Eco News

ReNew magazine is looking for a shed that excels in sustainability. Are you building an electric car in your shed? Have you built a water-saving device? Is your shed solar powered? Does it have its own wind turbine? Or did you build your own wind turbine in your shed? Is your shed made from recycled materials? Competition closes 16 January ...

The latest trend in the green movement – other than EVs – seems to be greenhousing communities. Considering everyone needs a place to live, this is a perfect focus for injecting green technology into daily living. Arvada, Colorado is all over this concept, going farther than solar roofing, or LEED certification goals. They’re setting up a community...

Councils around New Zealand are backing their vision for a greener future and desire for decreasing amounts of waste going into landfills with a series of schemes encouraging parents to use modern cloth nappies. At the forefront of the charge is Waitakere City Council which co-founded a trial to supply reusable cloth nappy packs for all new mother...

Backyard wind turbines may become common in rural areas under a proposed policy on power generation. Environment Minister Trevor Mallard and Energy Minister David Parker yesterday announced the proposed statement for renewable electricity generation. It would encourage the small-scale development of renewable electricity generation projects to c...

BLOG: USA guide to eco products for kids.

MAS Holdings of Sri Lanka has a hot green date with the global economy. Their factory is advertised as a world first for carbon neutrality. And it sounds as good as this model looks. There's no refrigerant-filled compressor for air conditioning.

As the United States grapples for ways to break its dependence on foreign energy sources, one tiny town in Missouri seems to have it figured out.

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- LG Electronics and Waste Management will partner to open more than 160 recycling centers across the country to handle masses of unwanted electronics

DIVORCE is not just heart-breaking -- it's bad for the environment. When a couple or family separates, they create two households where there used to be one.

From 4 August tourism operators seeking Qualmark accreditation will be assessed on environmental and social criteria.

Google earth is being used to help protect the world's natural environment.

We need film makers to produce short video clips about the 10 SHAC teams around the country who are building practical, well-designed housing over the coming year.

The 2008 Ecofest expo is on 16 and 17 August and is being held at Founders Park this year, due to the renovations at the Trafalgar Centre. The expo will be a fun-filled family day out with something for everyone to get their hands on. Have a go at the Follow the Footprints competition to win a $200 Mitre 10 Mega Voucher, or a Centameter to measure ...

The arrival in New Zealand of one of the world’s leading manufacturers of small scale wind turbines is good news for those looking towards a cleaner, greener, more secure energy future. “I congratulate Proven Energy for showing confidence in the potential for New Zealand to embrace this exciting technology,” said SEANZ CEO Charmaine Watts.

The hunt for the South Island’s most sustainable business has moved one step closer now this year’s finalists have been selected. Entries for the Sustainable Business Network Southern Region Awards, which closed on 31 July, were received from businesses of all sizes operating in diverse industries across the South Island.

Autodesk is proud to announce a special live webcast series on sustainable design and building. We are pleased to offer AIA continuing education credits for all the webcasts in the series! Four of the webcasts are offered for 1.0 HSW credit, and two of the webcasts are offered for 1.0 CEU credit!*

Lately, the world news has been filled with stories of hungry people struggling to feed themselves as food prices rise dramatically. Even in the U.S. and other wealthy countries, where the situation is not as dire, people have been altering their eating and spending habits to adjust to the higher bills.

The biggest overhaul of U.S. product-safety rules in a generation cleared a major hurdle Monday, making it likely Congress will impose stricter regulation of everything from toys to all-terrain vehicles -- along with harsher penalties for companies that violate the regulations.

Most of us want to do the right thing by the environment, but waver when it comes to knowing how to, and then having the motivation to stick with it. But for the nearly 2000 New Zealanders who last year took part in a district council or regional council sponsored course with Sustainable Living Programme, living more-sustainably is becoming a ha...

While cellulosic biofuels are making their advances, not far behind are still more methods for turning crops into biofuels. Despite the unpopularity of using most crops for biofuel sources, jatropha, an inedible plant, is getting a boost in popularity.

City dwellers are lapping up the self satisfaction of feeding their friends and family with their own home grown produce; they’re embracing the shift towards becoming more eco-friendly as they get their hands back in the soil. Sarah Davies, founder of Patch from Scratch, a boutique company that sets clients up with organic vege gardens, cites the i...

Scientists will study this for years to come; China has ordered 50% of all cars off the roads off Beijing to make sure air quality is okay for the upcoming Olympics. The measures might be perhaps the world's most measurable traffic pollution reduction effort ever. What's more, they've launched an airquality forecast tool online.

www.noplasticbags.org.nz is a new grass roots website dedicated to a New Zealand free from plastic carry bags. Around the world more and more countries are banning or taxing plastic bags and it is time for New Zealand to wake up and do the same. This is about much more than fixing the problems directly caused by plastic bags, it is about increas...

A commercial-scale underwater turbine that generates electricity from tidal streams has just been plugged into the UK national grid at Strangford Lough, in Northern Ireland. The SeaGen trial when running at full power (staring at 150kW) will have an output of 1,200 kW (enough for about 1,000 homes). Much closer to home, Crest Energy has applied...

Online shopping is gaining at a time when simply filling up a gas tank to head to the mall can seem like a spending spree. A number of retailers - including Gap, Victoria's Secret and J.C.Penney - are experiencing double-digit sales growth at their shopping Web sites, creating a surprising bright spot during an otherwise gloomy time for sales in ...