Cooltribe, the newest green socialnetwork

As you probably well know, I do in the green also in the tech something.

From my side, I follow many peers&peeps with a ton of fresh links.
Cooltribe is for sure the next online buzz related to a smart green community.

Cooltribe is a self-regulated community. From green issues to fair trade, users gain, learn from each other and benefit from the user-generated content based on experience and expertise. Advice is given in the format of top green tips, daily fresh news and actions of the day.

All what you need is a ''fresh green check'' on about cooltribe.com.

Come on in as member, then let's spread, share and keep the planet cool!

L'Ecopack Attitude

L'Ecopack Attitude

jusqu'au samedi 09 mai 2009
du lundi au vendredi de 10h à 19h,
le samedi de 11h à 19h
Designpack Gallery
T : +33(0)1 44 85 86 00
24, rue de Richelieu
75001 Paris
France

gallery@p-reference.fr
www.designpackgallery.fr

Contact presse
Sophie Louvet
T : +33(0)1 44 85 86 30
louvetso@wanadoo.fr

Cette exposition dressera un bilan complet de l’empreinte écologique des emballages, et explorera les pistes de réflexion et les axes de progrès inhérents à cette problématique. Elle présentera des solutions innovantes en matière d’éco-design et d’écoconception des emballages.

Apparus avec la société de consommation et tous ses débordements, les emballages se sont inscrits dans une économie d’abondance peu soucieuse de l’environnement.

Concevoir des emballages moins lourds et moins volumineux, moins « énergivores » et moins polluants durant tout leur cycle de vie, aider les consommateurs à mieux les jeter en fin de vie, limiter leur impact environnemental, y compris lors de leur recyclage, est le nouveau défi planétaire.


via modemonline.com

Vik Muniz "The Beautiful Earth"

This show, featuring Vik Muniz's new 2008 series, Pictures of Garbage, will showcase a total of 40 works--most of which will be making their debut in Japan. Pictures of Garbage was made through a collaboration with the cleaning/waste collection staff at Jardim Gramacho--South America's largest refuse disposal facility, located in Rio de Janeiro. The employees acted as models for the works, which were drawn over an area as large as two basketball courts, and then photographed. We hope you enjoy the witty social ingenuity of Muniz's works.

Vik Muniz 《Atlas（Pictures of Garbage）》
2008 Digital C Print, 229.83cm×180.34cm

Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya



vikmuniz.net
Vik Muniz
Born 1961, São Paulo, Brazil
Lives and works in New York City

Renzo Piano l'architecte qui construit vert à San Francisco

Les architectes qui utilisent la protection de l'environnement comme une source d'inspiration ne sont pas encore si nombreux. Renzo Piano, fait partie de ceux là. Italien, ce grand architecte, prix Nobel de l’architecture (prix Pritzker), vient de recevoir la meilleure note jamais attribuée par l'agence américaine de notation des constructions vertes, le Green Building Council, pour le musée de San Francisco inauguré cet été : Le bâtiment est couvert d'un toit en forme de collines ondulées végétalisées. Lieu de promenade, ce toit est aussi l'idéal pour renforcer l'isolation thermique naturelle par l'action des plantes et permet notamment en été de réduire l'usage à la climatisation. Enveloppé dans un gangue de cuivre rouge qui s'oxydera progressivement pour se confondre avec la végétation environnante, le bâtiment permet la récupération des eaux fluviales et l'amélioration de la qualité de l'air. De plus, le toit est équipé de plus 60.000 cellules photovoltaïques qui fournissent une autonomie énergétique du site. Plus étonnant, l'isolation est faite de jeans recyclés !

Source: aboneobio.com/blog Abonéobio ® 2008.

Sustainable Design with Françoise Serralta

Icon-o-Cast by Lunar: Francoise Serralta at Digging Deeper

Françoise Serralta is seen here speaking at the “Digging Deeper” Event hosted by the IDSA in SF last summer (graciously captured for us by the folks at Lunar Design). She is the strategic research and planning director with PeclersParis.

Finished with ideologies and utopian warrior visions on ecology and a perfect world, Françoise is preaching one thing:

Pragmatism!

