Image source: http://timblair.net | Lights out for Sydney, Australia 2007

An http://greenprinteronline.com dispatch. 

Earth Hour is tonight, March 29th from 8 to 9 pm. The idea is to turn off the lights as a symbolic gesture that us citizens, business owners, uber-corporations (hello, Google’s black screen, hello McDonalds in Toronto saving 10 000 kilowatt hours) local governments and non-profit groups are taking climate change seriously.

Despite gripes that Earth Hour falls on the NCAA basketball regional, it’s lights out for over 23 major cities worldwide like Toronto and Bangkok.

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Image source | www.jiinjoo.com

An http://greenprinteronline.com dispatch.
When asked: how “green” are you, the brains behind accounting, IT and architectural firms who, kudos to them – both the closet greens or eco-warriors who proudly bear their eco-badge on their sleeve – jump up to say that they are helping their clients drive sustainability solutions.

Even lawyers are realizing their impact on their environment. No seriously, lawyers are sharp enough to know that using all that virgin paper cannot be good to the environment.

But when it comes to driving internal sustainability initiatives? Many still respond by: “we recycle”. Period.

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Photos by Chris Jordan | “Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption”

Design Goes Green - The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.

According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, used or unwanted electronics amounted to 1.9 to 2.2 million tons in 2005, with most of that ending up in landfills. We did a post earlier on the how the chemicals that seep into the soil, even decades later, can have harmful human health effects and the fact that heaps of the stuff are often left abandoned in developing countries.

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Image Source: http://www.replate.org

We ask design guru Nate Burgos, named Fast Company’s debut “Fast 50 Champions of Innovation“, to reflect on how the Internet changed how designers ‘make connections’ and why government and ‘big business’ should care about environmental sustainability and design activism.

Our take: major organizations should take a cue from the incredibly creative and nimble ways designers (who often, historically speaking, have a pulse on how online mediums work faster than business) are using the Internet and multi-media platforms to attract highly engaged users - not to mention high web traffic rates.

Here are nine websites to watch and more on what the ever quotable Burgos said on design activism, the Internet and sustainability…

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Image source: www.futureproofnola.com.

Design Goes Green - The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.

At some point, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that in order to “green” your marketing material, one needs to take a little extra time to plan ahead and live a “slow food” version of marketing. Yes, I hear the snickers and yes, even marketing speed demons can learn a thing or two from the slow movement.

So, for all you energizer bunnies out there, here are a few tips from Montreal based Vivace Design‘ s Karine Himbeault that, incidentally, we found take 60 seconds or less to actually carry out.

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Image source: www.inhabitat.com

Design Goes Green - The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.

Today, I caught the “story of stuff“: a 20-minute, fast-paced look at the dark underbelly of our consumption patterns. The clip exposes the links between a host of environmental and social issues while showing you the real cost of that $5 radio (metals from South Africa, 14 years olds from the Congo dropping out of school to work in factories…).

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Image Source: World Wildlife Federation - caption “15 km squared of rain forest disappears every minute”

A Design Goes Green Series by www.greenprinteronline.com.

Kevin Thompson of Rising Phoenix Design shares easy tips to green your advertising and marketing material in 2008.

Less is more.
If you’re smart, you can say a lot with very little. Thompson swears by low ink coverage for all Rising Phoenix Design printed pieces to create the sexy white space that you saw the big name ad firms use in their 2007 marketing material (the “Dear Ketel One Drinker. Can you find the subliminal message in this advertisement?” Followed by two-thirds of a page of white space ring a bell?)

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