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Category Archives: Innovation and Design
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Lane Jost in Corporate Social Responsibility 4 days ago
With corporate hiring returning to a deep freeze and the Dow hanging north of 10,000 by its fingertips, CSR programs focused on eco-efficiencies — LED lighting in…um…the freezer section — remain priorities for the retail market. This is particularly the case when companies open or renovate new facilities. A Sunday Chicago Tribune Business feature by… Read More…
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Heidi Tolliver-Nigro in Corporate Social Responsibility 6 days ago
When you’ve finished with EcoCradle packaging, you don’t throw it out. You compost it. That’s because it is made from filamentous fungi (mushroom roots), which can be bonded into any shape. According to Ecovative Design, which grows the packaging (yes, I meant to say “grows”), EcoCradle provides the same cushioning, strength and protection as petrochemical… Read More…
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Keenan Shaw in Events 10 days ago
Chicago is most notably home to Wrigley Field, the world’s first sky scrapper, and the deep-dish pizza. What most might not know is that inside the Windy City there are more LEED-certified buildings than anywhere else in the U.S. and the city will soon boast the largest LEED for Neighborhood Development project where residents live… Read More…
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Cindy Tickle in Innovation and Design 20 days ago
I’ll be honest. I’ve never given much thought about the sustainability of my writing utensils. I had no idea that since 1950 well over 100 billion disposable pens were sold, which is equivalent to selling 60 pens per second non-stop for nearly 60 years or when lying end to end, the pens would circle the… Read More…
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Emily DeMasi in Energy 23 days ago
From local biking options in Pittsburgh to east coast travel via MegaBus and the future of nationwide travel possibilities on high-speed rail, I have written on varied modes of transportation that offer “greener” possibilities for my fellow wanderers. However, sometimes cost, time and distance make air the best option for travel. Somewhere between Chicago and… Read More…
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The Obama Administration placed an emphasis on building high-speed and intercity passenger rail to connect communities and economic centers across the country, but will the strategic plan work the in the United States?
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Summer travel doesn’t always have to entail long airport security lines or expensive fill-ups at the pump. In fact, you can see much of the East Coast for as little as $1 ! Here’s one way…
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Famed international jeweler Tiffany and Company has recently signaled its intent to expand a metrics-driven CSR and sustainability program from its Madison Avenue headquarters. This is exciting news for the field, as it is hard to imagine a global corporation with a more mythic brand resonance. With a reported 19% share of the global jewelery… Read More…
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Celestial Seasonings pillow-style tea bags are made with natural fiber and no strings attached. On Tuesday, I blogged about SunChips’ new fully compostable bag. But hey, it’s Frito Lay. They’ve got the bucks to be super green, right? Then I opened a box of one of my favorite brands of tea, Celestial Seasonings, and there… Read More…
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SunChips chooses transparency to market its new 100% compostable bag. Last year, I wrote about SunChips’ “compostable” chip bag that wasn’t really compostable at all. It was one-third compostable, which meant that its compostable layer was laminated to two-thirds non-compostable layers, rendering it — well — noncompostable. Now that’s changed. SunChips bags are now 100%… Read More…
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Companies can now turn their billboards into unique, vinyl bags for special promotions and events closing the sustainability loop. We see them everywhere. Colorful, larger-than-life billboards. They are a simple marketing tool for advertising agencies who hope to create eye-catching designs and slogans for their biggest corporate clients. Billboards are as common in our landscape… Read More…
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What do you do when you need an environmentally-friendly press pack but you want to do it without using metal or plastic binding? You do what Icones (Lorient, France) did for its client Bio Nutrisante — and it won an award for it. Did I mention that the run length was an ultra-short 55 packs?… Read More…
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For marketers looking to improve the sustainability of their print marketing programs, there is almost nothing more important than the role of the paper. For this reason, Wausau Paper has launched a new online community, Digital Space, for designers, printers, and other experts in digital print technology and applications. The site includes both a collaborative,… Read More…
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When we think about greening “print,” we often think about books or marketing communications like direct mail. But what about the world of packaging? Because packaging provides the additional functions of shipment and product protection as well as marketing, it brings a host of unique issues far beyond other types of printed materials. Plus, it’s… Read More…
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John Ivanko in Innovation and Design 239 days ago
Leading the way for the green evolution for the Hilton Garden Inn franchise, the Hilton Garden Inn Gatlinburg, drawing inspiration at the doorstep of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, has embarked on the fast-track to bring this upscale hotel into the green business movement. Opening in May, 2009, this 118-room hotel is nestled across… Read More…
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In my daughter’s backpack this morning, I discovered a note about school pictures, soon to be delivered. That brings to mind the topic of yearbooks. Here’s a product that has everything wrong with it from an environmental standpoint — coated paper (making the paper difficult to recycle), tons of ink, lots of unnecessary pages, and… Read More…
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Did you notice something different on the back pages of The Order of the Phoenix? If you live in the Canadian market, you might. The fifth book in the Harry Potter series has something unusual on its back pages. It’s an environmental audit. The audit, produced using New Leaf Paper’s Eco Audit Calculator, uses New… Read More…
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Fred Etcheverry in Energy 351 days ago
Certainly, the development of these turbines is a case of challenge and response since they were developed to meet the Scandinavian environment. GE and others will develop generators that will provide wind farms offshore where the windiest but harshest environments exist. Animal lover will be delighted to know that sea birds are able to avoid offshore wind farms.
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Exciting developments are occurring in solar PV (photovoltaic) power generation. New technologies are improving manufacturing processes. Thin-film and organic (plastic) films promise to reduce PV power cost. Solar “grid parity,” the time when solar power will cost the same as fossil fuel power, is coming soon.
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Aora-Solar, an Israeli company, has constructed and launched the first solar energy natural gas hybrid electric power plant. The flexibility of their design permits small communities to tap into solar power.
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Keith Rockmael in Innovation and Design 433 days ago
At one point, it seems as though virtually everyone has sat in front of washing machine and watched the soaked clothes tumble through the suds. That tradition may be a thing of the past if a new “virtually waterless” laundry machine finds its way to the mainstream. Although only in prototype stage, this new machine… Read More…
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Kelli Peterson in Innovation and Design 449 days ago
Smart social entrepreneurs and their like-minded investors would be smart to think about the breadth of opportunities that a cell phone creates for citizens of emerging markets.
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Glenn Meyers in Innovation and Design 469 days ago
For us sneering at the notion of plastics and biodegradability, it is time to stand back and jump up! Arizona-based ENSO Bottles, LLC is now producing plastic drinking bottles that will not only biodegrade in the dark, anaerobic environment of a landfill, the microbes that ingest it then create methane which can be captured and… Read More…
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Reenita Malhotra in Innovation and Design 481 days ago
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/M_N-_rZ642s&hl=en&fs=1] Kelly Blue Book Video Review of the Ford Focus Earlier this week, Ford announced that they are retooling their manufacturing facility in Michigan, which previously built SUVs, to now produce the small and fuel-efficient Ford Focus in 2010, and the battery-electric Ford Focus by 2011. With this investment of $550 million worth, Ford continues… Read More…
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Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the case of St. Thomas 7-Hot Pepper Sauce, it was definitely the chicken. Without the chicken, there wouldn’t be the fertilizer to grow the hot peppers to make the hot sauce that the sent kids from the St. Thomas projects in New Orleans Lower Garden District… Read More…
