In looking at sustainable design, its implications on the world beyond innovative architecture, aesthetically trendy products, and positive environmental influence carry with them the possibility to reduce and even eradicate poverty. Though poverty is present in every major city, every growing suburb, and even tiny towns, it primarily exists in some of the most remote areas of the world. In these places, systems, governments, and organizations may be unable to successfully act as a catalyst to a better life for the impoverished due to an infinite number of problems that arise when poverty is an inherent result of societal and political structures. 

Around the world, an astounding majority of the world’s poor are unable to afford homes of their own. Likewise, their access to clean sources of water and energy are virtually nonexistent - creating an endless cycle of worsening health and inability to escape from the seemingly endless bubble of poverty. Sustainable design, given its nature, holds one of many keys to solving the problems faced by today’s less-fortunate.

Systems that can create clean, reusable, and sustainable sources of water and clean energy can potentially revolutionize the world. Imagine a tiny village of shanty towns that could suddenly create their own source of water, their own source of energy, and their own way to a better future. They cannot do it alone.

Sustainable design must first emerge from its current state into a wider and more open paradigm that can be applied to all situations: architectural, design, societal, and environmental. From there, it can continue to evolve and be applied to many of the world’s problems, in effect creating a better and cleaner tomorrow.

In an effort to further its mission against plastic bags and to promote the reuse of existing bags, Whole Foods has brought back its Wooden Nickel program, which donates five cents for every bag that you reuse to a local charity of your choice. Five cents may be a small number, but in large doses it can have an effect of duality on both the surrounding community and the environment itself. By reducing the consumption of paper bags (the company banned plastic bags earlier this year), Whole Foods hopes to serve as an example for other retailers by inspiring simple, yet powerful, change.

Every store is different. Some spotlight charities that are focused on poverty; others feature environmentally conscious organizations. Some stores may not even offer the program, or at least not yet. Of course, the Wooden Nickel program isn’t entirely new. In fact, it was around at the company’s relatively newly acquired Wild Oats long before Whole Foods had become the place to go for all things green, healthy, and organic.

Whole Foods’ Wooden Nickel program is a perfect illustration of how people can be encouraged in entirely positive ways to promote entirely positive social and environmental change. By reducing the impact of the bags that we use to carry things from A to B, we prevent congestion in landfills from an endless swarm of plastic bags and help to reduce the need to utilize the effective but inefficient process of recycling paper to keep ourselves in check with the environment. Plus, reusable bags are often stronger than their paper or plastic counterparts - a definite plus for anyone with an addiction to watermelons and cartons of soy-milk. Next time you’re at the check out, no matter the store, reach for a reusable bag. The world will thank you later.

Bottled water accounts for a tremendous percentage of the plastic bottles that are currently eating up the world’s valuable landfill real-estate. Despite living in a country where tap water is about as safe as it gets, it’s a lot easier to opt for prepackaged bottled water that’s ready to go wherever you are. Back To The Tap’s strategy? Provide that same convenience and taste in a reusable bottle that filters its water on its way to your lips.

Though, in terms of style, Back To The Tap’s bottle design isn’t exactly cutting-edge, the technology behind it is green enough to make up for its less-than-stellar aesthetics. The company’s bottles come in both 16oz and 20oz varieties along with biological filter counterparts that are powerful enough to filter out anthrax (if that’s a concern for you).

Each filter is quoted to handle up to 80 gallons of water and at $10 per refill, the filters exchange an upfront investment for savings that can be quite substantial for both your wallet and the environment alike. Assuming that you spent $5 on a 24-pack of bottled water that amounted to 3 gallons in total, you’d have to spend just over $130 to get the same amount of purified water that an initial $20-25 investment can get you with Back To The Tap. Of course, you could always just buy a water filter, but a bottle that goes with you combines the convenience of bottled water with the taste of purified tap water for the best of both worlds - for you and for the environment around you.

(Via TreeHugger)

Ben & Jerry’s is, without a doubt, the most well-known ice cream shop in the country. From Cherry Garcia to Karamel Sutra, the company’s never-dull assortment of flavors has won the hearts of children and adults alike over the brand’s thirty-year rise to fame. Of course, as one of the most socially and environmentally conscious companies in the States, Ben & Jerry’s has inspired a wealth of change, evolution, and awareness for both great ice cream and contemporary social challenges alike.

