This Father’s Day, don’ t forget to give daddy a gift that has more meaning than meets the eye. The following eco-conscious gifts warrant applause, not only for their usage points but also for their role in saving the world.

Instead of crafting a makeshift present at the last hour, put some thought into Father’s Day this year and consider one of these 7 eco-friendly gifts for the eco-conscious daddy that will put a smile on his (and Mother Nature’s) face.

1. Peak Performance Socks

If your father is active and an avid runner, he probably could use socks that keep his feet dry and blister free. Injinji sells toe socks that properly align toes, promoting posture and balance as well as preventing the wear and tear on his toes. Injinji currently has a buy-2-get-1-free sale for Father’s Day.

2. Recycled Shorts

Just in time for the summer, Patagonia offers board shorts that stay strong in prolonged exposure to salt water and UV rays and are designed to reduce inner thigh chafing. Better yet, Pantagonia ensures that dad can keep his gear out of landfills by participating in its recycle program, which allows the company to re-use the shorts and make them into new products.

3. Fair Trade Soccer

Is your father a soccer fan? Gift him a Fair Trade soccer ball from Senda Athletics. The company not only meets Fair Trade standards but also fuels money back into a communal fund to improve producers’ social, economic and environmental conditions.

4. Next Level TOMS

If dad is not already wearing TOMS, get him started this Father’s Day with the help of Ben Affleck’s Eastern Congo Initiative. This limited edition collection of shoes with a special significance is inspired by Congolese textiles, with two styles for men. For each pair sold, $5 goes to the youth and families in the region. This is on top of TOMS promise to provide a child in need with a new pair of shoes.

5. Reclaimed Golf Balls

This may be the perfect gift for the eco-conscious golfer. Lost Golf Balls is a company that retrieves golf balls from lakes and surrounding natural terrain of resorts, private facilities and courses in the U.S. After being cleaned and sorted based on brand, model and condition, prices are determined.

6. Solar-Powered Watch

Dad will never have to worry about replacing the battery on this watch. The Citizen Blue Angels Skyhawk Watch uses solar power to charge its battery both indoors and outdoors. It has a five-year warranty.

7. Solar Bicycle Trunk Bag

Dad is already saving the world by biking to and fro, but now he can store his belongings and charge electronics with the Nomad Solar Bicycle Trunk Bag. Powered by solar energy, the bag has a universal fit and keeps dad charged while he rides.

Photo Credit: Jurvetson

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We’ve got a roundup of some unique and worthy crowdfunded projects to check out.

It seems you can’t scroll an inch through Facebook or Twitter these days without seeing a call to support a crowdfund project (or ten) featured on platforms like Kickstarter, Rally and Indiegogo. Maybe you’ve even started one of your own.

What’s so enticing about these crowdfunded social financing models is it’s helping shape the projects, product, art and causes that individuals and communities actually want, as opposed to giant corporations just giving us their preferred options to choose from.

This self-empowerment in turn helps us to send strong messages back to the corporatocracy about what we will and will not support, hopefully leading them towards developing more socially and environmentally supportive policies and products. These are exciting times indeed.

If you’ve not yet lent your support to a crowdfunded project, we’ve rounded up a few you might find particularly worthy. What’s also fun about social financing is there are incentives, often for nominal donations as low as $5 or $10. The more you give, the more you get, and while that’s not necessarily a reason to support a worthy cause, you can use the perks as gifts or even as a donation, if you feel called to.

1. Our own Foodie Underground columnist, Anna Brones, is working on a project about inspirational visionaries in Afghanistan called Afghan Dreamers.

2. Exile Nation: The Plastic People: This documentary film-in-process is a project about the mass-deportation of millions of Mexican-American immigrants and what happens when they’re forced out of the country.

3. Help build an urban garden in Ojai, California at the Topa Topa Elementary school.

4. Technology got you a little frazzled? Grab a handmade notebook (or several) to jot down your thoughts instead from Mirth and Company.

5. Love trees? Support non-profit efforts dedicated to rescuing timberlands from logging.

6. A film with a non-profit component tracks six women touring India, experiencing the harsh economic differences.

7. Support community in a unique experiment: walking the East Coast while holding hands. Results will be documented in books.

8. Keep one of Santa Monica’s most loved healthy and delicious raw food restaurants from shutting its doors. Euphoria Loves Rawvolution’s landlord has gone a little wacky and it’s threatening this long-time establishment.

Got a worthy crowd-funding project we should know about? Let me know on Twitter @jillettinger

 Image courtesy of Afghan Dreamers

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With the winter winds now howling outside my home here in Eastern Europe, it seems natural to let one’s thoughts drift to warm weather destinations and beach side resorts. My stroll down Rue de Rivoli in Paris last week reminded me that for upscale designer labels, resort wear collections are de rigueur at this point in the annual fashion calendar. Whether or not one has a sunny holiday getaway on tap, one cannot help but to wonder if resort collections are indeed a thing of the past. With the bulk of designer pieces barely moving off-shelves in retails stores and jet-setting jaunts frowned upon by the eco-conscious set, why are designers and retailers continuing to generate these capsule collections in a market that is already saturated with goods? Tradition can be a lovely thing, but surely we can make do with some of our spring/summer favorites and timeless pieces from the reserves of our fair weather stash?

Marc Jacobs Resort 2011

There is no doubt that wardrobe shopping for a snowbird beach holiday warms one’s winter-weary bones in a way that outshines layering with heavy woolens. But shoppers who frequent big name department stores might not realize that designers who create resort collections (also known as cruise collections or pre-collections) are feverishly creating these ready-to-wear holiday offerings in addition to their bi-annual collections for spring/summer and autumn/winter. This has been a celebrated tradition for decades with high-end fashion houses such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, and Marc Jacobs, to name a few, creating for both retailers and magazine glossies expecting this high-octane output.

