Sustainability
2011 was a year full of smart technologies. We met Siri, snuggled up with the Kindle Fire, worked up a sweat with the Fitbit Ultra and even discussed the possibility of a robotic takeover in manufacturing. It was a busy year, yet there’s one trend in particular that grabbed my attention—the rise of smart packaging. [...]
It took ten years for Aaron LeMieux, founder and CEO of Tremont Electric, to turn his product idea into reality. LeMieux’s product—the nPower PEG (Personal Energy Generator)—is a universal charger powered by kinetic energy. The device fits into a backpack or clips onto a belt and uses the energy generated by a person’s movement to [...]
As I get ready to start my Thanksgiving cooking, I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing out by not having Christoph Thetard’s foot-pedal-powered kitchen appliance at my disposal. A giant pedal-powered flywheel generates enough energy to operate assorted attachments: a blender, a coffee grinder and a “kitchen machine” (which appears to be approximately equivalent [...]
A new sustainability standard, dubbed ULE 880—Sustainability for Manufacturing Organizations, is in development. The initial public comment period for the standard, which was authored by UL Environment (a division of Underwriters Laboratories) and Greener World Media, was recently completed, and the comments are now being reviewed. A recent article in the Kinaxis Supply Chain Expert [...]
For his final project in the University of Montréal’s design department, product designer Christophe Robillard asked, “If the bicycle is the standard bearer for sustainable transportation, shouldn’t the object itself communicate the same message?” The Victor Bike is his answer to his own question. By re-conceiving the shape of the frame, reducing the amount of [...]
The Herman Miller Mirra office chair has a lot of good things going for it: It is made of 42% recycled materials It is made with no PVC (read about PVC problems here) It is 96% recyclable It is Greenguard-certified and may qualify for LEED credits It’s also $600 for the basic model, which leads [...]
The betacup is a recently completed competition to re-imagine a coffee cup with reduced environmental impact. As many as 58 million coffee cups are discarded every year in the United States alone, and along with most of them, a sleeve that protects the holder’s hands from scalding. The proposed solutions offer a range of great [...]
According to UNICEF, in Ghana 25% of deaths in children under 5 are caused by diarrhea. In Northern Ghana, where more than half the population gets its water from wells, ponds and streams, this percentage is even higher. These water sources often contain disease-causing microorganisms because they’re too remote for centralized filtration and sanitation systems [...]
Most umbrellas today are cheap – literally and figuratively. They turn inside out at the slightest of winds. They are given away to advertise everything from tequila to the World Wildlife Fund. The handles are molded plastic, the spokes are pliable pot metal and the mechanisms seem to stick more often than not. They seem [...]
Anyone connected to the construction industry has been hit hard by the economy in the past few years. And now, unless a company is part of the green revolution, the construction industry is going to rebound without it. Vetrazzo recycled glass and concrete countertops are a green product—that’s what led me to select one for [...]
