Dot Eco Top-Level Domain

I received a couple of emails about trying to establish a .eco top level domain name.

First Dot Eco, LLC is coordinating the establishment of a new .eco top level domain. Unlike most top level domains that are purely profit driven, over 50% of the profit generated by .eco domain registrations will be donated back to non-profit organizations to fund scientific initiatives that will help our environment.

Dot Eco is partnered with former Vice President Al Gore and his non-profit organization, The Alliance for Climate Protection and Sierra Club.

Second Green Cross International a global non-profit with national organisations in over 30 countries, has announced its intention to help support the launch of the .eco domain. However they seem to be supporting the The Big Room Inc. application for the .eco extension. This has been developed along with an international team of advisors and investors with deep roots in sustainability, environmental, and business communities.

So, all sounds good, just don’t ask me. You can visit Support Dot Eco and Dot Eco Info.

Natural Collection Launches Ooffoo.com

Online eco shop Natural Collection has launched a community-based website called Oofoo.

It’s hard to succinctly explain what the site is, so I’ll quote the company’s press release:
“We have decided to extend our offering to our customers by creating a new online community marketplace called ooffoo. Ooffoo is a place where like-minded thinkers can discuss, swap, inspire, blog, recycle, recommend, advertise and much more.”

It’s pretty new but there seems to be a lot on there and Life Goggles has even uploaded a few of its articles. Personally, I’ve found it a little tricky navigating around the site and classified adverts (which are free to sellers and buyers) seem to be mixed in with other articles. You have to navigate by tags (there are more than 500) or just enter a search term, but it’s early days and I hope that will improve, with around 200,000 visitors to its website every month, I’m sure it’ll be popular.

Green Link Love – Other Great Green Sites 6

We get a lot of emails each month over at Life Goggles, but I particularly link the ones from individuals (and some PR companies) that recommend certain sites that I can check out when I have time.

Shawn sent email about C02 stats which is a site that can make any website carbon neutral and shows visitors you’re environmentally friendly. You can see it installed at the bottom right of this site.

Green and Save was founded by a guy who built one of America’s most energy independent homes and in the process created the first Return on Investment calculations for over 50 green home remodeling projects. The site has lots of informative videos that use his home as an example to other homeowners. It also has a free carbon counter so individuals could better understand their impact, and an Eco Family Guide to help families live greener and healthier.

Svenn sent email about his sites Present Room and Gifts In Real Shops, both sites that aim to have a solution to unwanted gifts (=unwanted CO2 emissions).

Angelina sent email about Ecovian who are creating online green communities around major US cities that share info & reviews on local green resources & green businesses. For example, they have info on organic restaurants, eco-friendly & non-toxic baby stores, natural clothing stores, green bed & bath stores in about 8 major US cities so far.

SunRun, the solar power company, brings together their brightest minds for their new blog Sweet Solar Home. The blog is written by employees from SunRun, whose expertise lie in the fields of Solar Economics, Solar Technology, Solar Policy, Solar Industry News and Solar Home ownership.

Julie sent me an email about Green Hearted that is aimed at teachers, giving a primer on transformative education for sustainability – what you’ll need in order to green your classroom, your curriculum, your students’ learning, your school community, and your life’s work as a teacher.

Finally another shout to David over at The Good Human who is doing sterling work as always on his excellent blog.

You can read the previous editions of Green Link Love here: one, two, three, four and five.

X-Prize Crazy Idea Finalists

I previously wrote about the X-Prize Foundation who offered $25,000 to the craziest video idea to choose the idea that should be explored as the next $10m X PRIZE in Energy and the Environment.

The result may even have been announced by the time you read this, but it’s interesting to look at the three finalists videos:

Jonathan Dreher, from Cambridge, MA: “Energy X PRIZE: Reduce Home Energy Usage”
A prize to reduce the home energy consumption of American communities.

Alan Silva, from Roy, UT: “The Energy Independence X PRIZE”
A prize to develop energy-independent homes that exist completely off the grid.

Kyle Good, from Irvine, CA: “The Capacitor Challenge”
A prize to develop a new storage medium, an “ultra-capacitor.”

Personally I think the last one is my favorite. How about you?

Greenwala – Yet Another Green Social Network?

Greenwala is a green social network launched in November 2008. With many other green social networks out there, what’s does Greenwala have going for it?

The founders designed the community to be the first social network that brings people together with brands committed to living and fostering a sustainable lifestyle. It is (according to them) an online destination where people can learn to be green, brag about being green and share their actions with their friends, family and community.

“We developed Greenwala because too many other online and offline green communities are fragmented and disorganized, not to mention negative,” said Rajeev Kapur, founder and chief wala, Greenwala. “We’re excited about the opportunities to make the world a cleaner, sustainable place, and we’re not alone. We thought there was an opportunity to create a network where people could share that enthusiasm.”

Greenwala’s flagship product is a social community made up of “greenwalas” – people who share knowledge and help others live a greener lifestyle. Within this community, members can learn to be green, brag about being green and share their actions with their friends, family and community.

They aim to be different by also being able to work with brand marketers to create online viral campaigns that span the last green mile, via direct interaction with consumers in its network. “We wanted to provide marketing solutions to organizations looking for avenues to broadcast their green messages to a targeted base of influencers within and beyond the Greenwala community,” Kapur said.

Greenwala is open to anyone aged 13 or older with an e-mail address and access to the Internet. To become a member, create a profile, invite friends and connect with those around the world committed to sustainability.

You can also follow them on Twitter and on Facebook.

Can ECO-SAFE Stop Printing Waste?

ECO-SAFE is an idea that intends to help people read your site away from your site without printing it out, therefore saving paper.

As you can see from the widget to the right, you get a couple of options of how you want to read it, via email or via a PDF to your email.

Currently the first option works great, though I’ve had a few issues with the second option. There are numerous widgets that you can integrate on your website or blog, form large ones like this to minimalist ones. You can also download the Wordpress plugin to quickly integrate this with your blog.

Do you think this is a good idea? We removed the default option on this site to print the page, but of course people can just select Print from their browser menu if they prefer reading that way. Will it be useful? Take a look at ECO-SAFE and let us know what you think.

Free Program That Reduces Your PCs Carbon Footprint

Supported by Microsoft and developed by Verdiem, Edison is a new computer program/programme that lets you monitor the energy your PC uses and allows you manage that consumption. And it’s free.

Verdiem say uses of its Edison software in the US are saving around $60 a year and 325 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per PC. Explained in the video below, collectively, computers use a huge amount of energy and if just one per cent of the world’s one billion PCs used Edison, it would be the carbon dioxide equivalent of taking 500,000 cars off the road. And with PC usage set to quadruple by 2020, that’s a lot of CO2.

Edison is available for free here.

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