Can green be beautiful? Logically, it would seem like green and beauty would go hand-in-hand, yet sustainable design is widely considered unattractive. Sustainable Brands 2012 emcee Lance Hosey, CEO of GreenBlue and author of The Shape of Green, argues that “if sustainable design is intended to act like nature, it should knock your socks off.” Triple Pundit
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A contest to encourage environmentally friendly and energy efficient practices at area businesses concluded Thursday as the winners of the Better Business Challenge were announced. The nonprofit GreenBlue won two awards. They received one of two “kilowatt crackdown” awards for reducing energy consumption and another for reducing waste by 40 percent by introducing composting. Charlottesville Tomorrow
Lance Hosey is a former columnist with Architect magazine and the co-author, with Kira Gould, of Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design (Ecotone Publishing, 2007). His latest book, The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design (Island Press, 2012), outlines a clear set of principles for aesthetics and sustainable design, and studies how form and image can enhance conservation, comfort, and community at every scale of design, from products to cities. Building Magazine
Anyone who tries to do the right thing and recycle has experienced it: the utter confusion that certain products induce with their packaging. But a new label tries to address the vague and oftentimes misleading recycling messages. Los Angeles Times
About 10 nationally known companies are adopting a recycling label redesign led by Charlottesville-based nonprofit GreenBlue and its Sustainable Packaging Coalition. The Charlottesville Daily Progress
Among the foremost challenges faced by waste and recycling services providers is educating the public about exactly what is and is not suitable for the recycling bin. Beyond that, many items that can be recycled don’t necessarily belong in a curbside bin. And if a package contains multiple components made of different materials, a single, nondescript recycling symbol does not make it clear which parts are recyclable or how to handle them. Waste Age
In November 2009, the cover story of Scientific American beckoned to me from a newsstand: “A Plan for a Sustainable Future.” Upon closer inspection, alas, I found the subtitle in smaller print: “How to get all energy from wind, water, and solar power by 2030.” Does a “sustainable future” mean merely ridding the world of greenhouse gases? Design Observer
We often hear sustainability described as an iterative process, or a stepped journey to “mount sustainability” as industrialist and environmentalist Ray Anderson put it. At the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) spring meeting in Toronto, I reflected on the body of work the SPC has produced over its eight-year journey on the path towards sustainable packaging. Packaging Digest
Another label is coming to popcorn, yogurt and other products, but instead of adding to the visual noise caused by some confusing labels, this one is designed to give plain and simple recycling information. The How2Recycle label, created by nonprofit GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), will pop up on 10 companies’ products throughout the summer and into 2013. GreenBiz
Even though communication about recycling is pretty common, according to the nonprofit GreenBlue, these messages are often vague, misleading, or just plain incorrect. As a way to resolve some of these label issues, GreenBlue and its Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) arm have launched the How2Recycle Label, a voluntary recycling label initiative. Plastics Today
