Interactive Angle

Biggest Fast Food Chain That Is Local And Sustainable And Taking It Up A Notch

Burgerville is a gourmet fast food chain in the Pacific Northwest that is committed to Fresh, Local, Sustainable practices. The restaurant opened for business in the 1960s and now has 39 restaurants in Oregon and Washington. Although Burgerville certainly isn't the only fast food joint to source locally and act sustainably, it's one of the biggest chains that have gone that direction.

The chain uses local and sustainable ingredients in its food and is now taking its commitment a step further with new seasonal food combinations. Each menu item highlights a single in-season ingredient sourced from local farms committed to sustainable practices.

In addition to looking for partners that subscribe to sustainable practices, Bugerville has other sustainable initiatives such as:

•  Corporate-wide purchase of wind power credits
•  Recycling of used cooking oil into biodiesel
•  Composting and recycling programs

All sustainable practices are based around the belief, and the experience, that it is good business to adopt practices that are good for the local community and environment.

Source: Bugerville

Media Company That Does 100% Eco-Advertising - CURB™

CURB™ is the world's first natural media company that has created a portfolio of unique eco-advertising services. Their services are managed by a green team of creative experts that provide eco-friendly marketing solutions without impacting the environment. CURB's media portfolio only uses natural earth elements that are sustainable. Some examples of their marketing solutions include:

• Clean Advertising - Known as reverse graffiti, clean graffiti and street advertising, where laser cut stencils are used to clean dirt away from pavements and walls.
• Snow Tagging - Allows customers to brand snow.
• Solar Art - Uses the sun to burn the intricate patterns, portraits and logos into wood.
• h2 - Marketing and branding solutions using water.

Source: CURB™

Green Depot - Retailer Makes Eco-Conscious Shopping Easier

Green Depot was founded in 2005 by Sarah Beatty. Thier mission has been to make green building products and services readily accessible so that green building can be easily adopted into standard construction operations. Thier goal has been to help establish sustainable building as cost competitive, and provide products of the highest quality that are certified green.

What a great concept!

Make sure to check out their tips for rooms section.

• Babys Room
• Bathroom
• Kitchen
• Living Room
• Ultility Room

Source: Green Depot

GoodGuide.com Empowers You To Find Safe, Healthy And Green Products

Need to find out:

•  What chemicals are in your baby shampoo?
•  Was sweatshop labor used to make your t-shirt?
•  What products are the best, and what products should you avoid?

Good news! GoodGuide.com provides free and easy access to help you find products that represent your values, avoid products that are harmful to your health, the environment, or society – and enable you to take actions to help improve the world.

With GoodGuide, you can:

•  Find safe, healthy and green products that protect you and your family
•  Search or browse over 70,000 food, toys, personal care, & household  products to see what’s really beneath the label
•  Find better products and make purchasing decisions based on what’s important to you

Check out GoodGuide's iPhone and text messaging applications.

Source: GoodGuide.com

GE - Plug Into The Smart Grid

One of my friends pass this link on to me. Very cool site and great cause. Thanks Margaret!

General Electric’s “Ecomagination” campaign just released a new site - Plug Into the Smart Grid. This interactive experience is a seamless mix of 3D graphics, animations, data visualizations and educational content. To add to the already rich and interesting content, the site also uses some augmented reality techniques to allow users another way to interact with the site.

Source: GE Ecomagination

Google PowerMeter

Reducing energy consumption is clearly a global imperative, but before one can reduce it helps to know how much one is already consuming. Targeting the 40 million "smart meters" now in use worldwide—and the 100 million more soon to be added—Google is testing a new gadget that will take the information such devices collect and make it more easily accessible to the consumer.

Sign up for more information at: http://www.google.org/powermeter/contactus.html

Source: Google PowerMeter

NuRide - Online Community That Rewards Consumers For Driving Less

NuRide rewards users for doing their bit in reducing their carbon footprint. After registering with NuRide, members can connect with neighbours, friends and coworkers to organize ride shares and log their non-driving efforts. Akin to frequent flyer miles for mindful commuters, members earn points every time they share a ride, cycle into town or skip their commute by telecommuting. Regular NuRide users can receive around USD 350 per year in rewards, which can be exchanged for retailer discounts, gift cards, and tickets to shows and attractions.

The service addresses safety issues by only accepting users with email addresses issued by reputable employers, schools or universities. Users can specify particular criteria for those they wish to share with, and can blacklist people they don't want to ride with. Proving that carsharing can achieve critical mass, Nuride has almost 40,000 users, who have been rewarded with over USD 1.5 million in return for cutting out 2 million car trips.

Since members specify their trip origin, destination, travel preferences and vehicle information, sponsors—the companies that provide rewards—can target highly specific sets of consumers, both nationally and locally. NuRide currently operates in eight regions in the US, with many other areas left to be serviced.

Source: NuRide