I have to admit, I love cork – and not just because the source (the Cork Oak tree) bears an uncanny resemblance to my last name. I love the texture, color, and possibilities this humble material offers. I love that a porous material with contrasting rich earthy substance and negative space molds into sheets of two-dimensional strength. Here are just a few reasons for you to love cork, too.

Benjamin Hubert designs a heap of gorgeous products to suspend from your ceiling. The Float pendant (a hand turned Portuguese agglomerate cork lamp) is just one of Mr. Hubert’s creations to covet.

The Phillip Jeffries Java Cork Collection is an inspired wallpaper gathering; Ebony Cork with Gold is a dream of natural cork with a gold metallic underlay. This unexpected partnership of earthy and gleam is absolutely stunning. These Balloon Shakers designed by Japanese architect Masayuki Kurokawa (available at Merchant 4) are a translucent and enlightening way to display salt, pepper, and vivid spices.

The Puf Fup by Corque (designed by Ana Mestre) is envisioned to “challenge the creativity of its user” through a cohesive, continuous string of perfect cork spheres that invites sculpting your perfect (wildly comfortable) seat.

Who’s on your gift list? This year, spread the holiday spirit of giving beyond your family, friends and coworkers to people, animals and places in need. With these green gift ideas, your money can go towards preserving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, bringing food to Darfur refugees, helping struggling artisans of Bangladesh, supporting pandas and much more.

Sponsor a Wild Place in honor of a loved one through the Sierra Club. Here’s how it works: choose from 10 national parks, and your gift recipient will receive a stuffed animal, backpack and information about the habitat at risk. In return, every cent of the proceeds goes towards protecting the environment.

Made out of recycled materials and colored with soy-based inks, Mission: China is much more than just a trading card game that educates children about endangered species. Conservation International receives a percentage of the profit and puts this money towards protecting biodiversity.

Kill three birds with one powerful present. With the Race for the Cure Tumbler, you can check a friend off your gift list and help her kick that bottled water habit. Plus, a quarter of the proceeds goes toward the fight against breast cancer.

When you buy this solar-powered BoGo flashlight for a friend or family member, your gift is more than just green. BoGo is a familiar term in the retail world, but, instead of getting something free, you will be giving one of these eco-friendly flashlights to somebody in need. Or, you can choose to donate it to a charitable organization of your choice.

The aftermath of Cyclone Sidr continues to affect millions of people along the southwestern coast of Bangladesh, even two years after this devastating natural disaster. Purchasing this Handmade Coconut Leaf Journal is one way that you can help struggling artisans from this impoverished area get back on their feet.

Keep two pairs of feet cozy in eco-friendly style when you give a loved one a pair of TOMS vegan shoes because, for every pair purchased, one goes to a child in need.

When you give this Save Darfur Organic Cotton T-Shirt and Hat set to one of the passionate humanitarians in your life, Mercy Corps pledges to give 25 cups of food to the refugees of this war-torn region.

Similar to Sponsor a Wild Place, Adopt a Species puts your money towards helping one of dozens of species in need. Depending on the donation, your gift recipient will get a stuffed animal, gift bag, gift box and information about the species and a color photo.

Your purchase of the Absolutely Alpaca Scarf, free of toxic chemicals and dyes, helps bring education and health care to Circle of the Sun artisans and their families in rural Bolivia.

When you buy one of Jimmy Belasco’s scented soy candles, $5 of the cost is donated to a charity of your choice.

Not only is this Asian Harmony Chime hand-crafted with care from sustainable resources like bamboo and river rocks, but your purchase of one also supports artisans from the Community Crafts Association in the Philippines.

For every Glass Rainforest Leaf Necklace you buy for gift recipients who love to accessorize, the La Cruz Habitat Protection Project will plant a tree in Mexico’s monarch butterfly forest.

Shopping on a budget? The Arbor Day Foundation offers an inexpensive and meaningful gift that benefits the environment. For just $3, you can present a loved one with a spruce, redwood or pine tree, which comes in a recyclable tube that doubles as a birdfeeder once they plant it.

Treat a friend to a Lush Charity Pot of hand and body cream made from fair-trade cocoa butter, and all of the profit, minus taxes, goes toward the charity of their choice, which is featured on the lid to remind them of the good their gift has done.

When you purchase this hand-welded Let Freedom Ring Basket, your gift helps to support Noah’s Ark artisans in the impoverished community of Moradabad, India through fair wages and a safe work environment.