In her presentation she gives us five main messages on sustainability:

1. Shift from negative to positive semantics in our vocabulary
2. Bioperformance -Applying renewable, natural, and biomimicked processes to our consumer world
3. Pared-down and simplified design
4. Collaborative design for local solutions
5. Assistive design to make sustainable solutions easy to adopt.

via Melodies in Marketing Authentic Green Marketing & Sustainable Product Development

ECO HEROES by Susanne Husky

Created by Suzanne Husky, Eco Heroes is a series of photographs, texts and drawings documenting environmentally related actions and ideas that take place in the domestic intimacy of the urban and sub-urban garden. The project will take form as a book and website.

Urban and sub-urban garden ideas / Idees pour jardin urbain et de banlieue

An inventory of urban and suburban sustainable ideas and the people behind them. Disobeying the suburban aesthetic laws for common sense, locavorism, human footprint reduction. Escaping consumerism by saving seeds, making your own honey, compost, houses etc....

ideespourjardinurbain.blogspot.com.

Buy the new Eco Heroes book here.
Description : Eat Bay (Area) environmental activist that invent sustainable systems in their back yards. Pedal wash machines, living roofs, lead absorbing mushrooms...

On Exhibition September 1, 2008 - December 31, 2008 at ''SOEX''
San Francisco Southern Exposure

Digging Deeper: Building Blocks for Sustainable Design

Francoise Serralta of PeclersParis presenting at the "Digging Deeper" - ITW Audio


Francoise Serralta, strategic research and planning director with PeclersParis, presents at the Digging Deeper sustainable design conference held in late July in San Francisco. (Prefaced with a short interview by Lunar's John Edson.) The evening panel discussion dug deep into the eco-issues designers face everyday to reveal building blocks for sustainable design.

www.peclersparis.com

Back in the Silicon Valley (Summer 08)

The IDSA SF Chapter has been hard at work creating the event of the summer. Dubbed "Digging Deeper", the evening conference will tackle eco-issues that confront designers.

As the dialogue around sustainability expands and points of view proliferate, distinct courses of action blur. Every choice is a trade off. Getting smart when designing green means understanding context.

Digging Deeper seeks to equip designers with the questions, methods and actionable tools for designing green. Experts on measuring the environmental, social and business impacts of design decisions will demonstrate appropriate research methods and strategies required for success and ensure a sustainable future. Emerging solutions will be documented in an online toolkit to enable broader knowledge sharing and the development of best practices for Sustainability in Design.

Digging Deeper: Building Blocks for Sustainable Design

Ecos - Observatoire Biotope

ECOS est un projet transdisciplinaire qui s’appuie sur la recherche scientifique et l’action culturelle pour interroger et mettre en perspective les interactions entre technologie, écologie et économie.

Si l’écologie est l’enjeu et le domaine d’intervention prioritaire d’ECOS, c’est qu’elle prend en considération les interactions entre les êtres vivants et leur milieu de vie. Cette approche réunit l’ensemble des composantes de notre environnement : sociale, technologique et naturelle.

ECOS engage des actions permettant aux populations de s’approprier ces enjeux en les accompagnant dans une mise en pratique, dans un faire quotidien.

L’action culturelle est une donnée importante de cet accompagnement parce que c’est par elle (et non seulement par le développement de solutions technologiques et scientifiques) que peut s’opérer un changement dans les comportements, les sensibilités et mentalités nécessaires à toute entreprise écologique. La création artistique s’inscrit au coeur de cette démarche, mettant l’accent sur l’invention d’autres manières de faire, de voir, de sentir, proposant de nouveaux regards, de nouvelles approches de ces enjeux.

L’activité d’ECOS s’articule autour de la notion d’éco-création qui désigne la mise en lien des disciplines et des diverses composantes de l’environnement à travers un faire créatif.

tél 1 : 0033(0)2 51 89 47 16 tél2 : 0033(0)2 40 48 61 27
ECOS, 225, Maison Radieuse, Le Corbusier, 44400 Rezé
http://ecos.crealab.info

L’éco-création désigne la pratique transversale par laquelle s’invente une économie et une écologie alternatives à l’intérieur d’une micro-communauté située dans un milieu matériel donné. Elle engage la mise en oeuvre d’expérimentations eco-poïétique, hybridation et mutation de composants érogènes.

