Boxed Water Is Better

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Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious. Boxed Water Is Better, is a boxed water company. Started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand that is kinder to the environment and gives back a bit – they found that it shouldn’t be bottled at all, but instead, boxed. So they looked to the past for inspiration in the century old beverage container and decided to keep things simple, sustainable, and beautiful.

(via bloggokin)

Greenhouse

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Greenhouse by Jantze Brogard Asshoff

(thank you jon)

Hey you, Pillow!

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A pretty green pillow. Etsy find.

(via twittering kristel)

Send and Receive Postal Mail Virtually: Zumbox

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Zumbox is a free paperless postal mailbox for each street address in the U.S. It allows you to send and receive postal mail virtually. Qualified organizations can sign up for the Free Postage Program and send mail for free. Currently in beta.

(via ehub)

Fight indoor pollution with plants

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“At its culmination in 1989, NASA’s two-year research into sustainable methods of indoor atmospheric cleansing in space stations revealed that many common houseplants and blooming potted plants help fight pollution indoors, making the air safer for humans. Certain plants that thrive in apartments eat carbon and other ‘off-gases’, such as formaldehyde and benzene, the way that monstrous shrub from the Little Shop of Horrors ate its owner’s enemies.”

What about some “Metaphys indoor grass planters“?

(thank you keren)

The Sun

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The Sun – Handbag made out of recycled Newspaper. Most probably not all that practical, but definitely a conversation starter. 

Eco Dollhouse | Eco-Centric Play Gift Idea

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How fantastic is this Eco House? Dolls and kids can add the rewards of saving energy to pretend-play fun when they set up housekeeping in this ecologically friendly home that includes a windmill, rain barrel, solar panels, recycling bins, shower, and motor bike.

question for my readers: pros in sustainable design

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There are more and more sustainable products and options available for how we live our lives, but who are the real masterminds behind all this new stuff? Who are they? What shops do they work for/run? What have they done, what are they working on and what’s their vision?

Do you know of any designers that made themselves a name in sustainable design? If so, please list their/your portfolio as a comment below. Just curious!

green gift: 4 Battery Solar Charger

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This 4 Battery Solar Charger can charge 4pcs “D”/”C”/”AA”/”AAA” size rechargeable batteries. How wonderful!

Atlantis made out of used plastic bottles

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Gayle Chong Kwan brings back the lost city of Atlantis with used plastic bottles.

Chiquita Chandelier

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The biggest name in bananas can also mean the biggest contribution to cardboard waste—if thrown away. Dutch Designer Anneke Jakobs collected discarded cartons in the street during her days as a student at the Utrecht School of Product Design. Ten cartons make up the luxe chandelier. Desktop paper fasteners hold it all together. The look is unexpected, chic, and surprisingly upscale. Chiquita Chandelier.

Designers Accord

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Designers Accord, founded by Valerie Casey is a call to arms for the creative community to reduce the negative impact caused by design, and to work collaboratively to inspire positive change in industry and consumer behavior.

Adopting the Designers Accord provides access to a global community of peers who share passion and ideas around environmental innovation. The theory is that our influence grows exponentially when we act together.
Read more about it on the Designers Accord website.

nightwood: reincarnated furniture, textile and home

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Saturday night I had the pleasure to chat with Myriah Scruggs and Nadia Yaron the lovely ladies behind NightWood, a Brooklyn based home décor business specializing in its own reconstructed furniture and textiles. Their ‘upsycling’ concept is not only appropriate of our times, the pieces are simply stunning. I am all for one-of-a-kind designs!

Notes from The Feast Conference

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Today’s Feast Conference was truly inspiring and made me think! What impressed me the most were the attendes; every person I spoke to was a “Doer”. Jerri Chou and Michael Karnjanaprakorn of All Day Buffet did a fantastic job in organizing The Feast and I can hardly believe this was their first attempt at organizing an event of this magnitude. Can I just say that today’s lunch was the most delicious catered food I’ve ever had? I can’t wait to see what Jeri and Michael pull together next year, when The Feast continues.