(Photo Source)

If you happen to live near a Ben & Jerry’s, you’ve probably noticed the mile long line that tends to materialize out of thin-air once a year as people drive from miles around just to see what’s going on. Free Cone Day began in 1979 and, not surprisingly, has been a success ever since. After all, who doesn’t like free ice cream? The company’s goal, however, isn’t just to offload its product but rather to invite communities nationwide to accept free ice cream while helping a number of charitable organizations and campaigns that are present at nearly all of the stores throughout the States. With more than one million free cones rolling out of its stores across the country each year, the idea has continued to make people smile while simultaneously promoting positive contributions to those in need.

Even with the success of giving away its ice cream for free (who would ever imagine…), Ben & Jerry’s has taken steps to ensure that it remains socially conscious while still generating enough cash to continue cranking out new flavors like “Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream” and “Willy Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler.” In 2006, the company launched the world’s first fair-trade ice cream and, despite choosing to do so with the least exciting flavor in its line-up (Vanilla), the move was still a major step forward for the world’s favorite frozen company.

Each day brings new flavors, ideas, and movements that make Ben & Jerry’s more than an ice cream store. After all, how many other ice cream stores have a graveyard full of flavors that have gone to heaven?

Sometimes, the greatest things in the world of design are those that may not ever exist. The Solar Tree, for example, is stunning. Dubbed “Photon Synthese” (French for Photosynthesis), the concept integrates an expandable structure of plugs and miniature solar panels to construct a tree that provides enough power for virtually any consumer device that fits in your pocket.

Though not entirely practical, the concept is unquestionably intriguing. By linking smaller solar panels into a virtually unlimited configuration, a structure that’s powerful enough to drive even energy-hungry devices becomes both stylish and effective. Of course, you could probably pull in more power by simply using a single solar panel, but any number of reasons can rule out the placement of a solar panel somewhere inside of your home.

This interesting take on the world of solar is a perfect illustration of the growing symbiotic relationship between both design and the environment. Concepts like The Solar Tree are what the world needs to look at alternative energy from a new dimension and to see it as something that is, truly, new. While solar power has been around for decades, its feasibility as a power option is only just now rising to the surface of the minds of designers and consumers alike. What will you think of next?

(Via MULLER Design)

Swedish energy design company Home Energy recently announced a new prototype that could potentially change the way the world looks at wind in the years to come. Using a unique, proprietary design, the Energy Ball utilizes the Venturi Effect in combination with a design that allows air to flow inside of the device itself, as opposed to simply going through it, to improve the look, efficiency, and simplicity of a tool that will be instrumental in the world’s shift to more sustainable and renewable forms of energy.

The Energy Ball’s design integrates a power generator within the structure itself - allowing wind to generate power on both sides of the spherical object and, hopefully, improve the device’s power output.

Home Energy claims that even its smallest Energy Ball can provide enough energy to contribute 15% of the average [Swedish] household’s energy usage - making it a worthwhile addition for those in search of solutions to their energy woes. As prices rise and usage remains essentially the same, people are far more open to the idea of putting an “Energy Ball” in their front yard tomorrow than ever before.

(Via Below The Clouds)

Dublin based EcoCabs has given taxi-cabs a bit of a twist in a unique, entrepreneurial move that gives Dubliners a free ride in a zero-emissions vehicle using only ad-supported revenue to pick up the check.

Of course, beneath the cab, the company is a marketing firm at heart. By targeting service areas in relation to where the advertiser would like to generate word-of-mouth, EcoCabs has intuitively designed a fleet of moving billboards that can be released at the client’s command.

The vehicle’s utilize a combination of power from drivers (who peddle) and a tiny integrated electric motor to help reduce the strain on the driver’s legs. Of course, despite the company’s success and growing popularity, its services are only available within a 2Km radius of the city’s center. Still, a free ride in an even greener vehicle beats out the pricey and environmental impact generated by taking a traditional taxi. As its operation grows, however, EcoCabs is looking to soon expand its coverage - both in Dublin and, quite possibly, throughout the rest of the world.

(Via Triple Pundit)

The Big Apple is on its way to getting a little bit greener. Mayor Bloomberg’s new renewable energy policy has the city on track to pioneer the nation’s big-city shift towards a greener future. With a current target date of September 19th (this year) for businesses to submit proposals for more efficient and environmentally friendly buildings, the city’s well on its way to a greener future.

Despite New York’s existing green infrastructure and even greener population, Bloomberg’s focus is on updating many of the city’s dated power sources. With the rising popularity and lower costs of alternative energy solutions, his goal is far more feasible today than ever before. Powering one of the biggest cities in the world using technologies that are, at least partially, renewable and even sustainable is quickly becoming less and less of a fairy-tale.