Champagne Bottle Vase

After the success of the recycled glassware range made from beer and soft drink bottles, the designer turned his thoughts to the more decadent Champagne bottle and came up with this simple and attractive flower vase design.The Champagne bottles are collected from bars and restaurants in the West End of London and then taken to the workshop where they are cut and polished by hand before being transformed into vases.

As the bottles are re-used rather than recycled, the production process is a very energy efficient one saving up to 90% of the energy used compared to when glass is recycled.

Please note: We do not recommend washing the vases in dishwashers.

* Dimensions:
* Height - 175mm
* Width at base - 85mm
* Width at neck - 60mm

For more choices, check out all the eco products in recycled glassware .

Plantware - Structures Made from Trees

By controlling the shape in which trees grow, Plantware creates products that are made of living trees. Modern design styles combined with advanced horticultural techniques allow us to produce elegant products that are also eco-positive. That is, the production and use of Plantware products has a positive effect on the environment.

So by buying a Plantware product the consumer buys both the object of utility that they need as well as a small opportunity to help the planet.

Plantware’s vision is to turn living trees into a new building material, making effective contributions to the ecosystem. Plantware aims to significantly influence initiatives for global warming prevention and eco-living.

Plantware is comprised of scientists, horticulturists and designers.

Plantware.org/news

Green Design x Sustainable Dance Club

Going out in a trendy club and feel good because you contribute to positive environmental processes, such as generating electricity by dancing and upcycling of waste into decoration. This idea forms the basis for the Sustainable Dance Club. The Sustainable Dance Club is a creative concept of Rotterdam based organizations Enviu – innovators in sustainability and Döll – Atelier voor Bouwkunst.

The Sustainable Dance Club incorporates innovations in the field of sustainable design and applied techniques with social responsibilities in attractive club surroundings. No more counter culturists and moralizing attitudes but sustainability as a positive, young and profitable alternative for a broad target group. The Sustainable Dance Floor will generate electricity from the movements of dancing people. This human powered floor is now being developed in cooperation with the Technical University in Delft and will most likely be the projects’ piece de résistance.

Download leaflet of the Sustainable Dance Club

The Sustainable Dance Club combines contemporary lifestyle with the latest ideas on sustainability. Soon you can generate energy while dancing on the Sustainable Dance Floor and flush the toilet with rainwater. The color of the walls changes without any energy use as a reaction to the heat and you can drink an organic beer near the water basin on the ‘relax roof’. These are just a few examples of what the Sustainable Dance Club can entail. The Sustainable Dance Club is developed as a brand: with time you may find sustainable dance clubs all over the world!

What makes a dance club a sustainable dance club?
Just putting “sustainable” in front of “dance club” does not mean anything by itself, so what actually makes a club (more) sustainable?

* 30% less environmental impact than average clubs
* Sustainability integrated in both building and organisation
* Installation of 3 SDC spectaculars that show sustainability to the public (Sustainable Dance Floor/ Zero Waste Bar/ Waterwall etc)
* Communication plan on how to inform the public about sustainability
* Sustainable business plan with yearly targets and evaluation

Source : Eco-clubbing neural.it
The Dutch agency Enviu, working in collaboration with architects from Dutch company Döll, has been working on a design for an Sustainable Dance Club. This technology, now in use, will enable dance clubs to run at a very low environmental impact and with reduced carbon emissions. This is all possible thanks to a new technology which enables the floor itself to generate electricity through absorbing the energy expressed by the dancing bodies. It works through a system of tiny accumulators, similar to pressure sensors, which are embedded in the floor. The physical energy of a dancer is captured by these sensors and utilized to run the facilities of the club, such as the lighting and speakers. This is just one example in a growing trend of technologies and products which seek to harvest and reuse the energy produced by the human body. Other examples include clothes which, through integrated devices, harness the movement of the human body and translate it into useable electricity. There is also the novel concept of a toilet flushed with human sweat. Increasingly, we will be witness to technologies which function in many ways analogous to parasitic or symbiotic organisms in finding new ways to use our own anatomy.
By Tony Canonico @ neural.it

Neural is about :
media art hacktivism emusic since 1993 ;)



ヽ(´ー`)ノ Enjoy the video of the launch of the Sustainable Danceclub concept at off_corso Rotterdam. For more info: sustainabledanceclub.com.

