Archive for August 2005

Treehugger is one of the leading environmental
consumer publications on the web. With a mix of product review and
eco-matter analysis, it’s one of the most accessible blogs on the web too -
green or not. The IF team decided to ask the founder, Graham Hill, a few questions about his successful blog and how it mixes with his other
ongoing concerns.

IF <available to all for a limited period>

Treehugger is one of the leading environmental consumer publications on the web. With a mix of product review and eco-matter analysis, it’s one of the most accessible blogs on the web - green or not. We asked him a few questions about his blog and his other ongoing concerns.

What do you do?

My goal is to push sustainability mainstream. Two ways to help us get
there
that I find personally interesting are media and product design. So I
count myself lucky that I am able to focus my life’s work around these two things.

In terms of product design, we currently have one product and are
working on a long list of others. Unfortunately, my green design skills were not
where they are now so my first product is ok sustainability wise but is not
an all-star. Fortunately for me, it has done very well and as such helps support
treehugger.com and my new sustainability focused product development.

Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago my friend gave me a book called ‘Change The World For A Fiver’. A must-have and at a bargain price – it promised a lot! The book contains ‘50 actions to change the world and make you feel good’, and is printed on ‘chlorine-free paper from trees grown in sustainable forests’. We Are What We Do is the Community Links project behind this straightforward but brilliant book (see website below).

The actions contained within it are diverse, ranging from Action 46 ‘Use both sides of every piece of paper’ to Action 19 ‘Learn one good joke’. Some of them would appeal to thrifty people, ‘Turn your thermostat down by 1º’ (Action 10), and some actions are very simple ‘Smile, and smile back’ (Action 5). My favourite action is ‘Reverse Haggling’ (Action 27), where the book advises you to ‘confuse the wonderful people who work in charity shops – pay them more than they bargained for’. I have tried and tested some of the ideas in this book, particularly declining plastic bags in shops, watching less TV, and registering online as an organ donor. Hopefully this book will inspire more of us to ‘Give blood’ (Action 26) and to ‘Do something you think you can’t do’ (Action 32), even if being ‘the change you want to see in the world’ (Action 28, thanks to Gandhi) seems a bit daunting.

www.community-links.org

Contributed by Hannah Gale

A while ago Treehugger published a superb interview with Seth Godin where he
injects ideas on raising profile of green branding issues such as
‘Global Warming’ and ‘Hybrid Cars’.

"Acid rain is a much more powerful story," says Godin on Global
Warming. "Acid = death and rain is omnipresent and supposedly pure and
lifegiving. Put them together and you get something that feels tangible
and an emergency."

TreeHugger

A hoarding put up in the southern city of Chennai by well known photographer Sharad Haksar has Coca Cola officials seeing red.

The photo depicts a set of plastic pots next to a dry handpump - an allusion to the chronic water shortage in the city. The scene is set against a red wall bearing the painted logo of "Coca Cola". News website rediff.com reports:

On July 11, 2005, the law firm Daniel & Gladys, who represent Coca-Cola’s Indian subsidiary, sent a letter to Haksar  threatening him with legal action if the billboard was not replaced ‘unconditionally and immediately’.

The letter said Coca-Cola would seek Rs 2 million for ‘incalculable damage to the goodwill and reputation’ of the brand if Haksar did not comply with the notice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Laundry rooms in the dorms at the University of Louisville are to offer
students a system that schedules laundry use and lets
students know — via e-mail or text message — when the wash is done.

NPR Report
(Podcast)

Erm, we’ll see how far this spreads beyond Scotland but here goes: Anthony Stone, encouraged by growth in sales of oats, is trying to turn porridge into the latest takeaway food. Stone has developed a mobile porridge bar after he became fed
up with the lack of healthy snacks available when he travelled around
the country in his former job as hotel manager.

www.stoatsporridgebars.co.uk
<via CoolBusinessIdeas>

A new UK music chart compiled from album and music DVD sales, as well as singles and radio
airplay, and will target 25- to-44-year-olds. Amazing how the Guardian newspaper didn’t even question the fact it didn’t include digital downloads - another example of CutNPaste journalism??

Guardian Report

New Zealand Telecom have announced a
$NZ220 million project to switch every telephone line in the
country to a VOIP platform within seven years to replace
the existing phone network.
The first residential customers are expected to using the new network
by early 2007 and by 2012 the country’s 1.7 million customer lines will
have changed to the new platform.

Australian IT News
< via SmartMobs >