimbuch suggest, “if they prove to be accurate monitors of pollution, that could be a great push for getting more rooftop hives from major cities to small towns. Tiny, energy efficient sensors placed all over urban landscapes are certainly helpful, but bees serve more than just one purpose.”

[Sources: TreeHugger, NY Times]

Odwalla is no BP. Just about everything about the two companies is different. But could the oil giant learn a thing or two from the makers of Mango Tango?

If you’re a consumer of a certain age, you may remember Odwalla’s meteoric rise in the mid-1990s. With annual sales rising 30% per year, the company had quickly established a strong brand with enormous customer loyalty. That all changed in October of 1996, when health officials in Washington state informed the company that they had discovered a link between several cases of E. coli and Odwalla fresh apple juice.

By the end of the crisis, one child had died, more than 60 people had become ill, sales plummetted by 90%, and Odwalla’s stock price fell 34%. With pending lawsuits and a tarnished brand, the company seemed doomed. But, thanks to a considered and rapid response to the crisis, the company survived.

Though it’s hard to compare a relatively isolated incident of E. coli with the devastating Deep Horizon oil spill, it’s not hard to draw a parallel between events that threatened to bring down two companies and compare the response to each. The re-emergence of Odwalla, which boasts initiatives like its current “Plant A Tree Program,” is succeeding in ways BP’s can’t possibly.

As Mallen Baker explains in his Corporate Social Responsibility case study of Odwalla’s crisis management, “Odwalla acted immediately. Although at the point where they were first notified the link was uncertain, Odwalla’s CEO Stephen Williamson ordered a complete recall of all products containing apple or carrot juice.” Williamson has said, ”We had no crisis-management procedure in place, so I followed our vision statement and our core values of honesty, integrity, and sustainability. Our number-one concern was for the safety and well-being of people who drink our juices.” Within hours of the ‘outbreak,’ the company had an explanatory web site (notably, its first) that received 20,000 hits in 48 hours. Baker writes,

The next step was to tackle the problem of contamination. The company’s entire approach had been founded on fresh unpasteurised juice because only juice which had been untampered with could have the best flavour. The company decided quickly that this had been wrong. The company moved quickly to introduce a process called “flash pasteurisation” which would guarantee that E-coli had been destroyed whilst leaving the best flavoured juice possible.

Experts described Odwalla’s response as “the most comprehensive quality control and safety system in the fresh juice industry.”

Despite having to pay the largest fine ever assessed in a food industry case by the US Food and Drug Administration ($1.5 million), Odwalla recovered quickly. The year after the crisis, Odwalla was voted “Best Brand Name in the Bay Area” by San Francisco Magazine, “the first indication amongst many,” says Baker, “that Odwalla’s reputation had survived.”

Its recent Plant a Tree program reflects the degree to which the brand’s identity- as a thoughtful brand, built on the core principles to which Williamson referred- and its corporate operations are in concert.

Visitors to Odwalla’s site are invited to select where the company will plant a tree on their behalf. 200,000 trees will be planted by the program, at Odwalla’s cost – the choice of which states/state parks will be based on vote tally, which visitors can influence by spreading the message via social media. A Facebook Microforest app helps friends join forces to plant a virtual Microforest. Posting your participation in tree-planting on Twitter encourages your followers to do the same. Odwalla’s stated goal is to allow fans and participants to “naturally protect the world from ordinary”.

[Sources: PSFK, Mallen Baker, Odwalla]

Living walls allow a rural aesthetic to emerge in an urban setting. These vertical gardens, usually growing on the side of buildings, not only bring green into an otherwise brick and mortar realm but, in some case, help to filter clean air into the building in which they are growing upon. Or, as in the case of Japan’s latest atypical design, the vending machine on which they are growing.

This prototype from Fuji Electric is giving green vending a new meaning. The moss-covered vending machine is powered by solar panels located on top. The moss provides insulation during the winter seasons to improve energy conservation.

[Sources: Fuji Electric, ecofriend]

The clothes hanger is one of those household objects that must somehow be breeding in your closet. They multiply. And when they break, how many of us think to recycle them? Old hangers do sometimes find a new life, however briefly, as a tool for opening car doors- I’ve actually done that once, a feat that ranks in my top five MacGyver moments of all-time (perhaps a subject for a future blog post). According to Petz Scholtus of TreeHugger, of the 8 billion polystyrene or polycarbonate hangers manufactured per year, only 15% are recycled. That number of tossed hangers would be enough to fill the Empire State building four times, say Scholtus. With that in mind, designer Joan Nadal set about re-thinking the clothes hanger. Nadal’s BoB Hanger is made from recycled cardboard and needs two reused bottles to function.