Still pushing the idea of reusable shopping bags on your friends? By getting them a stylish EnviroVogue Recycled Plastic Tote, a donation is made to support the fight against breast cancer, the Maasai Association or the Kajiado Central District of Kenya. That should persuade them.

Support artisans from Mai Vietnamese Handicrafts with your purchase of this Cinnamon Bark Tea Box, the perfect gift for friends who enjoy nothing more than a steaming cup of chamomile.

Give the gift of organic skincare with chemical-free soap, shower gel, face wash, lotion and more from Pangea Organics. The best part? They all come in recycled packaging that is inlaid with spruce seeds. All they have to do is soak it, plant it and wait two weeks for a spruce tree to emerge.

The Bamboo Watch Project in Chiang Rai receives a donation for every Recycled Rice Bag Roll-Up Toiletry Bag sold, and these inexpensive green gifts make great stocking stuffers.

Help the Pekerti Foundation provide rural artisans of Indonesia with scholarships, medical assistance, loans and emergency aid by purchasing these Handmade Lava Rock Tea Lights to garnish a bare tabletop in a loved one’s living room.

Images: HBuzacott, xekostore, BoGoLight, TOMS Shoes, World Wildlife Fund, the rainforest site, curbmantlegifts, LUSH USA, the rainforest site, Pangea Organics and Ten Thousand Villages.

Imagine a small German village inhabited by a young shoemaker named Johann Birkenstock. Birkenstock creates comfy shoes for villagers, launching (though he’ll never know it) a new approach to footwear and a label that will be  recognized by millions around the world.

Generations of the Birkenstock family have been designing and crafting footwear since 1774, but in the 1890s, Konrad Birkenstock (Johann’s descendant and a custom shoemaker himself) got the idea of creating a curved shoe reflecting the true shape of the human foot with contoured arch support.

Konrad and his son Carl improved and refined the arch supports over the next 50 years, creating their trademarked  “footbed supports.”

We were lucky to catch up with Birkenstock spokesman Tom Suiter recently to see where Birkenstock is headed since its humble beginnings in 1774.

The original Birkenstock was designed with whom in mind?

Everyone! We believe that having comfortable supportive footwear leads to overall well-being.

Talk about the inspiration for the design and fabrics.

The concept behind our iconic footbed design is that the shape of the shoe should mirror the shape of a healthy foot. All of our styles follow this principle.

The contours ensure proper weight distribution with raised arches to help support the foot’s natural shape and structure. The toe bar allows the toes to grip and flex, stimulating circulation, exercising the leg and helping to maintain balance. The deep heel cup keeps the foot’s natural padding under the heel to provide stability. As a result of these factors, the correct bones bear the weight of the body to help keep the spine and legs in alignment.

Our materials are always of the highest quality – but we always try to leave as small a footprint on the earth as possible. Our cork, the core of our footbed, is completely natural, renewable and biodegradable supporting a centuries-old tradition. Our buckle factories are powered almost exclusively by solar power; all our adhesives are water based; our packaging is kept to a minimum (shoe boxes and tissue) and is made of 90% post-consumer waste and our product is all designed with the value of being repairable verse disposable.

On this fabulous foundation we offer colors and materials that are classic and timeless; as well as closely following the trends of the fashion world and offering this seasons stylish colors – so we’re always offering a comfortable way to be fashionable.

People associate the original “crunchier” side of eco with Birkenstocks but they’ve actually gotten a lot more hip over the years. Do Birkenstocks really need to evolve?

Yes and no. Birkenstock has always been about comfort, but we’ve stayed on trend in terms of forecasting colors men and women are drawn to. Our classic looks are widely regarded and well received by our loyalists, but we’ve brought new people into the brand with new materials and colors. One way we have evolved recently is to expand our Soft Footbed collection, this footbed has an additional layer of foam for a extra cushioning without compromising arch support. Perfect for first time wearers or someone who needs a bit of extra comfort.

Was there any point that sales dipped or peaked since Birkenstock became a company?

In the USA our sales have grown year over year since we started here in 1966. Our current spring/summer season has been remarkable, especially with fashion-forward consumers who have responded to the Gizeh and Madrid – key products in our Spring/Summer 09 line. Everyone one from the fashion media to celebrities were seen in these products and we’ve felt real enthusiasm across the board.

I see more teenagers and 20-somethings wearing Birkenstocks and clogs. Is the nod to more stylish fabrics being inspired by them?