*.* Goodies..

Been-Seen x Travel by design..

Been-Seen is a global community of people searching for a different type of travel experience.

It's all about :

# Art &Design
# Cool Stuff
# Go Cabin
# Jungle Blog
# Movie Atlas
# People
# Property Scouting
# Room with a View
# Travel Info
# Travel Places

You can embed this widget (dynamic contents) at been-seen.com

Paris to Launch Subscription Electric Car Sharing Service

From buildings to airports, Paris is looking towards greening up.

And now, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced last week that by the end of 2009, Parisians can expect to see about 4,000 electric cars throughout the city that will be available for rent through a sharing service called Autolib.

Similar to the city’s bike* sharing service Vélib’, these EVs will be available for pick-up and delivery at 700 spots around the city. Users can hop online to specify where they’ll return the car, and they’ll be guaranteed a parking spot in that location. The subscription service would cost about $390 a month, with a 60 mile-per-day limit – pricy but considering the cost of owning, maintaining, parking, and filling up a car with fuel in a busy city, the price and mileage both seem reasonable.

Read more / Lire la suite + commentaires sur : Ecogeek.org

* correctif : l'auteur (Written by Jaymi Heimbuch) indiquait ''electric bike''...

Greenpeace x Guide to Greener Electronics

The guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV's and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our three demands are that companies should:


* clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances;
* takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.
* Reduce the climate impacts of their operations and products.



The use of harmful chemicals in electronics prevents their safe recycling when the products are discarded. Companies scored marks out of 51 this has then been calculated to a mark out of 10 for simplicity.

Follow the more link beside each company for the full details of their score. The full criteria for scoring the companies is available as well as in criteria on chemicals explained in depth. Download the full pdf of the scorecard.

Each score is based solely on public information on the companies website. Companies found not to be following their published policies will be deducted penalty point in future versions of the guide.

The guide is updated every 3 months. The current edition was published on the 25th June 2008.

Greenpeace.org

Flying Saucer Designed for Greener Air Travel

Eco-conscious travelers buy off their global warming guilt with carbon offsets that promote wind farms and reforestation.

Meanwhile, aviation engineers are taking another route, designing a more environmentally sustainable airplane that may overturn long-held notions of flight engineering.




"I want to get rid of the image of a cylindrical body with wings," said Etnel Straatsma of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

The plane of the future, in Straatsma's vision, might be as wild as a flying saucer. She and other engineers are toying with lighter materials and some are pondering ideas as radical as returning to propeller-driven planes as an eco-friendly alternative to passenger jets.

Straatsma heads the recently-formed CleanEra project, which aims to design an "ultra-eco-friendly plane" that releases 50 percent less carbon dioxide per passenger-mile than current airliners. The project's "greenliner"—depicted in design illustrations as a flying saucer—would also reduce other pollutants and noise, in line with recommendations from the European Aerospace Commission, ACARE.

The challenge is that modern airplanes are already close to maximally optimized, said Alexander de Haan, also from Delft but not involved with CleanEra. He has examined various design modifications and found that they could reduce carbon emissions and noise levels by, at most, 10 to 15 percent.

"These ideas cannot keep up with the 5 percent growth that the [airline] industry continues to have year after year," de Haan said.

Aviation accounts for about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, but what has many worried is how fast the industry is growing. By 2050, air travel could be 5 percent or more of the total warming affect, according to a 1999 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Although estimates vary, flying in a plane releases the equivalent of about 1 pound of carbon dioxide per mile per passenger, which is about the same as driving a car the same distance.

Constant retooling of aircraft has helped to decrease emissions per passenger by 2 to 2.5 percent per year, said Andreas Hardeman of the industry group International Air Transport Association. But he agreed that the current paradigm may have reached the "end of the line."

"Ever since the Boeing 707 first flew in 1957, airliners ... have changed very little in their basic appearance," Hardeman said. "However, because future improvements to the basic design are getting harder to make, economic and environmental pressures mean that the case for radical change is getting stronger."