The plucky South Koreans were overwhelmed yesterday by Argentina, 4-1, under the incessant drone of the vuvuzelas. In South Africa, Maradona’s side is the class of world soccer. Eight thousand miles away, in Seoul, the Koreans are showing leadership in another area, urban renewal. The World Cup Park, built as the center piece of the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea, is a shining example of urban transformation. Sky Park - one of five areas that make up World Cup Park - was once a garbage dump. As Jennifer Chen writes in TodayOnline, the area is no an “enlightened hilltop oasis.”

“Looking at the vast stretch of grass that leads the eye to pale, distant buildings,” Chen writes, “you wouldn’t for one moment suspect the park’s humble history.” Chen continues,

Having been converted from a landfill into a usable public space, the park is an example of up-cyling. What’s more, the area’s energy is supplied by a sustainable source - in this case, graceful wind turbines that meld into the landscape. Classical music is played from the sound system.

There will be more of these spaces as Seoul transforms itself into a model of green living. Spearheading the developments is the city’s newly-re-elected mayor and environmentalist Oh Se-hoon. In the long term, the city plans to replace all its buses and taxis with electric or hybrid vehicles. More parks and green trails linking major landmarks will be created.

One of Seoul’s premier green attractions, however, can be enjoyed now. Like Sky Park, Cheonggyecheon Stream works its magic slowly, and so best appreciated with a cuppa and snack in hand.

Cheonggyecheon Stream is much more than its name suggests. It’s not just a body of water, it’s a lush garden-cum-creek situated below street level that stretches for 5.8km through downtown Seoul. And like Sky Park, it exhibits a breezy loveliness that belies its dirt-filled origins.

The stream used to be polluted, so was covered with concrete to make way for roads. It was cleaned up and opened in 2005 by then-mayor - and now South Korea president - Lee Myung-bak. Lee received “Hero of the Environment Award” from Time magazine for the project.

Sky Park and Cheonggyecheon are pleasant diversions. So, too, a liberating bike ride along the banks of the Hangang, which divides the city into north and south. On a typical day, the stretch fills ups with locals indulging in all manner of activity - from rollerblading to jetskiing, to children splashing in the public pools.

The river area is set to change dramatically by 2030 as part of the Hangang Renaissance. When completed, there will be three artificial islands offering gardens, cafes and cultural venues; and eight waterfront towns connected by river taxis.

This year, [Seoul] was named World Design Capital 2010, allowing it to highlight its urban projects and design plans. The centrepiece is Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park by renowned architect Zaha Hadid which will merge architecture and nature into one seamless whole.

[Sources: TodayOnline, VisitSeoul]

According to the United Nations, more than half the world’s population lives in cities, but increasingly urbanization doesn’t necessarily mean a complete break from those rural sensibilities. From rooftop and balcony gardens to urban apiaries, people are figuring out how to bring nature into the city in all sorts of ways. City dwellers are even re-learning how to eat locally- in places like Salt Lake City, Columbus, Philadelphia, and New York City, local CSAs (community supported agriculture) and farmer’s markets are more common. And in San Francisco, urban gardeners are now armed with the seedbomb to help their cause.

In a repurposed gum-ball machine out front of the Bi-Rite Market in the Mission District, you’ll find the city’s first seedbomb vending machine! Designed by L.A.’s Common Studio, the machine pops out “bombs” containing seeds and compost encased in clay. Add a little bit of water and the seedbombs will sprout. As Cameron Scott suggests in his piece for Inhabitat, “toss one into an abandoned lot or even a pothole, and voila: green space. Don’t know where to bomb? Check out this Google map, identifying sites that your brothers and sisters in ‘bombing have cased. Another map tracks bombing sites, so you can cruise by and see what’s growing. If you toss a bomb of your own, don’t forget to register it here.”

Common Studio also has eight machines up and running in Los Angeles. For more photos and info about the seedbomb, check the links below.

[Sources: Inhabitat, Common Studio, Project H Design]

As anyone who watches 30 Rock knows, there are some in England already stressed out by the prospects of having to follow the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremonies. How can London 2012 top the innovation and awe-inspiring synchronization on display at the Beijing Games? One way may be to go green. British Transport chiefs have announced the design of a new generation of double-decker buses, drawing inspiration from the iconic Routemaster buses that ferried Londoners for over 50 years but with decidedly 21st century features.

According to officials, the New Bus will launch in 2012 and “has been designed to create an icon using green technology.” The bus features:

• Extensive use of glass to highlight key features and produce a light and airy feel inside the bus
• A glass ’swoop’ at the rear and offside to pick out the two staircases
• An open platform at the rear, shared with the Routemaster of old, which can be closed off at quiet times and which allows the reinstatement of a hop-on hop-off service
• Three doors and two staircases for smoother, speedier boarding and access to the upper deck.