It’s not just an approach to innovating and finding stylish fabrics, it’s where we are culturally, too. The media right now are reporting on a trend where people want to take care of their feet more. Styles that used to be worn for leisure or on the way to work – are now being worn in the work place. That and the cultural shift to being conscious of your environmental footprint. People can achieve all these things with Birkenstock and look stylish too.

How do you see the Birkenstock line evolving over the next 5 years?

We will always stay true to our founding principles: our footbed, our commitment to the environment and offering our favorite styles and colors as well as the latest color trends.  What we would like to see is everybody evolving to our thinking and embracing this focus

As hungry workers nationwide kiss moral-boosting bonuses and office parties goodbye, at least one Minnesota employer is adding rather than subtracting a perk for his people: an organic vegetable garden for enjoying the fruits of their labor.

The Dude Ranch in Delano, Minn. (30 minutes outside downtown Minneapolis) is the brainchild of Fred and Sarah Haberman, Co-Founders of Haberman Public Relations. Based on a community-supported agriculture (CSA) model, the plot is a working garden that has replaced the water cooler as the employee gathering place. But instead of spreading gossip, salaried locavores are spreading seeds, hoeing, raking and fertilizing fresh tomatoes, onions, potatoes, peppers, peas, green beans, herbs, broccoli, cabbage and beets.

“At the end of the day, it’s an experiment but one that is reaping incredible rewards,” a passionate Haberman tells me. “People are coming out to the farm, relaxing, learning where their food comes from and what it looks like when it is in the earth.”

Among the staff nurturing greener pastures are urban apartment dwellers in downtown Minneapolis who have never done any gardening or spent time in the country. This includes public relations executives representing Haberman clients like Organic Valley, Annie’s Homegrown, Country Choice Organics, NCGA (National Coop Grocers Assoc), and the Organic Trade Association, to name a sustainable few.

“It’s our mission to tell the stories of food pioneers in the organic and sustainable agriculture realm and working the garden lets us learn as much as possible about what our clients go through as they grow food so we can walk our talk, so to speak,” says Haberman.

That talk naturally includes corporate speak, such as “team-building opportunities” and “economic incentives” which are motivators for Haberman in landing this back-to-nature account for his underlings.

In terms of the big picture, he’d  like to inspire other businesses to adopt his farm model and replace health care memberships and other perks with a field of dreamy crops. Hey, if the White House can do it, why not Pepsi?

“The idea of creating a movement, getting other companies to adopt this new employee benefit really excited me because so many good things happen,” he says. ” You create an opportunity for people to buy foods without pesticides; you get families meeting each other in a calm rural setting; and allow more conscious food choices.”

Haberman staffers, aided by a few experienced gardeners, will spend the summer and fall planting, tending and harvesting their own produce. Minneapolis is known for its big chills and strong weather patterns, and Haberman says he and the staff have been learning more about how that effects the crops as they play farmer on days off.

“The ground in the beginning of this year was so dry it was like concrete, three inches below the surface,” Haberman remembers. “Today it rained and all I could think was ‘thank God!’ You open your eyes and snap out of your urban bubble and understand what small farmers are going through. Their income is largely based upon the weather.”

But what if it turns out to be like Green Acres and the city folks decide to leave their concrete jungle for the rural paradise?

“I guess we’ll just have to change our business model,” jokes Haberman, who adds he many workers are now heading out to the garden without his directing the activities. “I put something in motion and it’s exciting as it takes hold.”

Meantime, the company is planning its first Dude Stock at the ranch this fall, a party to celebrate the harvest. Haberman put the concept on the web and the community is responding enthusiastically, including a chef from the organic restaurant, Corner Table, who has offered to come cook at the event.

“A lot of us are cooking what we are growing, but this guy is head and shoulders above the rest.”

Images: Haberman Modern Storytellers

If you’re thinking about shifting to biomass-fuelled appliances, beware – they might not be as clean as you think.

It’s true that biomass is a renewable, and therefore technically green, fuel. It’s also part of the carbon cycle, as burning wood and any other plant matter releases carbon dioxide into the air.

The main ecological advantage between such fuels and fossil fuels is that with biomass, the carbon is continually cycling – it hasn’t been locked away underground, and it can theoretically be tracked, offset and generally kept going round without adding to our worries.

Britain’s Environmental Agency wants everyone to take a closer look at this assumption.

Under that overarching term “biomass” is a lot of room and while it’s true that the cleanest varieties produce just a few percent of emissions from coal, other types are much higher.

In a just-released report snappily titled “Biomass: Carbon Sink or Carbon Sinner,” it claims that digging up pasture land and growing energy-packed crops – such as rapeseed – and processing them as fuel can emit more greenhouse gases than burning fossil fuels.

