Focus: Latest

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Recyclebank: incentivising eco behaviour

Recyclebank is a New York City-based start-up that seeks to incentivise eco-friendly behaviour by awarding its users points for performing green actions. These points can then be redeemed for discounts and deals from the company's partner businesses.

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Honest by: transparent fashion retail

Honest by is a fashion brand which offers designer products and is completely open about the raw materials and manufacturing processes it uses. It is also honest about its pricing structures, offering a full cost breakdown of each garment.

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Ecopatente

Italy has launched Ecopatente, a project that enables young drivers to obtain a 'green' driving licence. Driving schools across the country are not only teaching people how to drive, but also how to drive in an environmentally conscious way.

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Living Pharmacy

Living Pharmacy is an ongoing project that hopes to bring about understanding of ancient natural remedies, verify their effects and teach millions of poor Brazilians how to cultivate them both cheaply and effectively.

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Transparency Toolbar

Transparency Toolbar makes ethical online shopping quick and easy for consumers by discovering products that are safe, healthy, green and socially responsible. It caters to a consumer behaviour that should be central to brands' strategies.

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Abe's Market

Abe’s Market, a Chicago-area start-up, sells natural products online. As a local co-op, this innovative business is a thriving example of the power of True Stories, and shows the benefits of bringing the personal touch to online retail.

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Minimize me

The Swedish family-run restaurant Max Burgers isn't your typical burger joint; it advises consumers to eat less beef. How can the counter-intuitive practice of discouraging consumption of a core ingredient work as a strategy?

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Wellness Club

Supermarket chain Whole Foods is piloting Wellness Club, a community that helps its members lead healthier, happier lives. For a fee, members receive access to lectures, courses, support, supper clubs and other special events.

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No packet required

Located in Austin, Texas, in.gredients is a retailer with a twist: it aims to be 'the first package-free and zero-waste grocery store in the US'. Following in the footsteps of similar initiatives, the project trades convenience for ethics.

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Setsuden

In the face of post-tsunami energy shortages, Japan has embraced setsuden culture. Translated as 'saving electricity', setsuden is an extreme example of collective effort and an authentically Japanese approach to environmentalism.

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Puma's green accounting

Last month, the German multinational sports company Puma published the results of the world’s first Environmental Profit and Loss (P&L) Account, making all social and ecological action visible in the company's finances.

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Redefining suburbia

Residents of Levittown, PA were encouraged to “discover their inner service providers." They set up a small community enterprise which taps into a desire for self-sufficiency and indicates the overlap between public and private space in small communities.

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Donate by doing

DoNation is an online sponsorship tool with a difference: no money is involved. Instead, sponsors donate by doing. Focused on environmental change, DoNation believes that, unlike most other charitable causes, sustainability requires action, not money.

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Reimagining Cleveland

Reimagining Cleveland is a sustainability project that articulates a growing awareness of abandoned spaces and an increasing shift towards local production and consumption by a self-sufficient community.

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Mariposeando

Mariposeando is a unique conservation business in Spain which breeds rare butterflies for events. The insects are then released into the wild – a meaningful spectacle which ties into consumers' Natural Mindset.

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ReDigi: recycling digital music

ReDigi is a marketplace for buying and selling legally purchased mp3s. The service aims to create the world’s first legally sound platform for the distribution of second hand digital music.

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Club Kanazawa

Club Kanazawa is a luxury travel club in Japan. Travellers are escorted by a concierge to fleeting moments which typify the Japanese way of life. The city markets salvation for the West through meaningful experiences rooted in Zen Buddhism.

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geoGirl

Wal-Mart’s new geoGirl line of ‘natural’ beauty products in recyclable packaging is controversially targeted at 8 to 12 year-old girls. It taps into this generation’s increasing influence as a powerful and informed consumer group.

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Petit H: upmarket upcycling

Petit H might be the first example of a sustainable spinoff from a luxury brand. Furthermore, it doesn’t compromise the hard-won Hermes identity. The quirky accessories were first introduced in at the Paris flagship November 2010.

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Wheelmap

Wheelmap is an open-source map for people with restricted mobility - a Google Places for accessibility. The app enables those in a wheelchair to discover and share accessible places on-the-go, be it a café, shop, restaurant or pub.