[Sources: PSFK, London]

If we do the right thing, does it matter why we chose to do it? Skeptics, cynics and conspiracy theorists may not like it, but when a brand does something that is, in balance, a good thing, motive shouldn’t matter. Take Wal-Mart, for instance, though any major brand with a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative is a prime candidate for this argument. Businesses are in the business of making money, and however well-intentioned it may be, if can’t push any sort of “socially responsible” agenda if it goes broke. Wal-Mart is a lightning rod for criticism, and anyone who has seen The High Cost of Low Price is familiar with the company’s litany of issues. But, as Martin LaMonica writes for CNET, the company has “pushed forward with a risky sustainability initiative at a time when its public image was suffering.” Should we still celebrate the company’s decision to invest in renewable energy at store, reduce waste in packaging, create a “sustainability index” of its suppliers and other positive and industry-changing initiatives despite its former CEO Lee Scott now claiming the company’s rationale for “going green” was purely economic? Yes.

Brands are increasingly seeing the economic benefits of “going green,” though you hardly need an MBA to recognize that “efficiency” reduces waste and increases profit. But Scott’s comments, that these decisions were pure business decisions, were suprisingly frank. “The effort has endured because the motivation was purely economic, said Scott, who was the first featured speaker at the Fortune Brainstorm Green green business conference here on Monday. If it had been done to repair its image, the company would have likely scaled back during the economic downturn last year.”

“What Wal-Mart has done is approach this from a business stand point and not from a point of altruism. If we as a company focus on waste, we can make Wal-Mart a better company and at the same time, become a better citizen,” he said.

LaMonica explains, “the first project within the sustainability push was started by an executive who figured out how to reduce packaging in a Wal-Mart-branded toy. That change eliminated the need for 215 shipping containers. From there, it spread to the point where now people who don’t have an environmentally oriented initiative in the company are “outliers,” Scott said.

These initiatives resonated with consumer expectations, “particularly the 25- and 35-year-old buyers,” Scott said.

Critics are quick to point out that Wal-Mart is the largest private consumer of electricity in the U.S., and with more than $400 billion in annual revenue, its “green” efforts pale in comparison the damaging impact of their stores on the environment. But, as LaMonica points out, “large businesses create demand for green-technology products, which helps bring down the cost of energy-related products, such as solar panels, or consumer goods, such as organic foods.” Doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing is something we should each aspire to, but waiting for global brands to make decisions that way…we’re bound to be waiting a long time.

[Source: LTT, CNET]

Last year we wrote about UK supermarket Sainsbury’s, after it’s Gloucester location became the first to install “kinetic road plates” in its parking lot. The plates capture the energy of each car that enters and exits the parking lot, harnessing about 30 kWh each hour, enough to power its checkouts. Now Sainsbury’s is set for another first, as it prepares to become the first UK supermarket to keep bees, with plans to install eight ‘bee hotels’ on land around their new eco-store in Dursley, Gloucestershire.

Sainsbury’s beekeeping efforts are aimed at helping to improve crop pollination in the area, one of Britain’s main fruit and vegatable growing regions. As Sainsbury’s Environment Manager, Jack Cunningham explains, “The rapid decline in bee population has had a severe impact upon the productivity of British crops, so we have decided to take practical steps to help.” The supermarket has no plans to collect honey from the bees, just facilitate pollination of local crops, gardens and wildflowers.

Sources: Springwise, Treehugger , Sainsbury’s]

By Earth Day 2010, PepsiCo plans to rollout a package for its Frito-Lay SunChips snacks that is 100% compostable. The packaging innovation is part of a broad campaign by PepsiCo to reduce the company’s impact on the environment through water, energy and packaging initiatives. Earlier this year, the company decided to divert its Super Bowl advertising budget to focus on the new Pepsi Refresh Project. Last year, PepsiCo opened its first overseas “green” plant in China in the western city of Chongqing, part of the beverage giant’s continuing efforts to expand its reach in emerging markets, broaden its portfolio of locally relevant products and achieve a range of ambitious sustainability goals. Big brand skeptics may continue to see these measures as smoke and mirrors- “think of the waste this company produces,” they’ll shout- but they’d be missing the larger point. Consumers will continue to be consumers, and when a brand like PepsiCo makes these sorts of plans, it moves the entire industry in a greener direction.

This week, PSFK asked “What if all bags were compostable?” As the figures below show, we’re addicted to plastic bags. Moving towards reusable/recycled bags is a trend we can all get behind, but having a major consumer brand like Frito-Lay (PepsiCo) produce and then market this innovation in packaging could have a profound effect on how other major brands respond and help shift consumer expectation towards more responsible packaging.

As detailed on www.reusablebags.com

Facts and Figures on Plastic Bags

Top Facts - Consumption

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

• According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.

It wasn’t that long ago that styrofoam came standard in packaging. A mix of consumer demand and growing awareness on the part of brands led to the eco-gregious material being largely phased out. Now, for example, Big Macs come in paper boxes. As recycling seeps into our subconscious as just part of how we expect to live, we see new examples of reusing and reducing everywhere we turn.