I was prepared to live-blog like the other day at CLICK but unfortunately they didn’t have wireless. Here’s a quick summary of some of today’s presentations:

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Sustainable Urban Agriculture: The Vertical Farm Project by Dickson Despommier, Columbia University:

Dickson Despommier (how cool is this name?) spoke on trying to find new ways to integrate agriculture into city environments. Why? In 50 years from now it wont be possible to feed the people the same way we do today, as there’s just not enough resources. By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. The solution: Vertical Farming.

Interesting fact: NYC consumes food that needs the state of virigina to grow!

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Tom Szaky of Terracycle spoke on Eco-Capitalism 2.0: The Next Generation of Green Practices That Increase Profits.

I was hugely impressed by Tom Szaky‘s presentation, founder of Terracycle. He was speaking on the next Generation of green practices that increase profits. The TerraCycle Story is a tale of ultimate Eco-Capitalism. The company’s flagship product, TerraCycle Plant Food™, is an all-natural, all-organic, ‘goof-proof’ liquid plant food made from waste (worm poop) and packaged in waste (reused soda bottles)!

Tom is a firm believer in ‘upsycling’, which means creating a new desirable product out of ‘garbage’. Examples are: Juice pouches made into bags, Corkboards, Wastewrapperpaper Notebooks etc.

Big corporations took note of Tom’s cause and are building partnerships. As an example he mentioned how they teamed up with Target and created the first reusable shopping bag made entirely out of recycled plastic bags. Big companies today are craving solutions that are sustainable as long as they can prove it.

Tom’s credo: There’s no garbage that can not be upsycled into something else.

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Joshua Onysko of Pangea Organics talked about the The Fringe of the Fringe:

Joshua got into making soap out of a desperate ‘bonding attempt’ with his mom, little did he know that it would soon change his life. He is now the proud owner of the fastest growing organic skin care line in the world that brings you the fastest growing packaging in the world. What impressed me the most is Pangea’s innovative packaging. All product boxes are made with Zero Waste process with 100% post-consumer paper and organic seeds like sweet basil and amaranth. Simply slip off the label, soak the box in water for a minute and plant it in the earth. Also, all labels are screenprinted as the labels that you traditionally stick on produce too much waste. Pangeas is just starting a new initiative that will empower the consumer to plant their own trees with seeds that will be in the packaging of their product. Joshua believes in getting the consumer in touch with what we can do on our own. Impressive!

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Scott Belksy of Behance on Make Good Ideas Happen:

Scott Belsky believes that the greatest breakthroughs across all industries are a result of creative people and teams that are especially productive. As such, Scott has committed his professional life to help organize creative individuals, teams, and networks and is the founder of Behance, a company that develops products and services that boost productivity in the Creative Professional Community.

Tips & Best Practices: What especially productive creatives do

Generate Ideas in Moderation: Don’t get off track with a new idea. Too many ideas can be a problem as well. (The IdeaSyndrom)

Organizing with a Bias to Action: How to balance the two. Compromise! Always focusing on whats actionable.

Measure a meeting in action steps! If there are no action steps after a meeting, should we have had that meeting at all? Have a culture of capturing action steps: After a meeting you make the round and go through the action steps. Duplications can be avoided and missed actions can be pointed out.

Share ideas liberally. Leverage the community around you. Don’t be scared of sharing ideas. Sharing ideas early is a great way to hold yourself accountable and making them stick.

Share Ownership of Ideas. Distribute Credit.

Fight your way to breakthroughs. The most productive teams encourage fighting and discourage apathy. As a leader of any type of idea you have to make sure people keep on fighting.

Value the Team’s Immune System. Ideas are often the syndrom that ideas don’t happen.

Leaders Talk Last (Silence the Visionary) If you speak first you fail to listen to new ideas as your your team will just follow your lead. Listen first!

