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Ok, so it feels like every other web launch these days is environmentally flavoured. It is THE big thing. So it was only a metter of time beofre someone married the wiki model to the growing green phenomenon. And here it is… Playgreen is the green wiki that encourages all visitors to improve the knowledge of how to make a difference to our planet. “Together we are building the biggest book on green living”, says the homepage. And it could well turn into that if they attract enough people willing to contribute.
The Independent has a good story about Green.tv’s increase in popularity. Ade Thomas, founder of the environmental broadband channel, has been hard at work on this project for years, and cannot be accused of jumping on the green bandwagon.
Green.tv uses very high production standards to create environment-flavoured programmes, in fact, I believe that the majority of their progamming is in HD. They also host content created by other brands and content creators in this space. A must visit for anybody who is passionate about this subject.
I am sure that this is not the last footprint calculator we will feature here. This one is backed by WWF and supported by The Independent. It is really very easy to use – you just answer around 10 simple questions about travel, food, consumption, etc and then it tells you how many planets would be needed to support your lifestyle. It also tells you if you are under or over the UK average.
The killer is air travel. Everything else I do takes me well under the UK average, but the fact that I fly a fair bit to the US for work and a fair bit to Europe for leisure negates all the good things I do and means that I am really not helping the planet. I have cut down US trips by making them longer and taking in many more meetings in one trip, but it is difficult to cut them out completely when the company has at least 40% of its business in the US!
Discovery Channel (owners of TreeHugger.com) have created a new interactive tool called EarthLive that helps you track the state of the planet in a Google Earth kind of way.
You can use this interactive globe either to find environmental news (illustrated as red push pins) or to see how specific ecological events affected the world (in terms of sea temperature, rainfall, etc…). It’s a great way of using an interface we are getting used to (thanks to Google) and adding many layers of depth.
Today I found out about CNet’s new eco site SmartPlanet.com. It’s got loads of interesting articles about what people and businesses are doing; News on green issues and organic, fair trade and low-carbon products.
My 3 top articles are;
- Eco bloggers bring the landfill home
- SmartPlanet looks forward to Estethica at London Fashion Week
- Photos: MiniCat, the car that runs on air
I especially liked the article on the American Ari Delfer that has kept all his rubbish for a whole year – he’s planning on making a SuperSizeMe style film about the experience – although presumably he’d have to start all over again?
TreeHugger have a post detailing a recent survey that shows that Brits care more about animal welfare than climate change. Which, when you think about it, makes no sense. Animals will suffer (as will humans) from the effects of climate change, so those Brits who care so much about animals (and good on them) should make sure they focus their energies and ideas on the biggest threat to animals – climate change.
This site is kind of similar to the Greenopolis concept: (i) join up, (ii) learn about what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, and (iii) do it thanks to your friends/groups/communities.
Make Me Sustainable does allow you to sign up as an individual or a business or a family – which is a nice take on things – but the main difference for me is that this site has a great carbon footprint manager. There are loads of carbon calculators online, but this one is much more usable and motivational as you can see the effect your changes are having on your footprint.
A new green social network has been launched (in beta at the mo) – you join up, get access to a load of environmental tools and information and get to earn green points which you can then use to save money through the Greenopolis partners.
The site mixes education, interaction and collaboration for on and offline activities. It hopes to bring people together to make incremental and positive environmental changes in their every day lives.
Marks and Spencer are 12 months into their environmental campaign called Plan A. They’ve just launched this initiative with Oxfam – quite good idea….
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