Blogs & Ecology

With all of the time and energy we expend using computers, it makes sense that developing energy efficient alternatives should be a high priority for technology companies. And who better to grab the reins and innovate this category than Apple, reinforcing their commitment to bringing leading edge solutions to the forefront, and elevating the green 'cool factor' in the process.

It's not too early to start thinking about holiday gifts (sorry, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet), so we thought we'd help out by offering a copy of Sierra Club Books' latest publication ,"Holy Ground: A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation," FREE to the first 20 Treehugger readers who click on this link.

I know what you may be thinking - "Huh? The Sierra Club promoting a book on religion and environmentalism?" But as I discussed in a post months ago, and as many others have dis...

Amidst a free-falling roller coaster global economy, social capital is an encouraging bright spot. While traditional profit-driven capitalism has come into question, the social capital movement is budding, striving to do good and make money at once, shattering the traditional for-profit, non-profit dichotomy. I was a relative newbie at the first Social Capital Markets Conference (SoCap08) which took place last month in San Francisco and want to relay the encouraging vibe.

Looking to take a break from business and explore green messaging for your own audience? On Saturday, October 18th, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated actor and Grammy-nominated artist, Mos Def, will be joined by the full 30-piece Realistic Orchestra and very special guests – headlining the first annual Band Shell Music Summit, in Golden Gate Park’s (S.F.) Band Shell Music Concourse.

Image by:emptyheart

It’s an unfortunate but necessary evil that trash has to lay littering the streets until collection. It’s not clean and it’s not pretty. Well, it wasn’t until artist Adrian Kondratowicz collaborated with Renee Mlynaryk to design and produce a range of colorful trash bags which have decorated the streets of New York since May this year.

Various states and cities in North America are adopting legislation to target specific goals reducing their carbon footprints and they are ahead of the game compared to their federal counterparts. The projects highlight a display of creativity and appear feasible if only because they all have clear, measurable targets.

For years environmental management for businesses has been focused on the task of ensuring compliance with environmental regulations. Traditional business and financial analysis was not a critical component of their decision-making as much as simply ensuring that the organization was maintaining compliance status. Paper-based systems, Excel spreadsheets, and Access databases often satisfied the needs of most environmental professionals.

It's the London Festival of Architecture and the the architects have taken their furniture to the streets. Literally. Called 'London's Largest Living Room', the courtyard at Somerset House has been transformed into a complete suite of over-sized furniture on a colourful carpet. It was designed by Studio Weave with a pattern by Eley Kishimoto (a clothing and fabric designer) which is pink (the festival's colour) and inspired by the streetscape.

Preview day is a special treat--a chance to take an early look at the Chelsea Flower Show gardens whilst their designers are working frantically to finish them. There is such a hum of excitement, nerves and friendliness in the air in the midst of hundreds of pots of plants, tractors and mud. The themes this year seem to be very calm and restful gardens with muted colours, lots of green, cream flowers and water features.

The buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts last week announced a new partnership with Environmental Defense to help measure the environmental performance of the dozens of businesses KKR owns, from Toys R Us to the energy giant TXU. The partnership grows out of the collaboration between the two groups last year in brokering a deal for TXU. ED agreed to support the acquisition by KKR of TXU in exchange for KKR and its partner, Texas Pacific Group, agreeing to reduce TXU's carbon emissions and scotch its plans to build new coal-burning power plants.

After reading that a home in New Zealand was rather dramatically disturbed by a bit of falling mechanical trash, I began to wonder how often, exactly, the sky feels fit to fall on us. Not just airplane parts, or the occasional poo bomb, but meteorites, too, and anything else up there.

World-killing meteor, or clouds? You decide. Image from merriewells