Big companies’ eco-friendly approaches: What can other companies do?

Even though there are many smaller companies that really care about the environment, big companies should care more about it because they can put greater impact on society. However, it is a good sign that small and big companies are now making eco-friendly movement within their offices and with their services.

1. Starbucks

image from starbucks.com 

Starbucks, along with other coffee shop brands, is selling re-useable cup sleeves and tumblers to save trees. They promote it by discounting the price of coffee when ordered with a tumbler. I hope customers buy more tumblers and replace more cups with them.

2. Bank of America

image from bankofamerica.com

Bank of America is also going greener. Bank of America is reducing paper use and increasing the amount of recycled papers. In addition to that, it is reducing its global greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015. By reducing the paper of receipt you get from everywhere, the trees can be saved and the trash can be reduced. I hope digital receipts can replace these paper receipts in the future. 

3. Coca-Cola 

image from coca-colacompany.com

Coca-Cola is driving its plant-based packaging innovation-PlantBottle Technology. The PlantBottle packaging is the first PET plastic bottle made partially from plants that is completely recyclable. You can easily find the PlantBottle logo on the packaging. 

sources

coca-colacompany.com

bankofamerica.com

Eco Fashion and the Environment: What’s Next?

Eco Fashion Week – Vancouver 2015
Have you heard about the Eco Fashion Week? You probably heard about the Fashion Week but not the ‘Eco’ Fashion Week, right?
The fashion industry is one of the most damaging industries to our planet. The purpose of the Eco Fashion Week is to promote and establish the knowledge of sustainable fashion by educating consumers and designers. The smart ways of reusing, disposing and using clothes are introduced in this event. Eco Fashion Week – Vancouver 2015 will be celebrated on April 19 to 24 in 2015.

images from www.ecofashion-week.com/

video from youtube.com

Eco-friendly fashion trends

The idea of eco-friendly fashion is to protect the environment with innovative designs. Designers never give up the aesthetic part of it. The manufacturing process of clothes and textile is damaging the environment and many designers and leaders of this field are aware of it. The trend is to advertise this awareness and make meaningful movements among the designers, companies, and factories. Currently, numbers of fashion brands are participating in eco-friendly movement and making changes in the industry. Some of the eco-friendly fashion brands are Alabama Chanin, Della, Doctor Couture, and Three Leaves. These kinds of socially responsible fashion lines are gradually growing in the market and consumers are starting to be aware of this as well.

So, what’s next? A pair of pants that dispose by itself? A t-shirt that melts away in time? Who knows?


sources
www.buzzfeed.com
www.ecofashion-week.com/

Alternative Energy & Green Architecture: For a Better World

Image from http://www.ciginvest.com/

Alternative energy

Several years ago, I had a chance to do a green design project in my product design class. By researching and learning about green design, I realized that this is what I want to pursue as a product designer in the future. For the final design concept, I came up with a solar powered public bus station. The purpose of it was to save energy and create eco-friendly community. The floor of this bus station was made out of wasted tires to give comfort on legs while waiting for buses. I came up with this solution to recycle wasted tires. The solar powered touch screen monitor shows the time, schedule, destination, routes and etc.

The common types of alternative energy are...

• Solar energy      
• Wind energy
• Geothermal energy
• Biofuel and ethanol
• Nuclear binding energy 
• Hydrogen

Green architecture

Green architecture, or sustainable architecture is a rising star everywhere. Many countries are currently investing on green building & energy saving projects. The goal of green architecture is to use less energy, less materials, less space, and etc. Green building makes heating, ventilation and cooling system efficient and is a field to look up to for the greener future.

Raefer Wallis, an architect, talks about the green architecture that regenerates in this TED video.

Video from http://www.youtube.com/

What is 'Green Design'?

image from connect.innovateuk.org

What is green design?

Green design, eco-design, and sustainable design are the terms that describe the area of design that eliminates the negative impact a product design can make on the environment. A green design is a building plan that intentionally makes use of natural materials, according to BusinessDictionary.com. A lot of times, the goal of green design is to minimize the use of non-recyclable materials and replace them with natural resources that are reusable and safe to environment.

Professor Jonathan Chapman of the University of Brighton, UK described in his book, Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences & Empathy that emotionally durable design reduces the consumption and waste of natural resources by increasing the resilience of relationships established between consumers and products.

There are several different design fields that use this theory to increase the ‘emotional durability’ and protect environment.

•      Eco fashion
•      Sustainable architecture
•      Sustainable landscape
•      Sustainable graphic design
•      Sustainable packaging design
•      Disposable products

The use of alternative energy is a big part of the green design too. These are some of the examples.

•          Solar powered lantern
•      Water powered cell phone charger
•      Wind powered fan

In this blog, I would like to share some of the examples of green design to show how they look, how they work and how they can impact the environment around us… because we love our planet so much!