Imagine you’re lost in the woods, having wandered off the hiking trail. It’s looking like you may have to bed down on some pine needles with what’s left of the granola bars, when your friend whips out a little device that looks like a small fan. What’s that? It’s the K3 Charger – a compact hybrid wind-and-solar power generator about the size of a flashlight. The handy green gadget allows consumers to recharge an iPod, cell phone, PDA, or other electronic device using renewable energy!

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What do you get when you cross a bicycle with an electric scooter? Probably something like Ultra Motor’s “Light Electric Vehicle,” the A2B. Silent and stylish, the A2B is designed for urban and suburban commuters (check out that comfy, oversized seat). It’s like your bicycle, except with a lithium ion battery-powered motor that you can plug in and charge at any ordinary electric socket. And if you run out of power on the road, no worries — just start pedaling.

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With the economy reeling, luxury homes are a bit politically incorrect these days. That’s especially true in areas of the country that are suffering most, like Las Vegas – the site of the 8,800 square foot 26th New American Home, unveiled last month at a show hosted by the National Association of Home Builders. The New American Home – or New American Mansion, for those of us (ahem) who live in 700-square foot studio apartments – is beautiful and modern, but how green can such a massive residence be?

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Apple recently rolled out its new family of Macbooks with a bold claim: The World’s Greenest Family of Notebooks. The new Macbooks are lighter, less toxic, and more energy efficient than previous generations, but are they really the greenest laptops in the world?

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What if you could refuel your car at a restaurant instead of a gas station? Some enterprising environmentalists have discovered that restaurants will gladly give away their used fryer oil, since they usually have to pay to dispose of it. This oil can be filtered and used to run cars and trucks that have been converted to run on vegetable oil. Your exhaust might smell like fries (no joke), but you’ll be recycling, emitting up to 70% less CO2, and saving yourself some money.

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Lately you may have noticed that trendy designer tote bags have become a charged medium for design and self expression. Touting sleek graphics and slogans such as “I am Not a Plastic Bag”, these reusable bags have become a way to wear your environmental awareness on your sleeve. However these bags are often produced overseas from non-organic cotton, and does anyone ever use their designer totes to replace plastic bags at the supermarket? Fearing that eco-marketed bags have become objects of over-consumption themselves, we decided to take an in-depth look at these issues of style over substance.

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Concrete is a familiar substance. Its durable nature and versatile applications have made its usage ubiquitous throughout our cities. However this primary building material is also extremely energy intensive to make and transport, and produces a significant amount of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Can the omnipresent grey substance ever be reconciled as a green building material? Read on for our in-depth report.

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Americans demand low prices and giant warehouse stores where they can buy anything they want. We may not like it, but big box retailers are a part of life. But don’t assume that being big is bad. Massive, world-wide retailers can make a difference especially because they are that big. Enter IKEA, a company with stores all over the world. Critics say that IKEA is a landfill-waste generator because they make huge volumes of stuff that doesn’t last. IKEA only started working toward sustainability in 1999, when it published its first set of environmental priorities, but their new slogan is “low price, but not at any price.”

Even if you’ve taken the steps to weatherproof, insulate, and seal up all of your home’s energy-sapping drafty spaces, you may be alarmed to find that your home’s interior is far from eco-friendly. Studies done by the EPA have shown that indoor air quality can be just as bad, or worse, than outdoor air quality. One of the culprits is all over your walls – paint. Despite their awkwardly earth-unfriendly logo, Sherwin-Williams has launched several lines of paint that claim to offer eco-friendly alternatives to standard VOC-laden paints – read on for an in-depth look at the company’s efforts to go green.

Los Angeles recently saw the groundbreaking of Rock Row, the city’s first Small Lot Subdivision to be certified under the USGBC’s new LEED for Homes program. Developed by Heydey Partnership, the complex is aiming to prove that modern sustainably built homes can be affordable as well. As a result, homes in Rock Row, located in an historic neighborhood in L.A., will range from $475,000 to $550,000.

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These days it’s important to consider the environmental impact of our actions when we buy certain things – gasoline, for example. There will come a time when people realize that everything we consume has an environmental impact, but for now, certain goods fly under the radar. Who knew, for example, that Maker’s Mark is blazing the trail for ecologically friendly distilleries? We caught up with Master Distiller Kevin Smith to get the scoop on the company’s sustainable initiatives.