Radical change could mean introducing novel materials and shapes, or even reviving "old" propulsion systems.

Work less, fly more ;) here the entire ''top'' article from Livescience.com

What is social design ?

Social design has many definitions and the term is put to very different uses across the globe. Some definitions exist within the design world and refers to design in its traditional sense, meaning the shaping of products and services. Other definitions refer to social design as the creation of social reality, design of the social world...



Designcanchange.org

7 Brilliant Building Conversion Projects: Superb Examples of Architectural Adaptive Reuse

Immediate boarding ;o)

What could be better than an amazing house made out of an airplane? A cheap one. The plane itself cost just $2000, though moving it cost $4000 and renovating it for habitation took another $24000 - but that’s still just $30000 for a truly amazing and unique home. The original airplane fold-down stairs were kept and are operated by a garage door opener and one of the original airplane restrooms still works as it always did. And the cockpit suspended over the lake below? Her own personal jacuzzi of course.

Written by Urbanist on June 22nd, 2008 - Topics: Architecture, Environment, Urban, Various
Permanent link : Weburbanist.com

Les temps changent... Qui sont les « Compacters » ?

Article très intérressant en lien direct avec les deux récents posts de Katia :)

Par Estelle Leroy
Mouvement informel, les « Compacters », qui limitent leurs achats de produits neufs, vont peut être devenir un phénomène de masse.

Il y a quinzaine d’années est apparu le « jour sans achat » (buy nothing day-BND), sorte d’antidote à la folie du shopping, et au consumérisme, qui s’est développé autour de Thanksgiving aux Etats-unis ou des fêtes de fin d’année en Europe. Il y a trois ans à San Francisco, sont nés les « Compacters ». L’idée qui a germé au sein d’un petit groupe d’amis fut de pousser le concept du BND plus loin : pendant un an, ne rien acheter de neuf si ce n’est pour la nourriture, la santé. Pour le reste, priorité à ce qui est usagé, d’occasion que ce soit sur ebay ou sur freecycle.org. ... « Au départ, c’était, témoigne un des fondateurs, Rob Picooto dans un article du San Francisco Chronicle, passer moins de temps à faire des courses, sortir du rituel du shopping ». Au fil du temps, c’est aussi devenu recycler davantage pour contrecarrer les impacts négatifs de la culture consumériste sur l’environnement et la société. Une façon de réagir à la crise mondiale, environnementale et économique, que nous allons traverser, et qui selon ceux qui ont rejoint ce mouvement, a été amenée par ce consumérisme échevelé. D’ailleurs leurs motivations sont assez variées : stopper leur dépendance au shopping, cesser de gaspiller pour protéger l’environnement, échapper à une société trop matérialiste, prôner les valeurs d’échanges, rompre le cercle vicieux du consumérisme et aussi du surendettement, prendre conscience des ressources limitées de la planète ...Certes, on ne peut oublier ceux qui, par nécessité économique, ont adopté une telle démarche depuis des années sans forcément s’inscrire dans un mouvement bien identifié, si ce n’est celui des fins de mois difficiles !

Suite de l'article ici sur place-publique.fr

Liens associés :
http://greenerside.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/02/maybe_youve_hea.html
http://sfcompact.blogspot.com

Ingeo & Apple

Apple has introduced a new prepaid gift card for its popular iTunes music service made from plant-based plastic. A reader spotted the new card at a Best Buy store and sent us a scan.

The new Apple iTunes card is made from Ingeo plant-based plastic made by NatureWorks LLC.



Vous découvrirez sur ce blog dédié au Sustainable Packaging, l'essentiel des produits, sociétés et autres ''big enterprises'' utilisant la technologie INGEO, voir post du 5/13/2008. >>> Sustainable is Good

A lot comes from a little.

Advertising Agency: DPZ, São Paulo, Brazil
Creative Directors: José Zaragoza, Marco Versolato, Fernando Rodrigues
Copywriter: Guilherme Fleury
Art Director: Bruno Landi
Published: 2008

Link Ads of the world

Click on the pix to enlarge ...