Starting with Ground Zero, New York has already been well on its way to a greener future. An influx in green rooftops and even greener buildings popping up throughout the Big Apple has paved the way for a future that could, indeed, serve as an exemplary model for major cities nationwide and even throughout the world.

(Via EcoGeek)

I spent the night browsing through entries and winners in 2008’s IDEA competition in search of a few green ideas from some of the brightest minds of our time. Here’s a look at three ideas that could change the way we look at the three R’s that have been engrained in our brains (and yet, so rarely used) since elementary school.

The Barcode Trashcan utilizes a scanner mounted within its lid to detect items that can be recycled - separating them from average trash to allow its users to easily practice the art of recycling without the hassle of necessarily pre-sorting items beforehand. While the system doesn’t appear to sort everything that passes through its lid, it seems to restrict the items inserted to only those that match a certain set of barcodes. The idea, of course is simply to make sorting recyclables an easier task to take on but, with a little tweaking, the idea could easily evolve into a system that automatically sorts, bags, and lights up when full - automating much of the process and allowing public service officials to deliver the items to their appropriate locations.

On the home front, Woongjin Coway’s Natural Cycle (Food Waste Treatment System) puts the less-than-friendly idea of a compost heap inside a much friendlier and more attractive box that works to convert food waste into new fruits, vegetables, plants, and more. By crushing and drying its contents, Natural Cycle produces a highly potent fertilizer that can efficiently be used to grow new, healthy, and tasty foods within the confines of your very own kitchen. Even scent is taken into consideration, prompting the inclusion of an odor filter that supposedly filters out the smell of composting food and the resulting fertilizer almost entirely. One the system has enough fertilizer, it is dropped into a small container full of seeds and moved to a nearby, sunny location with new food delivered right to your fingertips in a matter of weeks.

Of course, while you can recycle things that you already have, it’s good to keep in mind the impact of bringing new things to your home to begin with. By now, I’m sure you’re well aware of the horror stories of plastic bags. In fact, many of you may even have a small army of reusable shopping bags nestled within the trunks of your cars. Still, despite the positive impact generated by reducing plastic bag consumption, these reusable cotton, plastic, and non-woven bags aren’t exactly suited for all situations and all products. Heavier and larger items usually fall just outside the realm of the relatively small reusable bags available from most retailers (unless you’re at IKEA) - often sending you back to the stoneage of the bag world in acceptance of a dreaded plastic bag. REUSE Sustainable Shopping Bags have a number of different concepts that have presented a variety of solutions to this very problem by introducing a few easily-recyclable or reusable options. The first imagines a compostable bag that can simply be returned to a central location in an effort to develop potent fertilizer (and, possibly, allowing grocers to grow certain fruits and vegetables in a fresher setting on-site). REUSE also showcased a design the integrated recycled rubber to create a bag that is durable, stylish, and reusable for extended periods of time - building on the existing prevalence of fabric bags with a material that is stronger and, ultimately, more usable. The group’s final design highlighted small portable storage containers filled with a number of nylon bags. Though less exotic than the first two, their third idea is perhaps the most feasible and most likely to see the light of day in the near future.

Keep on the look out for leaps ahead in the world of recycling and feel free to give me a shout if you find something that’s cool, stylish, or unique. Have a great Thursday!

Wine has always been a more sophisticated take on alcohol than its liquor and beer-based counterparts; perhaps that’s why it’s been so resistant to the convenience of the can - long a staple of the beer and soft drink world - in favor of the cumbersome, heavy, and expensive bottle that wine drinkers worldwide have grown to love so dearly. Thanks to the work of two Swedish designers, however, the world of wine could one day make the leap to a smaller, cheaper, and more convenient form that’s just as good for its users as it is for the environment.

Jens Andersson and Jonas Forsman’s conceptual Wine Can solves the sophistication dilemma by altering the way the can looks, feels, and functions. Given the emphasis on taste that is presented by the world of wine, the can also presumably integrates a system that ensures the optimal taste for its buyers.

The duo’s design has already garnered quite a bit of positive attention, winning the pair 2006’s Swedish Packaging Design Award along with the attention of vineyards looking to branch out into the ever-growing on-the-go market. Though canned wine isn’t yet a reality, here’s to hoping that one day soon we’ll be able to trade in our corks for cans and get a little greener in the process. Personally, I don’t see the trend catching on in the high-end anytime soon, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see lower to medium priced wines like YellowTail giving the design a try at some point in the near future.