No question about it, Americans have an overconsumption problem. The total outstanding balance of bank-issued credit cards per consumer was $5,710 in December 2008, according to Transunion. Americans like to buy new things and throw out the old ones. We also like to own lots of stuff we don’t need. Retailers profit from this, but so do money lenders. And many of these excessive retail purchases end up on credit cards. Discover has taken a step toward sustainability by introducing a new card made of biodegradable plastic, which it says is the first. But how green can a credit card really be if serves to encourage consumption?

This week’s Is It Green comes to you from the lush city of Portland, Oregon. I have lived in many cities, from Los Angeles to New York City to the suburbs of DC to Singapore. I have traveled to many more cities – Key West, Montreal, Tokyo – and can say that Portland embodies the culture of sustainability more than any of them. From green transportation to sustainable agriculture and public policy, Portland offers a shining example that all cities should aspire to. Read on for an in-depth report on the city’s green merits.

We all know it: Green is the new black. One of the many manifestations of the environmentalist trend/movement is that labels and certifications designed for the environmentally-conscious consumer have been proliferating like mad. Even if you’re savvy enough to know about LEED and FSC, there are dozens of lesser-known eco-labels. It’s hard to derive information from a label you’ve never seen before, but you may be able to figure out which category of label you’re looking at – government, proprietary, or independent agency. I’m taking this week’s Is It Green to blitz through some of these and give a little context to those logos.

The GreenWashBall is a device that you toss into the washing machine to clean your dirty laundry in place of detergent. An innovative concept, but not the first of its kind – “laundry balls” like the GreenWashBall are abundant, including the Miracle II Ball, the Laundry Solution ball, and the Mystic Wonder Laundry Ball. They are supposedly popular in Europe and the laundry ball industry is hoping to gain popularity in the U.S. Completely cutting the use of detergent is enticing from both ecological and economic standpoints, but how exactly does the GreenWashBall work, and can it up to its claims?

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Note to skaters – according to the Science Channel, skateboards have replaced furniture as the leading contributor to maple deforestation. The Canadian maple takes 40 to 60 years to mature before it can be cut down to make your decks. The good news? BambooSK8 is a true-green company that makes first rate skateboards that are durable, sustainable, and even stronger than maple.

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One of the great perpetrators of the United States’ wastefulness is urban sprawl, which leads to SOV (single occupancy vehicle) disorder. Many Americans drive to work, and we usually don’t carpool. Beyond driving to work, we use our cars for other things – soccer practice, forgotten items at the grocery store, and trips across our giant country. It doesn’t need to be that way. If we could break ourselves of this habit of hyper-convenience, we could have better bike lanes, rail, and bus systems. Or we could share our cars. Zipcar is an innovative car sharing service that prides itself upon its convenience and accessibility. We recently caught up with Zipcar spokesperson Lesley Neadel to ask a few questions about the company’s green cred.

Throughout this past election season we heard both major-party candidates give a lot of love to “clean coal.” The phrase sounds great to Americans concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, and the U.S. has enough coal to generate our electricity for hundreds of years – if it’s “clean”, why not? But what do “clean coal” technologies really entail, and can an ancient energy source responsible for 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions really clean up its act?

Household cleaning is a murky area for consumers who want to be environmentally conscious. Of course we can assume that reusing cloth rags for cleaning is greener than buying paper towels, but household cleaners are not required to list their ingredients under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act – so they don’t. And even if they did, who knows by heart which chemicals are materially damaging? Maid Brigade is a green cleaning service that has adopted a green cleaning protocol at all of its 400+ locations that includes product scrutiny and staff training to make the service “as green as possible in today’s world”. Recently we caught up with Cloud Conrad, vice president of brand strategies to see if Maid Brigade’s green standards are as high as yours.

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Dirt Devil is currently retailing a cordless, bagless, ENERGY STAR-certified vacuum cleaner called the AccuCharge. The product’s website urges you to “Clean with a conscience” and the video says, “Go green and get it clean.” Caveat emptor: “Green” and “clean” pair well in advertising jingles, but environmentally-conscious vacuum buyers should be wary. Read this interview with Michelle Kivlov, product manager for AccuCharge, before you rely on AccuCharge to let you “clean with a conscience.”

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What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today?

In 1792, a competition was held to design the President’s residence, and the result was the current White House. The Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenged modern-day designers to do the same thing in a competition called “White House Redux.” International participants submitted almost 450 entries with 55 animations. The twist is that after all the entries were in, judges realized that few of the plans were actually architectural designs. Instead, most were philosophical, political, satirical, often abstract — and highly creative. And you can see 150 of these proposals now at the recently re-opened Storefront for Art and Architecture.

