As part of its efforts to become the greenest brewer in the world, Heineken is taking a broader look at the ways to make beer packaging more sustainable. In what seems to become a common practice lately, Heineken doesn’t leave the challenge only to its R&D people, but invites everyone to give it a try on Ideas Brewery, an open-innovation platform, offering $10,000 to the best idea. Is the company’s American Idol style of crowdsourcing a better way to generate new ideas or just a marketing gimmick?

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This month, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute issued its maiden certifications for the products that met their protocol for design and manufacturing.

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For over 115 years architecture and engineering students at Georgia Tech have watched the Atlanta skyline grow upward and outward. Now a seeminingly chronic recession has stopped growth. Credit: Courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology By Richard Thornton It is all too rare to read news about the continuing catastrophic problem in today’s United States [...]

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Innovations sometimes fail not because of any inherent fault of their own. And if they do fail once, they’re seldom given a second chance. Which, in many cases, is a terrible waste of a good idea.

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. By: JM Hutch The Hayden Flour Mill currently stands derelict and deserted like a sentinel at the century-old [...]

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Source4Style is using the Internet to facilitate commerce between two groups that are disconnected in the global marketplace – the leading sustainable suppliers and the independent designers and apparel brands that are trying to find them.

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Fishing practices that once sought to maximize the size of the catch, as efficiently as possible through the use of GPS and tracking devices, have led to a dire situation: severely depleted fish populations. The focus must now turn from the quantity of the catch to the quality of the catch.

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. By Ryan Wilday As an industrial designer, and design strategist, I am a prolific user of paper. Whether [...]

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Imagine a product that has zero landfill elements.  A product that cycles into new products, or decomposes completely.  That’s the principle of Cradle to Cradle, where waste from one process is a food input for another– the way things happen in the natural world. In this interview, Bridgett Luther, the President of the Cradle to [...]

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I recently had a chance to chat with Carl Eckersley, Director, Environmental Product Stewardship, Personal Systems Group, at HP.  He provided insight not only on designing for environmental sustainability at HP by taking account the entire life cycle (LCA) of the product, but also how the electronics industry has joined forces to push forward the human dimension of sustainability. [...]

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. by Amy Gustincic While waiting in the train station on my way out of San Francisco International Airport [...]

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. By Arash Shirinbab Eight years ago I had my first opportunity to engage as a product designer when [...]

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. By Lauren Nham “…You have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision [...]

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With the holidays over, its time to take down the stockings from the fireplace hearth, that is if you have a fireplace and chimney to begin with.  It is fairly common in buildings today to forgo the fireplace and chimney all together.  Modern heating and air conditioning technology fill the void of heating a room. [...]

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Gavin Conway, a writer for the UK’s Sunday times, recently set out for a country drive. Quite the drive, in fact: his drive ended up lasting three days, on a three-day trip that took him from Maidstone, Kent, to the south of France, and almost all of the way back, on one tank of diesel. Now Conway can brag that he’s in the Guinness World Book of Records for his 1,526.63 mile drive, apparently now the longest distance ever driven by a production passenger car on one tank of fuel.

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Project H Design is a collective of designers who believe in the power of good design to change the world. Founded last year by architect and designer (and former Inhabitat.com managing editor) Emily Pilloton, the non-profit will kick off it its Design Revolution Road Show in February. During this tour, the crew will haul an [...]

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by Kurt McCulloch When I was 18 years old, I voluntarily sequestered myself for nine-months on a narrow strip of rugged volcanic coastline on a tiny island in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. For almost a year, I worked, slept, ate, and socialized inside an area bounded by mountains and the sea. Everything [...]

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By Ryan Opina “Great concepts and great vision are not enough to make an impact. Designers must recognize the challenges around implementation and deliver comprehensive prototypes with clear implementation plans.” -Tim Brown – Designing for Social Impact Grand visions of a breakthrough product. A service experience that will change the world. A video game that [...]

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