A restaurant owner in Taichung, Taiwan, for example, has decided to furnish his place with cardboard tables, chairs and decor. Once you’re finished dining, enjoy some cardboard replicas of  iconic attractions- a cardboard Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and more. Check out the slideshow via TrendHunter.

The World Cup kicks off in just over three months. For those of us who care- and, by the way, of the top ten most watched sporting events on the planet, the World Cup is #1 by a considerable margin, with the Super Bowl squeaking in at #10- the four year wait for South Africa 2010 is nearly up. Adding some eco-consciousness to the Cup’s drama, Nike has unveiled its 2010 World Cup uniforms which are made from discarded plastic bottles, plucked from landfills in Japan and Taiwan, melted down into yarn and then spun into fabric.

As Brit Liggett writes for Ecouterre, all of Nike’s national teams, which includes England, Brazil, Portugal, and the Netherlands, “will be wearing jerseys made from recycled polyester, which the sports-apparel giant is hailing as the most environmentally friendly and technologically advanced kits in football history.”

Each shirt is made from up to eight recycled plastic bottles. Additionally, Nike claims to have diverted nearly 13 million plastic bottles from the landfill—enough to cover more than 29 football pitches.

Liggett explains, “if the recycled bottles used to produce the jerseys were laid end to end, according to Nike, they would span more than 3,000 kilometers (roughly 1,860 miles), a distance that exceeds the entire South African coastline. How do you say “amazing” in all the players’ languages?”

[Sources: Ecouterre, + World Cup,+ Nike]

This comes via Core77, and we’ll chalk this up as another reason Nike gets it. Since 1990, Nike has been innovating new ways to recycle old sneakers, repurposing over 25 million pairs in that time. Nike Grind, the material that is derived from the recycling of the various parts of the shoes, has been used to create gym floors, running tracks, playground surfaces, courts, synthetic turf and more.

The above video shows how the city of Tempe, AZ has partnered with Nike to create new tennis courts. The city collects pallets of used shoes, sends them to Nike’s recycling facility in Oregon, and, in return, receives the materials to resurface the municipal tennis courts.

Green Mountain Coffee is one our favorite examples of a company who’s success is shaped by a commitment to responsible choices. Free trade is just the beginning, as the company works to “brew a better world,” with a range of initiatives such as its “Changing Climate Change” competition- four grants of $200K each to support work that reduces climate change- and the state’s largest solar array. The latest project is an online competition to find and help fund creative solutions for motivating local citizens to strengthen communities across New England and New York.

Green Mountain Coffee has teamed with Ashoka’s Changemakers, an organization with over three decades of finding, funding, and expanding the work of social entrepreneurs across the globe, to launch Revelation to Action. GMC explains the partnership on its site: “With its long history of supporting the work of social entrepreneurs, Ashoka is the perfect partner for Green Mountain Coffee as we explore and celebrate ways to strengthen communities across the Northeastern U.S.”

The “Revelation to Action Your Place. Your Idea. Your Change.” competition will “discover promising initiatives, explore fresh ideas, and encourage collaboration on the best ways to inspire community action. Ideas could include rallying a regional group to support a local food bank, helping a community address its carbon footprint, establishing a program to incentivize recycling, or mobilizing a neighborhood to do an annual river clean-up.”

Community members are invited to nominate individuals and organizations with community solutions, discuss and share ideas and success stories, comment on proposals, and vote for finalists. Winners will be judged on innovation, social impact, and long-term sustainability. The best innovations will be awarded prizes totaling $50,000.

more…

The medal winners in Vancouver are being presented upcycled medals. Coined by authors of Cradle To Cradle, ‘upcycling’- though it does sound a little like an Olympic sport- refers to the practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value.

Cast out of materials salvaged from old circuit boards, the medals are designed by Canadian artists Corrine Hunt and Omer Arbel. The medals have been etched with a design that evokes the undulating shape of Vancouver’s landscape.

Here in Vermont, we’re proud of our athletes at the Winter Games. So is Ben & Jerry’s, announcing yesterday that Gold Medalist (and Vermonter) Hannah Kearney will have her own flavor (following the likes of Jerry Garcia and Stephen Colbert). A spokesman for the company suggested it might be called “Kearney’s Java Jolt Bolt & Cookies.”

[This is a repost from Oct, in honor of some great gold medal performances yesterday]

American Apparel has become a leader in its industry, offering made-in-America product and an impressive array of trend-setting organic cotton clothes. But as Cara Smusiak writes for Naturally Savvy, “aside from their locally-made goods, their green side is a little lack-luster. But last month, American Apparel made an unusual move into the green space by launching American Apparel Nail Lacquer, a line of 18 high-quality nail colors that are greener than the average polish.