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Last weekend's Financial Times has a good piece written by the editor of Country Life, giving us ten ways in which homes are going to change. Obviously, this refers mainly to homes for the wealthy..

Here's the list in brief..

1. More privacy because of increasing populations
2. Greener- less reliant on cars- the creation of communities that allow more walking
3. A return to traditional ways of building- rubble will be used, not thrown away
4. People will grow their own
5. Plastics will be ruled out and become like smoking and fatty fooods
6. A return to simple pleasures-small dinner parties, warn out couches, natural materials- the end of designer minimalism
7. Nature becomes more precious- so homes will blend the inside with the outside
8. Computers will run homes
9. Homes will become centers of interest and intellectual pursuit- it will not be about showing off- think of a lab as the next important room

Clearly, much of this stuff has been with us for years, but clearly the changing economy is going to be forcing this through at a faster pacer. Anyone in the home/housing business is going to need to take action.

One big example is Ikea, who has recently been pushing its sustainability policy pretty hard

Posted by Ed Cotton While the debate hasn't really started here in the US, over the pond in the UK, rival carbon credit companies are lashing out at one another.

'Our scheme comes purely from an environmental ethos, whereas this (CarbonCreditz) has been drummed up from a marketing perspective.'

Graham Simmonds, co-founder of Green Rewards

CarbonCreditz appears to be blazing quite a trail with over 1,000 partners signed up in its loyalty scheme.

In the US, there seems to be a combination of a lack of interest and some skepticism over the real benefits of carbon offsetting has slowed down the track to mass adoption.


Posted by Ed Cotton New Zealand is rapidly emerging as the the country that's doing most to brand itself "Green" and "Eco-Aware". The government has lots of smart policies, it promotes itself as a "pure" tourist destination, people seem to be moving there in droves to find the ecological lifestyle they desire, etc..

Then there's also the export business. Selling that New Zealand "purity" in packages to the rest of the world. I was thinking about this when our Media Director showed me a bottle of water she was drinking, Antipodes was its name. (see below).



While the design is stunning, it did raise a big question.

It struck me that New Zealand's green exporters have a massive challenge on their hands when they are trying to convince consumers that they are truly green, with the massive carbon footprints they generate with shipping and transportation.

Of course, according to its website, Antipodes appears to have anticipated the questions, but is far from transparent with its answers.

Clearly, there's a big communication challenge here and while striking design will win you lots of fans, you've got to have some decent answers to those relevant environmental questions, especially if you are using New Zealand as your "origin" to promote purity.


Posted by Ed Cotton Many thanks to all who attended this evening's event, to Eric, Hillary and Josh of Method who helped make it happen and of course, to Dawn for being the star of the show.

Dawn brought to life some of the challenges of pushing sustainability in a world that doesn't quite yet understand what it is or means.



She also shared with us a fascinating project she worked on years ago in Windsor, Ontario (the gateway town to Detroit) where she empowered citizens to think about sustainable city architecture and space.

Her presentation also explored some of the perils of so called "Green Design" where designers often end up creating more clutter, rather than identifying real solutions.

She suggested designers get to know where the impacts are located and find a way to hack them. As an example- she highlighted work done by designers to help reduce the pollution from motorcycle rickshaws in urban centers in the developing world.

Thankfully, the "crowd" engaged in some interesting discussion about consumer cynicism, corporate honesty, "Greenwashing", the real need for standards and consumer incentives.


Posted by Ed Cotton It's now a given that most multinationals are paying at least some attention to their ethical performance.

With the environment becoming such a big issue, the area of corporate responsibility is going to be under the microscope even more than in the past.

The problem is that there's very little performance measurement and comparative auditing between companies.

There are surveys and polls, but it's hard to find anything else that challenges and compares company standards.

It was therefore interesting to be send a press release from Covalence in Switzerland, who have been measuring and ranking companies on the their ethical performance for the past 3 years.

The company tracks performance by examining a variety of sources including the companies themselves, news media and non-profit organizations.

Covalence has just released its performance data for 2007 and there are some interesting findings.

The company provides three rankings.

1. Best Ethical Quote Score (positive minus negative news)

2. Best Ethical Progress

3. Best Reported Performance (How the company presents itself)

It's interesting and something of a challenge for US companies to see the foreigners, Unilever, Toyota and HSBC leading the way, with HP, Alcoa and Starbucks trailing in their wake.

On a cynical note, the US companies do a rather good job at talking up their own performance with Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola emerging as the leaders in that category.



Covalence also found that in 07, the environmental impact of production, eco product innovation and anti-corruption policy were the leading areas of ethical responsibility.

In addition to the annual report, Covalence provides real-time tracking of ethical peformance.

Useful if you manage an ethical funds or work in the CSR or PR department.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, audits and quality standards are going to emerge as an important issue for the environment and corporate ethics this and its good to see someone attempting to provide some comparative data.





Posted by Ed Cotton At last week's LA Auto Show, "Green' was the dominant message, it was almost a case of being too much.

Green slogans plastered everywhere, big press conferences where 68mpg fuel cell cars were being launched (but only 3 units would be available and there are no refuelling stations) and then there was the Escalade Hybrid.

Enough..


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.


Posted by Ed Cotton