Ethical Community, an online, eco-friendly marketplace (which has plans for a snazzier name in the works!), has secured a £200,000 ($316,640 USD) round of seed funding from a syndicate of angel investors, the company is announcing today. Founded in 2009, the marketplace has signed up over 850 sellers from around the world, who have now listed over 7,000 eco-friendly, organic and natural products including clothing, jewelry, health and beauty products, food and drink items, pet items and more.
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Greenstart, the San Francisco-based startup accelerator dedicated to the cleantech industry – and more importantly, to making it “sexy” enough to attract investors – announced its second cadre of of companies this week. This time around, the organization is tightening its focus to concentrate solely on the intersection of I.T. and cleantech, specifically in areas of smart grid, the built environment, consumer services and transportation.
It’s also being highly selective in terms of the startups accepted into the program. Of the 152 applicants, only five companies got in. → Read More
Apple met with leaders of five environmental groups in China yesterday to discuss pollution concerns. According to a report from The Wall St. Journal, Apple told the groups it had launched audits of 15 of its suppliers who have been suspected of violating environmental regulations, and has completed reviews of 11 of those.
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Solar manufacturer Solaria and solar performance monitoring software and hardware provider meteocontrol have today announced a partnership that will see meteocontrol’s Virtual Control Room (VCOM) monitoring system added to Solaria’s projects. The system aims to help Solaria’s customers increase their solar yields through remote management.
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Facebook, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and clean tech startup Opower are today announcing a partnership on a new social networking-based energy application that will help consumers monitor, improve and compare their home’s energy usage with their friends and other Facebook users.
The app, designed to improve energy awareness, has the potential to combine the 800 million+ users on Facebook with Opower’s network of over 60 utility partners reaching 55 million U.S. households. However, the social app will start off with just a few participating utilities when it launches in early 2012.
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This week, GM announced it will launch an all-electric vehicle under the Chevrolet brand, the Spark EV. The car is basically an electric version of the Spark mini-car and will be sold in limited quantities in the U.S., including California, starting in 2013.
The company also announced it has started working on its new concept vehicle, the Chevrolet EN-V. → Read More
General Motors is partnering with a car-sharing startup called RelayRides on a new venture that will allow GM owners to rent out their idle vehicles via the OnStar service and their mobile phone. The program will launch first in California in 2012, before expanding to other markets.
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GE is leading a $22 million investment in San Francisco-based green builder Project Frog, which helps speed up and reduce the cost of traditional construction by using a combination of new technologies. The company improves on current methods by combining semi-custom designs with a pre-engineered kit of energy-efficient building materials. The end result are building that use at least 25% less energy than the strictest building codes in the U.S., and as much as 80% less energy in some parts of the country.
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2011 Boulder TechStars graduate Simple Energy is teaming up with San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) to help the utility engage its customers in energy conservation efforts.
To accomplish this, Simple Energy is running an energy saver contest that offers a social gaming experience with real-world rewards. → Read More
Ford Motor Company and the leading car-sharing network Zipcar have just announced a partnership that establishes Ford as Zipcar’s largest auto source for Zipcar’s University program. The new, two-year alliance will reach students at over 250 university campuses here in the U.S.
Ford will start shipping its vehicles, primarily the 2012 Ford Focus and Ford Escape, to colleges starting this week.
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Today, EnergyHub launched its new, comprehensive, in-home energy management system for U.S. consumers. The system includes the EnergyHub Home Base, for centralized management of the electricity usage in the home, as well as The EnergyHub Thermostat, Sockets and Strips.
The Home Base also connects to the Web via Wi-Fi, allowing users to remotely manage individual components via Web-based or mobile applications that run on iOS and Android devices. → Read More
Electric bike maker FlyKly is bringing its stylish, powerful and eco-friendly bikes to San Francisco after having a blowout launch in New York earlier this summer. The company, which opened up shop on June 20th, sold out its entire stock of bikes in July at a pop-up store in Soho. Now, the bikes are being made available in San Francisco.
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Ford Motor Company is teaming up with San Jose-based solar panel maker SunPower to offer a rooftop solar system option which will be sold alongside the upcoming Ford Focus EV. The “Drive Green for Life” program, as it’s being called, involves mounting solar panels on a customer’s home.
These panels wouldn’t be used just to charge the Focus itself, however. They actually help offset the cost that comes with having to charge the car, something which most electric car owners do every night.
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Marvin is one of the most interesting brands out there that common people can afford. This is in large part due to the brand’s leadership – a spunky and creative woman named Cecile Maye. Her view of design is highly emotional which lends to theme and philosophy being one of the main driving forces behind the design. Plus talent, of course. On Marvin’s current list of designer credits are the famed Jean-Francois Ruchonnet and Sebastian Perret, both of whom worked on the newer Marvin Malton 160 collection. → Read More
One of the things green energy proponents eagerly look forward to is an “artificial leaf”: a truly small, portable, modular photosynthetic power plant. The ability to take a hundred or a thousand such units and plaster them on a wall, roof, tree, or whatever, and have them store power in a simple fuel cell all day long would be a great way to make power distribution less tricky in countries where there aren’t exactly power lines running everywhere.
MIT’s Daniel Nocera has apparently made a major advance just recently, producing an artificial leaf that not only uses cheap materials, but is ten times as efficient as a real leaf at the photosynthesis process. → Read More
SunTech Power Holdings is planning on building a major solar power installation at one of the highest inhabited places on the planet: the Tibetan Plateau. The county of Sangri, 4000m (13,123ft) above sea level, has been chosen as the site for the latest of this company’s green power plants, and will generate around 20MWh of power yearly for the surrounding area. Nice! → Read More
It certainly looks that way. The country has been having a national discussion ever since the Japan nuclear crisis, and the consensus seems to be that nuclear isn’t worth the risk. Instead, the country will embrace alternative forms of energy, including renewable sources. → Read More
We cover electric bikes every now and then at CrunchGear, but while millions are sold in Asia and Europe, they remain a rarity here in the US, even on the mean cycling streets of Seattle. Certainly the convenience of cars and our highway-orientated infrastructure is partially to blame for the lack of interest in these extremely effective transportation tools, but I also think that accessibility has been an issue. The Eneloop bike I rode last year at CES, for instance, I have never seen nor heard of since, and the major conversion kits and full bikes seem like too great of an investment for the chary, green-curious consumer.
Clean Republic, a local Seattle start-up literally run out of a garage, seems to be of the opinion that what matters is simplicity, modesty in design, and of course low cost. In 2010 they’ve gone from prototype to 1,000 kits shipped and although they’re not bucking to be a billion-dollar company, they are building a sustainable business and could be trading in millions pretty soon. → Read More
If you’re like me, you cringe a little whenever you put a little synthetic oil on your chain or send some toxic cleaning fluid down the drain. Seems to me that people with bikes are more likely to care about their environmental impact, and also more likely to pay more for quality gear and accessories. These sustainable bike care products from Orontas let you and your bike feel good. → Read More
Last year Hublot released their first watch with a colored sapphire crystal. The crystal itself was tinted red on the very cool Hublot King Power F1 Monza watch. It was shared with me that more tinted crystals watches would come. Hublot is thus far sticking with red, but more colors will come soon – no doubt. Here for you is the Hublot Big Bang Red Magic collection for 2011 – that sport red tinted sapphire crystals, as well as the Hublot Big Bang All Black Green watches for 2011. I thought it was neat to put the red and green watches together. → Read More
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