The report suggests all biomass-producing companies should be under the same scrutiny as their eco-unfriendlier counterparts. Biomass is still the way forward – but as with the question of food or fuel, it’s a solution to our problems that still needs a lot of work. Blanket assumptions not welcome.

Image: johntrainor

First up – free stuff! We’ve rhapsodized about the joys of Freecycle before, and no doubt we’ll do so again – it’s that good. But it’s also an opportunity for people to offload the craziest possessions – take these 18 items at The Daily Green.

Sustainable power is the way to tackle the imminent energy crisis head-on, but a few ground rules need to be laid down first. First, if it’s still using non-renewable resources behind the scenes, then it’s not sustainable. The recent Financial Times Energy Conference in London flagged this as a major threat to these fledgling energy technologies – as New Scientist reports.

If you’re wandering round San Francisco, you might well be lucky enough to stumble upon a studio filled with robots – the quirky, eerily human kind. Now there’s a use for all that metal we’re going to have lying around.

As the Arctic ice melts and breaks up, polar bears (you know, those creatures that shouldn’t be regarded as endangered, no sir) are finding it difficult to move around and hunt. Steven John Kazlowski’s photographs show this magnificent – and yes, threatened – animal in its beleaguered natural setting…

…while elsewhere, polar bear skins (acquired legally) are on sale from Canadian exporters. How very classy.

A common complaint about wind farms is that they’re an eyesore. So how do we feel about the idea of forests of enormous spinning advertisements, as reported by GreenBiz? Um.

As you read this, Boston will have banned drug store sales of cigarettes – following San Francisco’s lead as of last year. Furthermore, promises Dr. Barbara Ferrer of the city’s public health commission, in 10 years time all smoking bars will be consigned to the history books. Sounds like the place to be, doesn’t it?

As does Los Angeles, if you’re still going through your home and replacing incandescents with their greener counterparts. (CFLs are only a stop-gap on the way to universal LED coverage, but they’ll do nicely for now.)

It’s good to be a Brit. Our energy and climate change secretary has just announced that all British homes will receive a green makeover by 2030 (and a quarter by 2020), nicely in line with the UK government’s pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 80% over the next decade. Good show. (And thanks, Guardian).

If you want wood to look good, leave it out in the open. That certainly goes for the boards of Wyoming’s snow fences - as Alternative Consumer reports.

Okay, so PETA. Intentions A+, methodology D-. So what do we think of the Humane Society of the United States? Here’s Passionate Green’s thoughts on the matter.

When the snows howl down across our highways, out come the salters and gritters. Except…doesn’t salinity have a somewhat catastrophic effect on plantlife? It’s a problem Katharine Wroth examines at Grist, outlining a few friendlier alternatives. (And just in the nick of time).

Here’s a link with real value. Click here and you’ll have another hundred places to go – namely, a list of top organic living blogs featured by The Health Monitor. (But don’t click just yet – or you’ll miss all the cuteness at the end of this post!)

Oh, don’t get me started on this one. While too much of the popular media is continuing to confuse weather with climate, researchers are keen to explain how 2008 was still one of the warmest years on record. The climate charts paint a conclusive picture – as you can see in John Timmer’s article for Ars Technica.

And lastly – all together now – awww. And even more awww!

Image: zenera

As we’ve mentioned before, there’s a growing trend for municipal authorities taking matters in the own hands when it comes to the environment. And why not? When their own governments get it wrong or take too long to implement innovative new measures, it’s local government that misses out on the benefits, such as substantial savings on power and waste management.

This article from the Wall Street Journal (via Kottke) looks at nine such examples, including:

• rooftops in Chicago that are kept cool by gardens, lowering air-conditioning bills
• a suburb of Mumbai, India, using solar water-heaters
• New York taking the first steps towards hydroelectric turbines providing power for 8,000 homes
• the streetlights of Ann Arbour (near Detroit) shifting to LED bulbs, with a projected power saving of $700,000.

In the U.S., President Obama couldn’t be firmer on his commitment to switching America over to sustainable clean energy production over the coming years. However, that will take time – meanwhile, many municipalities already have their own plans in motion. Take California, where the state government is chasing the “zero net energy” standard of building efficiency. The city of Berkeley’s FIRST (Financing Initiative for Renewable and Solar Technology) program is providing the means for property owners to invest in cutting-edge green efficiency. Or how about Riverside’s sweeping Green Action Plan looks to providing a third of the city’s energy needs from renewable sources by 2020? Further afield, there’s the impressive greening of Grand Rapids under its eco-progressive mayor George Heartwell. And on…and on. These initiatives complement the national energy goals nicely, but they’re all proudly homegrown. (Over the border, Canada is similarly busy).

