Today’s the day for love, and while pinks and reds tend to rule Valentine’s Day, we’re ushering in the green with these last-minute gifts. If you’re a procrastinator, or just not big on the big gestures, here are some small but very green ideas for your special sweetie. From organic chocolate to better flower options and socially-responsible greeting cards, we’ve got you covered. Also check out our Sustainable Skivvies and Splurges posts from earlier this week. Happy Valentine’s Day from Inhabitat!!

Following his inspiring keynote at the first ever Greener Gadgets Conference, we were lucky enough to sit down one-on-one with photographic artist Chris Jordan to talk about his work, e-waste, and the future of mass consumer culture. In his conversation here with Jill Fehrenbacher, Chris talks about whether or not we will be able to stem the growing tide of consumerism, and the issues of collective versus individual responsibility for environmental problems. Hear Chris Jordan’s provocative thoughts in this great interview video.

We have a ton of other great Greener Gadgets videos as well, including Opening Remarks, the Greener Gadgets Competition winner selection, and Chris Jordan’s Keynote. And more to come!

+ Greener Gadgets Conference

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Your eco-cutie deserves only the best this Valentine’s Day. What better way to say I love you than with a sexy splurge of a gift that’s not just romantic, but sustainable too?! Here are some of our best recommendations for great green gifts for the most romantic day of the year.

Drumroll please…. Many of you have been asking for videos of the groundbreaking Greener Gadget Conference – which was held last week in New York City – and here they come! We’ve got a bunch of interesting video shorts coming down the pipeline, and the very first one we have for you (to whet your appetite for the most exciting stuff) is our overview and introduction to the Greener Gadgets Event.

Stay tuned for the highly entertaining Design Competition video coming in a couple hours, and the rest of the videos (Chris Jordan, Mary Lou Jepsen), coming next week.

You can download a podcast of this video here >
(or here if you don’t have iTunes)

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Who doesn’t love the Superbowl? The competition, the commercials, the excuse to drink beer. This year’s champ, the New York Giants, certainly deserved the title, though I wonder if their quarterback, Eli Manning, “deserved” his Cadillac Escalade, a behemoth of a vehicle whose hybrid status seems like a serious dose of greenwashing. Blogstress Elizabeth Howard is asking Eli to give back the 18 mpg hybrid gas guzzler, and we’ll second that motion.

Ireland plastic bag usage drops dramatically after plastic bag taxes are instated!

With all the recent bans on plastic bags around the world, it’s natural to wonder just how effective all the bag banning will be. Instead of simply enacting laws to phase out plastic bags – which seems like a wishy-washy attempt at most, Ireland has implemented a tax-based incentive to cut plastic bag useage — and it seems to be working wonders. Between the government tax on bags, an effective advertising campaign, and public support, plastic bag usage has dropped 94% in a matter of weeks.

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Despite the enormous untapped potential of solar energy, one thing is for sure- photovoltaics are only as good as the sun’s rays shining upon them. However, researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory are close to the production of a super-thin solar film that would be cost-effective, imprinted on flexible materials, and would be able to harvest solar energy even after sunset!

Circuit boards, Atlanta 2004

Digital artist Chris Jordan knows how to turn e-trash into photographic treasure. His large-scale images of massive amounts of statistically-inspired refuse make it all too clear just how big a problem consumer waste is. His work, which features objects from Barbies and plastic bags to e-waste and shipping containers, brings to light a tough dichotomy, presenting our gluttonous existence as consumers in a beautiful medium. He’ll be keynoting our Greener Gadgets Conference on Friday, and we can’t wait to hear what he has to say.

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If you want to see some truly innovative greener gadgets up close and personal, come by the Project H Design booth at next week’s Greener Gadgets Conference. The clever and socially-responsible BOGO flashlight, XO Laptop (One Laptop Per Child), and kinetic devices by Freeplay will be on display for you to check out, all under the umbrella of Project H Design, a charitable organization promoting humanitarian-focused product design, founded by Inhabitat’s Managing Editor, Emily Pilloton.

If you haven’t registered for the conference yet, there’s no time like the present! Register here and be sure to come by the Project H Design booth for more info on the organization and these great products.

