The “Think” trainer is a running shoe composed of modular parts assembled with mechanical locks instead of adhesives or cements, meaning each part of this intelligent design can be removed, recovered and recycled. This also means that you could buy extra parts in different colors and change the look of your shoe any time you want! Read more…
ReProduct’s Zero Waste Greeting Cards are 100% reusable. This is how it works: you send a greeting card to your loved one in a two-way envelope. Similar to Netflix, once your loved one is done enjoying the card, they just place it in the postage paid self-addressed return portion of the envelope and drop it in the mail. The card ends up at Shaw Industries, where 100% of the card is reused in the manufacturing of Shaw carpet tiles. Read more…
Eager to know what products are currently incorporating C2C strategies after reading Cradle to Cradle, I set out to do a bit of internet research, expecting to be blown away by numerous innovative products. Instead I found a lot of criticism directed towards William McDonough for thwarting the many designers eager to implement their C2C designs because of his legal ownership of the term. Read more…
Unlike the previous generation of sustainability manifestos that pit the economy against equity & ecology, Cradle to Cradle “sees commerce as the engine of change” and allows one to embrace their inner capitalist by proposing a sustainable world of guilt-free growth, prosperity and abundance. Instead of viewing consumer waste through the austere lens of the 3 R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle a.k.a. downcycle), McDonough and Braungart, inspired by the abundance of nature, propose the visionary idea of designing consumer products as either biological nutrients or technical nutrients. Read more…
[ March 24, 2009; 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. ] Please join us for a tour of Bird, a boutique clothing store located in Williamsburg currently seeking LEED Silver certification. This space, designed by Ole Sondresen Architect and constructed by WM Dorvillier & Company, Inc., features locally salvaged wood, energy efficient lighting and controls, as well as low-flow water fixtures. The project is on track [...]