And what about political action? More than 160 countries have now signed the Kyoto Protocol for ecologically sound industrial and economic development. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. rejected it (happily, President Obama has a rather different view). For more than 800 American mayors in 2008, this was unacceptable – so they signed their own agreement to adhere to Kyoto’s guidelines.

Support your local city government: there’s no telling what it’s capable of.

Image: jmcmichael

At the other end of Britain to wild and wonderful Cornwall is one of my favorite places in the world – Orkney, a windblown, wind-sculpted scatter of islands off the brink of Scotland. Orkney is a beautiful and welcoming place to live and work in…but first you have to get there. The last hurdle in the formidable land journey up from England is the Pentland Firth.

“The Pentland Firth is well-known by seamen as one of the worst stretches of water in the world.”

- James Lake, quoted in Scapa Flow (1968)

It’s 1995, and I’m visiting Scotland with my uncle. I’ve only vaguely heard of Orkney (is that in Norway?) so we grab sandwiches and a flask of disgustingly stewed coffee and drive the hundred miles to John O’Groats. In late February it’s the perfect departure point, because you instantly want to leave it – nothing but a bleak collection of buildings huddled as close to the ground as modern architecture will allow, and beyond, a gunmetal-grey sea churning angrily against the harbor walls.

I’m having second thoughts. It’s the way the approaching ferry is rolling, lurching and occasionally disappearing altogether. I manage to convince myself that it’ll be fine once we’re out there. I’m wrong – it will be one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

The Firth is the point where the North Sea and Atlantic, foiled by the length of the U.K., finally manage to vent their fury upon each other. Every day, two tidal surges of astonishing power race up and down this sea lane at speeds of up to 16 knots (30 kph), creating currents and whirlpools with delightful names (“The Swelkie”, “The Merry Men of Mey”) that belie the fact that this waterway still claims lives, even today.

The potential for renewable energy is obvious, leading to the strait being dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of tidal power” – it’s been estimated that it could generate 25% of the tidal energy potential for the whole of Europe. There are already proposals for how that might happen, such as this one by TidalStream.

We’re halfway to St. Margaret’s Hope, and I’m suspecting that her hope was to get there without losing her mind. The boat is riding up one wave, poising at the top, then smacking down into the water like it’s been dropped from a crane. My uncle’s loving it, which he shouts to me with sadistic glee. Mentally I’m in a whole different place, possibly writing my will. There’s only one photo of me from that journey, and my face is an improbable shade of lurid green.

If all this roiling power can effectively be harnessed, the Pentland Firth could supply a significant percentage of the UK’s future energy needs. But taming it? I’m sure we can’t – just as I’m sure I’ll never again try crossing it in February.

Images: Hamed Saber, foxypar4

If plastic is such a one-way ecological nightmare of a substance, why do we keep using it?

Like it or not, the world currently needs plastic. Its versatility is incredible – because it’s so tough, flexible and nonreactive we can even use it to replace our own internal organs (even in its most everyday form). If plastic was universally banned tomorrow, the modern world would immediately start to fall apart. And if we keep using it? A littered, poisoned environment. Not to mention it’s a rapidly diminishing resource. What to do?

The answer: we replace fossil-fuel plastic with a substance that does exactly the same job, is just as cheap to produce, but is made without a drop of petroleum and biodegrades into harmless substances. Bioplastics is a boom industry that’s still struggling to rid itself of their dependence on oil: take Italian bioplastic manufacturer Novamont’s admission that making a kilo of their product still takes half a kilo of fossil fuels (pdf). There are other issues – how do bioplastics degrade? Can they be recycled (vitally important for keeping the recycling industries afloat)? Are they tough enough to do the job? Thorny issues abound, as you’d expect from such a fledgling technology.

The latest contender for the throne is Arboform, nicknamed “liquid wood”. It’s created from mixing lignin (a product of the wood-processing industries) with natural fibers and additives, and the result is a substance that fills the role of any other plastic. It can even be safely chewed, making it perfect for toys. Most promising, it seems to be highly recyclable. Could this be the answer we’ve been waiting for? It’s way too early to say (how green will the production line be, we ask?), but right now, it’s a step in the right direction – which is away from plastic.

Image: gentlemanrook