My Biotiful Bag

I love canvas bags. Handbags, beach bags, grocery bags, you name it.  And if the bag is made from 100% organic cotton, I go a little bit crazy for it. Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting with Ragnhild Greve-Isdahl, one of the founders of the My Biotiful Bag brand–aka my new favorite [...]

Animal Waste as Renewable Fuel

It’s time to get back to writing! I spent part of this summer studying abroad in the lush, verdant country of Costa Rica.  And it was there, at a women’s cooperative in a little village called Hone Creek, that I discovered that pigs can power a kitchen.   …Or at least their manure can fuel [...]

Tulane City Center

Since Katrina there has been an influx of creative minds and generous donations to the city of New Orleans.  The Tulane School of Architecture has utilized the countries re-kindled love of their hometown to finance several design build projects.  With encouragement and support from the faculty, these projects are led and executed by students at [...]

Greener Gadgets Design Competition

The Greener Gadgets Competition is at it again, now in its third year running.  Held in NYC, the competition is part of the Greener Gadgets Design Conference–a gathering of forward-thinking electronic companies, innovators, and inventors from around the globe.  Entrants to the event are put to the task of creatively and aesthetically solving energy consumption [...]

Trash Talk

I’m on the downtown improvement board where I live and trying to encourage some sustainable decisions that will make living green just a little easier.  One pretty obvious idea: make recycling accessible to everyone!  It makes me cringe to see the large public cans overflowing with cardboard, paper, and water bottles.  So we just need [...]

Mud Graffiti

While listening to NPR recently, I caught the end of an interview with Jesse Graves, a sort of environmental street artist based in Wisconsin.  Graves works with mud the way El&Abe design with live moss–combining organic elements with the tradition of graffiti. He shuns the more common medium of toxic spray paint for mud “because [...]

Moving Windmills: The William Kamkwamba Story

If you are ever stuck thinking that you don’t have the tools or resources to be innovative, think again!   At the age of 14, Malawian William Kamkwamba Malawan created a functioning wind turbine after merely seeing an image of one!  Inspired by the dream of providing his family with electricity and a water pump, William’s [...]

Ross Lovegrove

Ross Lovegrove is sui generis in the world of designers.  His idiosyncratic approach to product design is organically breathtaking– fluid in appearance, and revolutionary in composition.  He describes himself as “an evolutionary biologist, more than a designer.”  This quote coming from one of the few sources I could find information on this incredible innovator, in [...]

The Indoor Mini-Garden

I live in an apartment without any yard to speak of (the crawling vines on my building’s fence don’t really count), so there isn’t a place where I can grow my own yummy, organic veggies, even though I want to!  Neither do I possess the green thumb needed to sustain a living plant. Needless to [...]

Fun Can Change the World

My heart swells a little each time I watch the above videos from the Fun Theory.  Simple, yet well produced, each of the Fun Theory projects realizes great success.  Their theory has been proven: “that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. Be it for yourself, [...]

Treehugger’s Wishlist

I fully intend to post my own green wish list, but in the meantime, Treehugger’s “2009 Gift Guide: Have a Slow Holiday” is a great head start!  With 12 categories and over 100 gifts you can pinpoint every person on your list with a meaningful green gift!  A few of my favorites on the list: [...]

TED- “ideas worth spreading”

Lately, I’ve been completely hooked on watching TED videos.  A good TED clip can give me everything I’m looking for when I have a few moments of free time… information, happiness, tears, confusion, awe, amazement, empathy, and more than anything, inspiration. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, the three elements which were the founding premise [...]

How Green is your Facebook?

It’s no surprise that we use up quite a bit of energy, both physically and electronically, on our social networking!  Good thing the helpful leaders at Facebook have taken a stance and are helping ease the carbon footprint of our addiction with their new offices!  Their new digs located in Palo Alto owe their innovative [...]

Green Lab Design Studio

What sets Los Angeles-based Green Lab Design Studio apart from a multitude of other event agencies?  Is it:   A.  The utilization of organic chefs and healthy edibles for food service,  B.  Building an event space using energy efficient and recycled elements in construction, or  C.  Employing certified organic cleaning supplies in the cleanup of [...]

Blog Action Day!

Are you celebrating?!  Have you joined?  Today is Blog Action Day and we here at Innovate are partaking in the festivities (kind of).  Blog Action Day was founded in 2007 by Collis & Cyan Ta’eed.  The concept behind the ‘event’ is to have bloggers commit to dedicating one day of their blog to recognize an [...]