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HP has rolled out a system that identifies eco-friendly features of its products to customers. It’s called the Eco Highlights label, and it provides quick facts about the product that may or may not convince the customer that it’s environmentally friendly. But as a company inextricably tied to the paper industry, how can HP promote sustainable consumption? We caught up with Michelle Price, HP’s worldwide environmental strategic marketing manager, to ask her a few questions about HP’s latest green initiatives.

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The Eco Chick Guide to Life is a roadmap to greener living for the modern girl. Starre Vartan covers fashion, makeup, cleaning supplies, pets, drinking, food and more in this easy-to-read guide. When it comes to transitioning into a greener lifestyle, Vartan leaves no questions unanswered. She explains food and clothing labels, breaks down the reasons to go vegetarian, and spells out every acronym.

Florida real estate mogul Frank McKinney has been building homes for the super-wealthy for 20 years. Recently he decided to start building them green. Acqua Liana, the largest and most expensive home to aspire to LEED certification, is scheduled to be finished in February. The $29 million home is being built on Florida’s luxurious Manalapan beach. At 15,000-square feet, the house is three times as large and 25 times as expensive as any home trying to earn certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. McKinney estimates that building a green Acqua Liana cost 7 to 10% more than a non-green house of this type. But can it truly be considered green? We caught up with Frank to ask him a few questions about his latest project – read on for an exclusive interview.

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Bottled water is anathema to many hardcore environmentalists. Taking water from the land and sky, putting it into containers made from oil, and shipping it around the world defies core eco-friendly values in many ways. Yet premium bottled water producer FIJI Water is aggressively marketing itself as green. You may have seen ads with the slogan “Our Promise, Our Progress” or “Every drop is green” and images of a bottle of FIJI Water next to a big green earth. On the bottle itself, the iconic hibiscus flower is now joined by a prominent green water droplet, and the back of the bottle invites you to visit FIJIGreen.com to find out more about the environmental impact of the water you’re drinking.

With the current vogue of reality tv shows sweeping the networks, we’re excited to see one with an admirable humanitarian design mission. Architecture School is a new series that follows twelve architecture students at the Tulane University School of Architecture as they design and build a low-cost sustainable home for a family returning to New Orleans. An excellent example of integrating students within a community, the three year venture will join the architecture school with URBANbuild and the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services

Travelodge recently opened a hotel in Uxbridge, England that is constructed entirely from prefabricated shipping containers. The completed design uses eighty-six containers of various sizes that were retrofitted into bedrooms and bolted together onsite. The exterior has been clad and fitted with windows, thus converting the assemblage into a seamless 120-bedroom hotel. Verbus Systems estimates that the structure’s prefab composition saved the hotel chain more than half a million pounds and at least 10 weeks of construction.

Researchers at Iowa State University have found that photovoltaic thin film has advanced to the point where it is durable and efficient enough to be incorporated into clothing. Following these advances, they have decided to craft the photovoltaic material into a snazzy solar powerneck necktie, along with several other solar-powered garments. Talk about the ‘power suit’!

Earlier this year we highlighted Idaho startup M2E Power’s push to develop motion-powered electronics for the military. Now M2E is emphasizing the commercial applications for their technology, with a specific goal: revolutionizing cell phone batteries. M2E will announce the development of an external charger later this month that will generate between 300 and 700 percent more energy than current kinetic energy technologies, and may eventually replace cell phone batteries altogether.

As the United States’ renewable energy sector grows by leaps and bounds, Pacific Gas & Electric recently announced plans for two gigantic photovoltaic plants in California. The solar installations will be constructed by Sunpower and Optisolar, whose 550 Megawatt plant will best the current proposed largest solar installation in the nation by 50 megawatts. The combined output of both plants will total 800 megawatts – enough to power 239,000 homes!

Earlier this summer the brains at Marmol Radziner and Associantes revealed a sleek series of “accessory buildings” including their new Rincon 5 prefab. The clean-lined guest unit features an excellent set of sustainable features including LED lighting, recycled insulation, and bamboo flooring, plus it can function completely off-grid with an optional solar panel package.

Back in April we announced the One Good Chair Design Competition, where a $4500 challenge was set to design a chair that ‘Does Good, Feels Good, Looks Good’. Designs for this competition were judged on their environmental impact, ergonomics and aesthetics, and our own Editor-in-Chief Jill Fehrenbacher was one of the judges for the competition. Well, now the results of the One Good Chair Competition are in! The best chairs in the competition ship and stack easily and are made of renewable and biodegradable materials that minimize waste – one honorable mention even encourages people to ride the bus. Over 300 designers competed in this competition, and in the end the judges couldn’t pick a favorite between the top two. Check out the winners below the jump!