Chanel Resort 2011

It is hard to believe, though, that in this current era of environmental awareness and increased assessment of waste in the fashion industry, that we continue to support and glamorize this overt demonstration of fashion excess. Resort clothing and accessories can surely be handpicked from chic designs that are available all year long and from warm weather favorites of the past year. The pressure that designers continually face in generating additional offerings for each resort cycle is undeniably impacting their ability to institute better (sustainable) production models from start to finish. If shoppers refused to partake in this phenomenon, retailers might be forced to reconsider the viability of resort wear essentials overall.

“Interim” collections no doubt confuse us as much as the weather does these days, so it only makes sense that stores would want to aid us on this front rather than cloud the issue with ill-timed floor displays. Perhaps the emphasis should increasingly be on eco travel destinations that celebrate looking fabulous in whatever gear it takes to comprehend the beauty of a region while also walking lightly on the beaches we all share?

Main Image: Jonathan Saunders Resort 2010

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I am always on the lookout for cool t-shirts. So when I saw the Des Artistes collection for the first time recently on ecouterre, I almost flipped out.

An eco-conscious label out of Germany, Des Artistes introduces works from emerging and notable contemporary artists and says on their site that “Every limited edition tee is a canvas for inspiration and an exhibition of the human spirit.” I believe it.

Charles Anderson’s “Chocolate Factory” makes you consider your relationship with art. Just look at illustrator Kera Till’s “Abeba” and the more provocative “Brain Inflation” by one of China’s most widely known contemporary artists, Ai Weiwei. The “Inflation” is of the artist’s actual brain hemorrhage resulting from a run with some police brutality last year.

“Abeba”

“Chocolate Factory”

“Brain Inflation”

And best of all, these limited edition tees go to benefit Doctors Without Borders.

They are limited so how do you get one? Looks like you just follow the contact link and shoot them an email.

Hopefully with the designer being represented currently in D&A’s Green Room, they’ll get some accounts in your area.

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We know the best way to green your wardrobe is to buy less and wash less. But what about your underwear?

Let’s be honest, few of us are willing to consider upcycled or secondhand solutions or ever stretching out time between undie washes as with other garments (shiver).

Take into consideration that underwear is a highly consumed product – every year, the average American man buys seven to 10 pairs, and the average American woman buys 10 to 14. Unfortunately, most of these are made from conventionally grown cotton.

Conventional cotton alone is responsible for one fourth of the worldwide insecticides and pesticides used globally, so it’s time to start mentioning our unmentionables! In fact, it’s ironic that with all the discussion of eco fabric, the items using the least of it are actually responsible for the most damage. Perhaps you’ve always known that your underwear is where you can make an impact (you naughty thing, you) but happily you won’t have to take the hardcore solution and go commando. A healthy handful of talented designers are finding sustainable solutions for intimates.

Inspired by a gap in the market, Tiffany Phipps designed T-Luxe Eco-lingerie, a slinky and silky line of organic underwear. “I try to live an eco-conscious lifestyle but when it comes to intimates, no one was doing anything in the eco department. I decided it was time to do a line of my own!” said the designer.

Another designer creating beautiful pieces is Manuka Sanyal of Manu lingerie. With bamboo, organic cotton, French lace and other eco-friendly fabrics she created “out of desperation, an underwear that made me feel sexy, yet covered.”

Utilizing an ecologically sound bamboo viscose, Sanyal created pieces that are stretchy, unbelievably soft, and enhanced with gorgeous hand-block prints designed by Manuka’s mom in the 1970s. They’re perfectly flattering and suit all body types.

With intimates, fabric selection is the key to the design. If there is any place to avoid a granola aesthetic, it’s underwear.

Jeff Denby, founder of the PACT organic underwear brand, which incorporates beautiful designs by Yves Behar, wanted PACT underwear to hold their shape and last a long time. “We founded PACT on the basic tenet that sustainability can be sexy and fun. It does not have to equate to a crunchy design aesthetic.”

Joining many underwear designers that are paying attention to their packaging, Denby recently enthused, “Each pair of underwear is packed in its own reusable fabric bag produced from off-cuts (excess fabric), so PACT eliminates tens of thousands of plastic bags. Finally, each order is shipped in bright green sleeves made from a special material that is 100 percent compostable.”

Just knowing your underwear is a little more eco than others is a secret green thrill you can keep to yourself.

Image: PACT organic

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After studying public art at Hampshire College, mural painting in Mexico and fresco painting in Italy, designer Nettie Kent moved to New York to pursue her interest in community murals. Her years in the New York art world lead her to an interest in metal work and sculpture, and it was after taking a job in a well-known jeweler’s showroom (Jill Platner) that she found her true passion for the art of metalwork.

Now, as a year-rounder on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, jewelry designer Nettie Kent takes inspiration from place but also from her materials, carving forms from wax and hammering mixtures of metals to create unique pieces for jewelry aficionados.

Her ultimate mission? To create eco-conscious jewelry using at least 90% recycled materials in all her pieces. Pretty impressive.

Establishing herself as a designer on the Vineyard in 2008, Nettie has already established a loyal clientele that appreciates her organic forms and unique designs, as well as her ethical approach to jewelry making.

Think this bracelet is great? Check out her other bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings that incorporate vintage materials, leathers and metals. You’ll be swooning for jewelry like there’s no tomorrow.

But for you there will be and with a bit of luck, you’ll be looking tough (and pretty) in this classic cuff.

Leave a comment below and you’re entered to win.

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