(Via The Die Line)

Chances are, your movie collection probably isn’t the greenest thing in your home. Luckily, it’s easier than ever to turn those stacks of DVD’s into digital copies that burn less energy, take up less space, and work just as easily on your TV’s as they do on your iPod or iPhone.

If you’re an iTunes fan, you’ve no doubt noticed that they started selling movies a while back. Their collection is surprisingly strong and with the recently added “Rental” feature, there’s little reason not to take advantage of the enormous library at your fingertips for somewhere between $.99 and $3.99. Of course, the option to buy your favorite titles is still on the table with most movies selling for between $9.99 and $14.99, depending on their release dates. If you happen to have an AppleTV, you can even take advantage of higher quality HD video at a fraction of the cost of any of today’s Blu-Ray players and titles.

Buying and downloading your movies saves a lot of energy, a lot of gas, and (usually) at least a little bit of money. Of course, you’ll still need to take the occasional trip to the theater to see the newest titles (at least to do it legally), but grabbing most of what’s already out on DVD is even easier than finding it in stores.

Even if iTunes isn’t your thing, its competitors have been quick to launch their own similar services with Netflix’s new On-Demand feature quickly shaping up to be a worthy alternative. With over 12,000 titles available in unlimited amounts to all of its subscribers, their service is a little different from iTunes’ buy-and-rent system, but very useful all the same.

Online services are great starting points for making greener choices when it comes to adding new movies to your library but, with the help of some simple software, you can green-up your existing titles too.

Since most of this blog’s readers are visiting from Macs, I’ll go through an easy Mac way to transform your DVD’s into iTunes friendly video files that can easily be played on everything from an AppleTV to an iPod or even your computer itself.

The easiest way to do this is to use a free program like HandBrake, which extracts the DVD to your hard-drive and then converts it into an iTunes friendly format. DVD’s can take up quite a bit of space, so make sure that you have at least four to five gigabytes of free space before you begin. You’ll delete the files later, so they won’t be there for long, but it’s good to have some room to work with.

HandBrake has a number of options, but you’ll probably want to stick to mostly default settings if you’re not overly tech-savvy. The software does offer a number of features and options, however, that can prove useful if you’re converting a lot of movies or notice small differences in visual or audio quality.

If you’d like to convert already-digital copies of movies stored on your hard-drive into an iTunes friendly format, you’ll need to use a different tool. iSquint is a great way to get started, but if you’re looking for more options you may want to look into more feature-friendly apps like VisualHub. As with HandBrake, most of the settings are pretty straightforward, but feel free to dive into the applications’ manuals to play with more advanced settings that control quality and size.

If you’ve ever kept track of your finances, you’ve probably noticed that keeping an eye on your wallet often has an effect on what you buy. Sure, it might not always stop you from buying stuff that you don’t really need, but it makes you think a little more before making your purchase. EnergyHub’s new energy tracking panel applies the very same concept to household energy usage in an attempt to reduce home energy usage by as much as 20%.

People act differently when they can visualize abstract things like energy usage or web site visits in the form of a colorful pie graph or a simplistic table. With EnergyHub, anyone can visualize his or her home’s energy consumption in real-time and even in comparison to the past.

To put things in perspective, let’s say that you’ve been setting your thermostat to a cool 74° this month. With EnergyHub, you can see the spike in energy usage (and cost) that’s presented by your one degree drop from 75° and, most likely, opt to revert to your more energy efficient and cheaper setting from the month before.

This concept can also be applied to any number of other common household energy dilemmas including leaving the lights on and spending too much of your morning in the shower. With EnergyHub, the difference between ten and twenty minutes in the shower is no longer a thing of abstraction but a yellow, red, and blue graph that’s much easier to understand.

Though the device isn’t yet readily available, it has already garnered quite a bit of attention thanks to its recent success as a semi-finalist in MIT’s Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Competition. With the potential to dramatically impact the nation’s household energy usage (assuming its adoption, of course), EnergyHub is well worth watching in the coming years.

(Via Inhabitat)

While much of the alternative energy community is hard at work concentrating their efforts at solutions for consumer and corporate use, a small subset of that same community is stashed away cooking up green ideas for the kids in our lives.