Hiring someone? Judge Based on Initiative (Not Experience) Focus on the Initiatives they showed in their past. People that show that they take initiative to things that are important to them are likely do to the same for you if you get theme excited about your idea.

Unique is Opportune. We all have to gain confidence. Nothing extraordinary has been achieved through ordinary means.

One new service Behance is offering is the Action Method, a radical approach to productivity and project management. Unfortunately he ran out of time and couldn’t tell us more about their new online service. View and Action Method Demo.

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Dale Jones of PlayPumps International: An engineer in south-africa came up with a concept that allows playing children to pump water up from the ground. Simple and efficient. Learn more.

SOLo Lounge Table

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The SOLo Lounge Table by iF collects solar energy to power personal digital devices. During the evening, internal LED lights provide an intimate glow. It can harness approximately 73 kilowatt hours of solar energy every year in a typical outdoor setting (using southern California as an example). This amount of power provides the equivalent of over 100 mobile phone or iPod charges per day, 40 iPhone charges per day, or 3 laptop computer charges per day (or 12 hours of laptop operating power per day based on a 4-hour average battery life) – all without draining traditional, overextended sources of energy.

(thank you peter)

Yarn From Old Newspapers

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A graduate from Design Academy Eindhoven, Greetje van Tiem, has found a distinctive and creative way to recycle old newspapers. Van Tiem completed a project that turns newspapers into yarn. Read more.

The Designer’s Field Guide to Sustainability

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The LUNAR Elements team has recently published “The Designer’s Field Guide to Sustainability”, a tool designed to help all designers and engineers, no matter what their level of experience, design more sustainable products.

The Designer’s Field Guide to Sustainability, by LUNAR

Wasara – new line of disposable paper products

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Wasara is a new line of disposable paper products that are inspired by traditional Japanese forms and aesthetics.

(via spoon tamago)

don’t piss off your grandchildren

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Had me chuckle. Available here. Part of a ‘go green‘ campaign based out in New Zealand.

(thank you jen)

use wind and solar energy to charge your gadgets

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HYmini is a universal power charger that uses wind and solar energy to top up most gadgets, and it comes with miniSOLAR panels and extra batteries. Twenty minutes of wind power will provide 30 minutes of iPod time. The HYmini can also be attached to bike handlebars or car windows.

Seen on trendwatching’s ECO ICONIC report.

Green Toys Indoor Gardening Kit

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The Green Toys Indoor Gardening Kit is made from curbside collected milk containers.(Safe and no phthalates or BPA) It includes three pots with peapod-shaped tray, trowel, three packs organic seeds of zinnia or basil or teddybear sunflower, and three soil discs. What a fabulous gift for a little one. Here we come tiny little green thumbs!

Solio Solar Charger

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When on-the-go power is key, plug into the Solio Solar Charger for a green boost of planet-friendly juice! Hybrid design combines an ultra-efficient solar panel with a rechargeable battery, for reliable performance in a sleek and rugged case, complete with a carabiner for portability. Comes with interchangeable charging tips, for use with a variety of devices, including iPods and most mobile phones.

cork goes eco-glam

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Renewable, sustainable cork bag with raspberry organic cotton & hemp detailing. A cork bag? Now, that’s something new. Wheee! But hey, years ago I heard the rumor that the world is running out of cork. I guess not.

Rubber Tote

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Americans alone toss out about 300 million tires every year. The big thinkers of the world are working on creative ways to reuse this vast quantity of rubber – ideas include mixing ground-up tires with urethane to create sidewalks or burning them like coal to produce energy. Meanwhile, some designers are thinking a little smaller. With the large Rubber Tote , discarded tires are hand-cut and hand-sewn into a vessel that can be used indoors or out as planter for a small tree, carrying container, space for gardening supplies or anything else that can benefit from solidly constructed storage. Modeled on ancient leather-crafting techniques, these durable containers are each unique and offer a functional alternative to the landfill. Not guaranteed to be watertight. Made in Egypt.