GOOD Magazine

The compost pile and worm bin are no longer the only appropriate resting places for peach pits, banana peels, and apple cores. The Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, Europe’s largest applied research center, announced last week that it will begin turning old produce into bio-gas at a pilot site in Stuttgart, Germany. Conveniently located next to the city’s wholesale vegetable market, the facility will use microorganisms to transform food scraps into methane gas, which can power a car once compressed and emits less carbon dioxide during combustion than gasoline.

According to the research lab, the conversion process from fruit to fuel will only take a few days. But the challenge lies in dealing with the inconsistency of the raw materials—the acidity of a mound of food scraps can vary wildly. (Oranges are acidic. Lettuce, not so much.) The facility’s managers have to adjust the pH balance of the system accordingly to keep the microorganisms that do the converting work healthy and happy.

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GOOD Magazine

Walk along the tram tracks that cut through Hammarby Stöstad, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Stockholm, and you’ll pass modern condos and old factories, the architectural signposts of a neighborhood in transition. More eye-catching is the dense overgrowth of trees and bushes that sprouts out of the blacktop—a forgotten oasis within an abandoned parking lot.

The overlooked spot, and the contrast with its surroundings, made it perfect for the Stockholm outpost of Wasteland Twinning. A collective of artists and researchers throughout Europe and Asia, Wasteland Twinning is a project started by Berlin artists Will Foster, Lars Hayer, and Matthias Einhoff to explore forgotten spaces in cities across the world. They take the idea of “city twinning” or “sister cities”—typically a ploy by politicians to encourage commercial agreements—and bring it to the more unorthodox context of urban wastelands.

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Fast Company, Co.Exist

Using the Internet as a powerful tool to connect consumers with businesses that use local ingredients and–maybe more importantly–showing businesses the best places to source those local ingredients.

The sustainable and local food movements have no shortage of devotees. But awareness doesn’t always lead to action. And despite the growth of these movements, it should come as little surprise that fast food companies like McDonald’s continued to post record sales in 2011.

That’s where FarmPlate comes in. Billing itself as “Yelp for the sustainable foods community,” FarmPlate wants to make it easier for Americans to live the locavore life. On the consumer-side, the Yelp comparison is fairly spot-on: users can search for food, suggest listings, and leave reviews.

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Fast Company, Co.Exist

People can talk all they want about how computers may pave the way for a “paperless office,” but a new innovation in making plastics means that turning our discarded paper into electronics might be the best way to get rid of all that problematic e-waste.

Computers were supposed to replace paper and transform everything in the office. Paper is now returning the favor.

Paper PP Alloy, a new alloy made from paper and polypropylene designed to replace plastics in consumer electronics, is being used to create the body of the first paper computer (at least the body; the circuits are still silicon-based). The designer, PEGA Design and Engineering, calls it “strong, sturdy, environmentally friendly and inexpensive to make.”

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Fast Company Co.Exist

Brazil is known for its supermodels, but what about its social innovation models? Besides the economic boom, the country is finding a new groove in the field of digital collaboration and activism.

Last year, I moved from New York to Rio de Janeiro, where Purpose has opened its first overseas office. I have met with local innovators and interacted with all kinds of people on the streets, at the beach, and in botequins (informal bars). These experiences have all enriched my work in social innovation. Besides stimulating my creativity, immersion in a different culture and working in a foreign language have heightened my sense of mindfulness and empathy, reminded me of the virtue of humility, and taught me a few things about what it means to innovate.

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GOOD Magazine

Cities around the world may all be struggling with the same problems, from building affordable housing to boosting internet access, but a lack of dialogue means that local governments rarely copy each other’s successful ideas.  The world’s “567,000 mayors are reinventing the wheel, every single one of them with everything” they do, says Sascha Havemeyer, general director of Living Labs Global, a Copenhagen-based non-profit that encourages collaboration among the world’s cities.

Part of the problem is political pressure to contract with local businesses only, which makes it hard for city governments to look to outsiders for advice and solutions. “The logic behind that is it helps local companies grow,” says Havemeyer, but it can cost up to fifty times as much to recreate a product or service instead of importing it from elsewhere.

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UTNE Reader

A new brand of CSA is offering a different sort of sustenance: fresh, local art.

More and more people are signing up for deliveries of fresh, local produce by buying shares in community-supported agriculture, or CSA, farms. A new brand of CSA is offering a different type of sustenance: fresh, local art. Christy DeSmith writes in American Craft (Oct.-Nov. 2011) about the community-supported art program pioneered in 2010 by two Minnesota organizations, Springboard for the Arts and mnartists.org. Shareholders pay $300 each to receive three deliveries of artworks through the spring and summer, with each delivery containing three works. Artists, chosen by a jury, get a stipend of $1,000 each to create 50 works.

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UTNE Reader

Decorated with brightly colored wallpaper and pots of cheery flowers, Giveboxes are festive additions to Germany’s city streets. The small structures, which look like a cross between a phone booth and a gardening shed, hold community-donated items that are free for the taking, says Dougal Squires on Slow Travel Berlin. Clothing, books, shoes, blankets, bags, lamps, glassware, and cologne are examples of the useful(ish) things up for grabs.

The idea for Giveboxes came from an anonymous Berliner known only as Andy or Andreas. (Go to Slow Travel Berlin’s website to hear an engaging interview with the Givebox founder.) Since the first Givebox debuted in Berlin last summer—constructed in an eyesore of a spot that was often used as an improvised public toilet—more have popped up in Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, Copenhagen, and elsewhere, with a miniature version making its way to San Francisco

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GOOD Magazine

As entrepreneurs and food activists attempt to bring fresh produce to more and more urban food deserts, they’re setting their crosshairs on one target in particular: the corner store. Packed to the gills with cigarettes, lotto tickets, liquor, and processed foods, the shops do little to nourish the communities where they operate, and in many urban areas—particularly black, Latino, or low-income neighborhoods—these stores are the only places to buy any food at all.

According to Alphonzo and Alison Cross, founders of The Boxcar Grocer in Atlanta (and winners of GOOD’s contest to redesign the supermarket), this needs to change. Their just-opened corner store alternative, where local and organic food options get prime shelf space, is an attempt to respect “the fact that every community desires fresh food, and locally made food is just about as fresh as you can get,” says Alison.

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Fast Company, Co.Exist

Autodesk’s Innovation Genome Project tried to quantify what worked about the 1,000 greatest innovations of all time. With that data in hand, the company then turned to what needs innovation today: building with sustainable materials.

It is often said that innovation is at the core of sustainability, but turning that abstract idea into action isn’t always easy. How do true innovators actually make the leap from status quo to full-on disruption?

First, a definition. Innovation doesn’t necessarily entail creating something new. It’s not the same as invention. Rather, innovation usually involves a fresh perspective on something that already exists–taking an idea, a technology, or a material (or aggregating several) and then considering how their use can create a positive impact in a new and better way. The process of making this leap is often scary, and requires a certain amount of gumption, as well as copious amounts of leadership, entrepreneurialism, and good design.

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