Today’s Compostmodern conference in San Francisco didn’t disappoint, with a design-star-studded line up of speakers from Alex Steffen of Worldchanging to Marc Alt (co-organizer of our Greener Gadgets Conference!), Adam Werbach of Act Now Productions and Scott Stowell of Open. Discussions centered around sustainable innovation in design, what it really means to design “green,” and the future of environmental responsibility in the design world. Highlights included Joel Makower’s morning introduction, which likened sustainability to teenage sex: “Everyone says they’re doing it, but not many people really are. And those who are, aren’t doing it well,” to Jane Savage’s overview of Nike’s “Considered” program which combines a forward-thinking corporate responsibility plan with innovative design.

Check out our latest video interview of Miami architect Chad Oppenheim, designer of the stunning green COR Tower for Miami. In this video he discusses Miami as a booming real estate and construction economy, and his take on sustainability as a factor in that growth. And of course, details on his futuristic-looking Cor Tower, which we can’t wait to see completed.

Video by Scribemedia

While certain objects seem to be making big strides in sustainability, the humble cell phone is lagging a bit behind the curve – what with the lead, cadmium and other toxic chemicals, as well as the relentless consumption, upgrading and disposable on which the entire industry is based. But Nokia has recently launched a new, more environmentally friendly cellphone called the 3310 Evolve. The Evolve is a great example of a greener device, made from biomaterials and 60% recycled packaging. Right now these phones are only available in Europe (what Nokia – you don’t think there is a market for this in the US??), so if you want to check out this cute little eco phone in action, come by the Greener Gadgets Conference on February 1st! But don’t get too attached — we haven’t heard of any launch date set for the US yet.

We love NAU and we love Ecolect (one of our recent holiday party cohosts). So it’s natural that we’re wishing we were in the Midwest for the Ecolect “3rd Coast” launch party at the NAU store in Chicago.

The giant CES tradeshow is primarily about gadgets – as one would expect – but we made a surprising architectural discovery at this years CES which impressed us with its creativity (and its creative marketing tactics). On display in the middle of the showroom floor as part of the Olevia booth was the newly-debuted prefab design from new manufacturer Logical Homes. While we could personally care less about more slick Olevia televisions on display (sorry Olevia, but its true), the stunning shipping container prefab definitely caught our eye.

What’s a more renewable form of energy than human energy? We’ve seen it before with the human-powered gyms in Hong Kong, and here’s a portable energy source that’s powered by the spring in your step. We just discovered this amazingly useful gadget at CES, and can’t wait to get our hands on one. The Weza Portable Energy Source from Freeplay can produce enough power from a few footpumps to jump-start a boat or automobile battery and power a laptop, light or a variety of other electronics. If you were stuck out in the middle of nowhere, you could even use to charge your cellphone!

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We are thrilled to announce that Voltaic, our favorite solar bag company, has just debuted a sleek new laptop bag that actually charges laptops! Whereas Voltaic’s previous solar bags only generate enough power to charge smaller gadgets like phones, cameras and mp3 players, the new Generator, is a super-powered solar tote that will charge your laptop along with all of your other green gadgets. It uses a single solar panel (which you can order with different color trims) to produce up to 14.7 watts of power, enough to fully charge a typical laptop, along with your iPod and cell phone.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) starts today in Sin City, but despite the nickname, CES 2008 is supposedly greener than ever this year, showing a real environmental conscience touching on issues like material sustainability and energy efficiency. We’ll be on site to report on the latest technologies, particularly those that are pushing forward new design innovations in renewable energy generation. There will be a panel discussion about electronic recycling on Tuesday afternoon, Nicholas Negroponte of One Laptop Per Child will be speaking Wednesday, and we will be combing the showroom floor to bring you the latest greener gadgets highlights such as the Samsung OLED screen, Fujitsu Corn Laptop, and Greenplug. We’re particularly interested this year as CES pertains to our upcoming Greener Gadgets Conference on February 1st.

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If you’re a fan of botanical architecture, this might just be the coolest building ever. Architects Minsuk Cho and Kisu Park of Mass Studies designed this flora-clothed multi-level building to house Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester’s store in Seoul, South Korea. The building was completed in October 2007 and takes green roofs and living walls to another level, using foliage to cover both the external and internal wall surfaces. We love that it looks as if the building is growing up from underneath the greenery, blurring the lines between plants as ornamentation or structure.

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With the new year rapidly approaching, now is a great time to stop and reflect on 2007. Looking back on the past year, and forward to the new one, we at Inhabitat are excited to see such great progress made in sustainable design and innovation. Here are our top 10 green design stories of 2007- what we think were the most important and exciting stories of the past year. We can only hope next year will see even more progress and exciting developments in the field of sustainable design.

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