While browsing Inhabitots yesterday, I noticed their feature on the world’s tiniest solar car. At just 33×22x14mm, the Mini Solar Racer is entirely solar powered and can even utilize light emitted artificially indoors - provided its bright enough. Though the scalability of the design isn’t the most apparent from its existing state, the car does provide an interesting way to instill a sense of sustainability in tomorrow’s future. Perhaps by growing up with solar cars instead of Hotwheels, we’ll keep the green movement growing.

Also of note is a tiny adaptation of Hydrogen technology (”It’s the technology of the future - and it always will be.”) to a children’s toy to create an entirely self-sufficient vehicle for the little ones to play with. The Smart Hydrogen Car puts cutting-edge technology at the fingertips of today’s youth at a price that is surprisingly low (despite being rather high for a children’s toy). At roughly $120, the mini hydrogen car isn’t exactly going to take over the market but, for a small few, it could be the best thing to happen to toys since the Easy Bake Oven and GI-JOE.

Look for part two in our series on sustainable toys sometime in the near future.

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture manufacturer, is trading in a bit of its blue and yellow for a dash of green. Over the next several years, IKEA will be hard at work behind the scenes investing in and developing new technologies that will help bring green design to the masses - just as 65 years ago the company launched in hopes of bringing design itself to the very same crowd.

Of course, for a big-box retailer, IKEA is already about as green as they come. Many of its stores feature dual-flush toilets, its products have become infinitely more environmentally friendly, and they’ve been trying out a number of new ideas to get rid of those pesky plastic bags. Still, the already greening IKEA has a ways to go before its products are as green as both its executives and customers would like them to be.

With a cash injection of $77 million into its developing GreenTech fund, IKEA hopes to introduce a line of products that utilizes the advanced alternative energy technologies that have recently become the talk of the town. Aside from solar, the company also plans to revamp many of its existing products to increase energy efficiency while maintaining their design-friendly aesthetic look.

IKEA’s arsenal of 270 city-sized stores in 35 different countries worldwide gives it the potential to further extend the size of the green movement’s already booming spotlight. With the sheer number of customers it serves in a day, IKEA’s move toward more efficient technologies represents the potential to put a lot of new green on an ever-greying map.

Of course, green isn’t the only thing that’s once again putting IKEA back on the map. In an interesting publicity stunt recently, the Swedish retailer allowed a comedian to move in to one of their stores for a week while his apartment underwent fumigation. Mark Malkoff took over one of the store’s many fully-furnished bedrooms - eating, sleeping, and working with the store’s customers just inches away from his newly-claimed bed.

Look for IKEA’s greener products on store shelves sometime in the next four years.

(Via Inhabitat)

I’m sure you’ve seen Dyson’s array of brightly-colored and unexpectedly stylish vacuum cleaners by now, but you (probably) haven’t seen their newest take on the world of cleaning - the Airblade. In an effort to design a more hygienic and energy-efficient hand dryer, the engineers at Dyson set to work on their latest work of art, an electric hand-dryer that is infinitely more hygienic and stylish than ever before.

Unlike most hand dryers, the Airblade fuses a touchless on-off system (triggered by an infrared scanner) with a unique Dyson-engineered motor that delivers gusts at up to 400mph - quick enough to dry your hands in a fraction of the time you’d expect from an air-powered hand dryer. Dyson quotes drying times of 10 seconds, which is indeed consistent with my own tests that revealed very similar results.

Beyond the sleek exterior, the Airblade’s innovative Dyson Digital Motor uses cold, filtered air to dry the user’s hands in a matter of seconds; and, with an average energy consumption that’s up to 83% less than its other electric counterparts, the Airblade may indeed become the option of choice in years to come.

If you live in the UK, chances are that you’re no stranger to Dyson’s experimental technologies. The Airblade has been in use in shopping malls, kitchens, and other locales throughout the UK for quite some time now with adoption throughout the rest of the world growing as business owners and customers alike become more and more conscious about both hygiene and energy (the two problems solved by the wonderful world of Dyson).

Like Dyson’s vacuums, the Airblade is no stranger to style. Its slick curves and user-friendly design make it far more appealing than the white push-button dryers of yesteryear; not to mention that the device actually works. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve left the bathroom with wet hands courtesy of the not-so-functional white box.

Look for an Airblade near you sometime in the near future, or, if you’re in the UK, just ask around and I’m sure you can find one. They’re great to look at, fun to use, and functionally perfect. Now if only Dyson would remake the toilets…I can only imagine what they’ll think of next.

View: Dyson Airblade Brochure